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Panorama investigates claims that as much as $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or not properly accounted for in Iraq.
There are contracts for caterers, tanker drivers, security guards and even interrogators, many of them through companies with links to the White House. Now more than 70 whistleblower cases threaten to reveal the scandals behind billions of dollars worth of waste, theft and corruption during the Iraq war. Gagging orders A total of $23bn (£11.75bn) is under scrutiny.
The US justice department has imposed gagging orders which prevent the real scale of the problem emerging. But Panorama’s Jane Corbin has spoken to some of those involved – with astonishing stories to tell of who got rich and who got burned. She hears allegations of mismanagement, fraud and waste; tales of contractors chosen for their US government connections without a competitive bidding process; contractors inflating their costs and double counting to increase their profits and billions supposed to be used to rebuild the Iraqi military allegedly ending up in the pockets of some Iraqi government officials.
NorthStar Consultants Oversight Contract – No CPA’s in House
Even the contract to oversee the expenditure went to a company with no relevant qualification in accounting. “They are the quintessential war profiteers,” said a witness to one of the most notorious companies involved. “They made money out of chaos.”
More below the fold …
Even Juan Cole was misled by earlier accusations between Shalaan and Chalabi:
Shaalan also accused Chalabi of defaming him. CNN expressed puzzlement about the latter, but the reference is in part to charges Chalabi made of financial corruption against Shaalan, involving a shipment last week of $300 million in cash to Beirut for an arms deal that, Chalabi implied, may have involved kickbacks. He was also referring to Chalabi’s charges that Shaalan spied for Saddam in 1998 through 2003 and even spied on Chalabi (reported here a couple days ago from Chalabi’s web site.) Chalabi was attempting to smear Shaalan as an unreconstructed Baathist and Saddam collaborator …
Chalabi’s latter move was typically sleazy and implausible (the Americans are better at vetting people than to allow a recent Saddam spy to become Minister of Defense), and was extremely troubling. It wasn’t just down and dirty campaigning. It was closer to a kind of McCarthyism. I don’t like Shaalan or his hardline views, and do think he still has some Baath attitudes (especially his anti-Iranian racism).
STOP THE WAR – BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
