U.S. Security Contractors Pull Off Jail Break in Green Zone

6 Comments

1. 

   Oui on December 18, 2006 at 4:13 pm

   .

   Stuart Bowen: One of my heroes!

   A culture of waste, incompetence and fraud may be one legacy the occupiers have passed on to Iraq’s new rulers more or less intact. Mr Bowen’s office (SIGIR) found that nearly $9bn in Iraqi oil revenues could not be accounted for. The cash was flown into the country in shrink-wrapped bundles on military transport planes and handed over by the ton to Iraqi ministries by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) run by Paul Bremer, a veteran diplomat. The money was meant to demonstrate the invaders’ good intentions and boost the Iraqi economy, which Mr Bremer later insisted had been “dead in the water”. But it also fuelled a cycle of corruption left over from Saddam Hussein’s rule.

   “We know it got to the Iraqis, but we don’t know how it was used,” Mr Bowen later told Congress.

   ≈ Cross-posted from — Booman’s Story: Satisfying Laura ≈

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     Connecticut Man1 on December 19, 2006 at 2:12 am

     Pulled it from a geocities page I had made…

     ——–

     Bush can’t count!
     $ 8.8 billion
     A really BIG number…
     $ 8.8 billion!
     It’s not like someone could be hiding that under their robe, and it would be enough to break any camel’s back if an Iraqi tried to sneak off with it anyways! So come on Bush, where is it?

     First, you knowingly go into battle against a country that is too weak to defend itself based on the false premise that they have WMDs. (Who, in their right mind, would line up soldiers for a week or so along the borders of the enemy in Kuwait within shooting range of a rifle, or a rock, from an enemy they thought had WMDs when they were certain the enemy wanted to use them against us?)

     Second, you have absolutely no clear battle plan, and certainly not the needed support to finish the job correctly. (A little clue to you Dubya: Pulling out of Europe will not help get support from other countries!)

     Third, you have no plan to rebuild Iraq, and can’t keep track of the rebuilding process now that it is underway. (Never mind that there still is no peace there… I guess you figure Haliburton, et. al., can make more money if we pay to rebuild Iraq and the Iraqis blow it up again! It’s an endless circle of profit waiting to be had, huh?)

     Kudos to David Hackworth, another ex-military man living in Connecticut (Like me! lol), for digging up this story in Iraq. I don’t always agree with his editorials BUT I do believe that he always has the best interests of all soldiers, and all Americans, in mind when he writes his editorials, something that cannot be said of Bush. (I know that is an unfair comparison since Bush is not intelligent enough to write an editorial!)

     Audit shows $8.8 billion in Iraq funds missing

     Coalition official cites body for lax `stewardship’

     Updated: 6:06 p.m. ET Aug. 19, 2004

     WASHINGTON – At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon. The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority’s own inspector general blasts the CPA for “not providing adequate stewardship” of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries.

     The audit was first reported on a Web site earlier this month by David Hackworth, a journalist and retired colonel. A U.S. official confirmed that the contents of the leaked audit cited by Hackworth were accurate.

     The development fund is made up of proceeds from Iraqi oil sales, frozen assets from foreign governments and surplus from the U.N. oil for food program. Its handling has already come under fire in a U.N.-mandated audit released last month.

     Ghost workers
     Among the draft audit’s findings were that payrolls in Iraqi ministries under the control of the Coalition Provisional Authority were padded with thousands of ghost employees.

     In one example, the audit said the CPA paid for 74,000 guards even though the actual number could not be validated. In another, 8,206 guards were listed on a payroll but only 603 people doing the work could be counted.

     Three Democratic senators — Ron Wyden of Oregon, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota — demanded an explanation from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the use of the funds by the CPA, which handed over authority to the Iraqis in June.

     “The CPA apparently transferred this staggering sum of money with no written rules or guidelines for ensuring adequate managerial, financial or contractual controls over the funds,” said the letter sent by the senators on Thursday.

     `Serious questions’
     “Such enormous discrepancies raise very serious questions about potential fraud, waste and abuse,” said the senators.

