Congress seeks missing billions in Iraq

[babylonsister]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/48a03a58-0885-11dc-b11e-000b5df10621.html

Congress seeks missing billions in Iraq

By Guy Dinmore in Washington

Published: May 22 2007 18:16 | Last updated: May 22 2007 18:16

Members of Congress dem­anded on Tuesday that the Bush administration explain how billions of dollars of US taxpayers’ money had gone missing in Iraq in what they called a disastrous effort to rebuild the country.

Responding to the latest report by Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, members of the House foreign relations committee also directed much of their criticism at the Iraqi coalition government, venting their frustration with corruption.

“It is simply outrageous that we are mired in the same mud of incompetence that we got stuck in last year and the year before that. But knowing the administration’s abysmal track record on Iraq reconstruction planning, this is no surprise,” Tom Lantos, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said.

Iraq was losing perhaps $5bn (€3.7bn, £2.5bn) a year through corruption, he said.

“The revelation in Mr Bowen’s latest quarterly report that new facilities are crumbling is equally as troubling as the data on incomplete projects. Some of the supposedly completed ventures are actually houses of cards, ready to collapse.”

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[Solly Mack]

1. if you're gonna feed the fraud, what difference does it make where the money goes?

pretend for the mases though they do, IF money was actually going to fund the troops, we wouldn't have had troops without needed equipment from the get-go and they are still going without.

Funding Iraq is more about funding the war profiteers and funneling the money elsewhere ....it's time we stopped pretending otherwise.

[MichiganVote]

2. Better check the congressional mattresses

[Swamp Rat]

3. And now they want to spend MORE on Iraq instead of fixing OUR FUCKING LEVEES