     A spokesman for the CPA inspector general’s office confirmed “field work” had been completed on the audit but declined to give specifics. He said auditors were awaiting comment from the Pentagon before releasing the final report, probably later this month.

     The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions.

     An international audit report released last month that was requested by a U.N.-mandated monitoring body chided the CPA for oversight of spending of Iraq’s oil revenue.

     Halliburton also benefited
     While the International Advisory and Monitoring Board said the audit found no evidence of fraud in spending by the CPA after the U.S. invasion in March 2003, it said oversight was insufficient to ensure money was used for its intended purposes.

     One of the main benefactors of the Iraq funds was the Texas-based firm Halliburton, which was paid more than $1 billion out of those funds to bring in fuel for Iraqi civilians.

     The monitoring board said despite repeated requests it had not been given access to U.S. audits of contracts held by Halliburton, which was once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, and other firms that used the development funds.

     Reproduced for educational purposes only.

     From the sounds of it, they might as well have just dropped buckets of money from helicopters and prayed it didn’t get handed over to terrorists… Either that or they could have just given it to Haliburton to wash another load of laundry.

     ——-
     I doubt I could find the original link to the story if I tried since I wrote that before I started Blogging…

     http://www.geocities.com/connecticutman1@sbcglobal.net/default.html

2. 

   glitterscale on December 18, 2006 at 8:34 pm

   at the brazen ill-considered clap trap we have in office at the moment.  At no time have we had a break from the non-stop malfeasance, corruption, arrogance, stupidity – there are just so many adjectives to describe this crew and NONE OF THEM GOOD!

3. 

   Oui on December 20, 2006 at 1:24 pm

   .

   Escaped former Iraqi minister certain he was to be killed

   WASHINGTON D.C. (AFP) — In a telephone interview with the New York Times, Samarrai ridiculed security at the Green Zone and said he had slipped aboard a flight at the Baghdad International Airport.

   “Those suckers who are sitting in the Green Zone, they cannot go out and see the people they are governing?” he asked when told Iraqi officials did not believe he had left the country. When asked how he pulled off the escape, Samarrai laughed, then told the Times: “The Chicago way” — a reference to 1930s gangster Al Capone.

   In a separate interview with the Chicago Tribune, Samarrai said he was “now in a very safe place. They cannot touch me anymore.” He also sent an e-mail to the Chicago Sun-Times and others saying, “Hi, I am OK and out of their reach.” Samarrai, who lives in the Chicago area, told the Tribune that a “multinational” group that included Iraqis and men of other nationalities helped him escape, fleeing in multiple cars.

   See my diary: U.S. Security Contractors Pull Off Jail Break in Green Zone

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     Oui on December 20, 2006 at 5:11 pm

     .
     $ 2,500,000,000 gives you a lot of respect to get out of the Green Zone and Baghdad the “Chicago Way …”.

     White House statement on Saddam Hussein before the Iraq War:

     “Virtually every athlete at the club has physical or mental scars inflicted by Saddam Hussein’s older son, Uday, who took control of Iraq’s Olympic Committee in 1984 and began a terrifying campaign of torture and humiliation. Many fled the country, including Mr. Samarrai….

     “‘The system of the regime started in primary school,’ said Mr. Samarrai, who defected on a trip to Switzerland in 1983 and returned here after the war. ‘It was exactly like the Nazis in the 30’s.’…

     May, 2004 — However, it is still doubtful that in this case such erroneous attacks could occur so frequently. That is why, there can be a different aim of such attacks, for example to edge Russia out of Iraq. Moreover, earlier the representatives of the coalition made statements that Moscow, as well as Paris and Berlin, which did not support the armed operation in Iraq, must not hope for any share in the division of the Iraqi pie.

     No doubt, Iraqis are reacting very nervously to the departure of Russian specialists. For example, Iraqi energy minister Ayham Samarrai says that these events may bring about the most negative consequences for the Iraqi economy.

     Wikipedia: Ayham al-Samarie

     "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

4. 

   observer393 on December 22, 2006 at 12:28 am

   what they are? Which is Mercenaries.