Cash meant for Iraqis 'misused'

[bigfootedfred]

Large amounts of cash have been "misplaced", including alot of the money made selling iraqi oil.

Large bundles of cash meant for Iraq's reconstruction were stashed in filing cabinets, handed over without receipts and gambled away, a report has found.
The audit, by US-appointed inspectors, paints a picture of the chaotic misuse of millions of dollars of funds.
The lack of oversight had a tragic outcome in one case, when a hospital lift, supposed to have been fixed, crashed killing three people.
The report said US post-war planning was limited by a desire for secrecy.
There were no detailed, overt preparations for the reconstruction of Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion "to avoid the impression that the US government had already decided on [military] intervention", the report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said.
Nevertheless, the US has allocated billions of dollars to rebuilding Iraq,
and large amounts have been raised through the sale of Iraqi oil.
Significant sums of this have been disbursed without any accounting procedures, SIGIR said.

some of the cases

One official kept $2m (£1.1m) in a bathroom safe, while another allegedly stole $100,000 from a colleague's unsecured stash to balance his own books, investigators found.

Payment was handed over for projects without any official contract being drawn up or checks on the work carried out.

More than 2,000 contracts were found to be at fault.

In one case a contractor was paid $100,000 to refurbish an Olympic swimming pool.
US officials certified the work was complete, but it later turned out that the contractor had just polished the equipment, which was found to be defective. The pool has not been used since.
One US military assistant is said to have gambled away up to $60,000 while accompanying the Iraqi Olympic team to the Philippines.

"What's sad about it is that, considering the destruction in the country, with looting and so on, we needed every dollar for reconstruction," Wayne White, a former US state department official, told the New York Times.

Correspondents say the authorities are struggling to make Iraq's infrastructure reliable.
Previous findings by SIGIR have resulted in corruption charges against four Americans.

source

Intersting how this will turn out....
Prevoius investigations by this group led to corruption charges.
It seems alot of the reconstruction effort is in a complete mess.

[RZZZA]

Jeez.....HANG THE GUILTY! Hang them in the public square to be made an example of.

"the US has allocated billions of dollars to rebuilding Iraq,
and large amounts have been raised through the sale of Iraqi oil."


Aha! So the U.S. is taking Iraqi oil.....Nice! Bring some more back here gas is still expensive.

If this was Rahid Wallace and Damon Jamal Warner stealing $20 bills on the street, they'd be caught, ruffed up, and hauled off to jail. We'd probably see it on cops too. Then they'd get 10 to 15 for armed robbery meanwhile these faceless crooks are stealing boatloads of cash and getting off scott free. Hang them! String em up I say! If anything, It'd make the minorities happy to finally see some corporate white guys hanging from their balls for the crimes theyve committed. Forget M.J., O.J. and Kobe....get these guys! Show them on the news sweating their balls off in court while Dan Rather and every other glib blowhard on T.V. overanalyzes and critiqies every move they make on camera.

[Major.Stupidity]

Yea, I saw that yesterday. I guess most of the money was supposed to go to the ARVN erm ICDC but apparently never made it there... Was the misuse under the Coalition Provisional Authority - Paul Bremer(sp?) or the Allawi(sp?) government or both?

[Removed_user_012521]

Yea, I saw that yesterday. I guess most of the money was supposed to go to the ARVN erm ICDC but apparently never made it there... Was the misuse under the Coalition Provisional Authority - Paul Bremer(sp?) or the Allawi(sp?) government or both?

I'm under the impression that those at fault are many of the tribal Sheikhs and other local leaders, I don't know why this is coming out now Ive known about it for several months.

[RZZZA]

Thats why we need to stop giving them money and protection and bring our boys back already. We need to stop funding the future saddam husseins and osama bin ladens....tribal warfare is what I envision, if we keep giving them money it'll be chemical/nuclear tribal warfare or something...If they want to fight eachother, it'll be made blatantly clear the moment we leave. If they actually want to stick together and make this democracy thing work, thatll also be made clear the second we leave. Though I kinda really doubt that...

[bigfootedfred]

I'm under the impression that those at fault are many of the tribal Sheikhs and other local leaders, I don't know why this is coming out now Ive known about it for several months.

not really no......
you might well have known about "it" for several months, this is their second inquiry.
the last one...

Previous findings by SIGIR have resulted in corruption charges against four Americans.

so not really.
Most of the problem lies with the US admin, CPA.

CNN..last year.

Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday.

An inspector general's report said the U.S.-led administration that ran Iraq until June 2004 is unable to account for the funds.
"Severe inefficiencies and poor management" by the Coalition Provisional Authority has left auditors with no guarantee the money was properly used," the report said.

source

[GambleFish]

That one contractor is really a disgusting person, the same guy took so much money from a repair job that an elevator that was supposed to be fixed didn't get enough attention and broke, killing 3 Iraqis in the process. Then the same guy took money away from libraries, denying computers, books, and training to library workers. Not only that, the few computers actually installed lacked sufficient software and hardware to make them useful...

Plus dozens of other cases.
Just saw a piece on the News Hour... the guy there thinks the cases are isolated and corruption is under control.

[internationalist]

Jeez.....HANG THE GUILTY! Hang them in the public square to be made an example of.

"the US has allocated billions of dollars to rebuilding Iraq,
and large amounts have been raised through the sale of Iraqi oil."


Aha! So the U.S. is taking Iraqi oil.....Nice! Bring some more back here gas is still expensive.

If this was Rahid Wallace and Damon Jamal Warner stealing $20 bills on the street, they'd be caught, ruffed up, and hauled off to jail. We'd probably see it on cops too. Then they'd get 10 to 15 for armed robbery meanwhile these faceless crooks are stealing boatloads of cash and getting off scott free. Hang them! String em up I say! If anything, It'd make the minorities happy to finally see some corporate white guys hanging from their balls for the crimes theyve committed. Forget M.J., O.J. and Kobe....get these guys! Show them on the news sweating their balls off in court while Dan Rather and every other glib blowhard on T.V. overanalyzes and critiqies every move they make on camera.

We would see it on cops and they would be wearing wife-beater undershirts, they would run away, and then when caught would say "I'm innocent!!"

[Zuwxiv]

And that's just the cases that we found out about.

The whole thing. A disaster.

[Kanaric]

Corruption is ALWAYS a huge problem in occupied territories. Every country in the past where the US or other western nation had an occupation corruption was always a huge problem that they had to face. Iraq in this respect is not any different.

[Guderian]

Like NC's article points out most of these people are in it for the money, there is no initiative or even pressure placed on them by the Bush adminstration to do thier job properly, they are basically given the freedom to do whatever they want. And let's face the facts you can't expect capitalists to rebuild a country when there's more money to be made by doing nothing and no restrictions placed on them.

Corruption is ALWAYS a huge problem in occupied territories. Every country in the past where the US or other western nation had an occupation corruption was always a huge problem that they had to face. Iraq in this respect is not any different.

And that's why western countries should refrain from occupying countries. Modern western society is just not compaitble with occuapation. Clinton had the right idea, apply political pressure, and if all esle fails bomb them into submission. When the dust settles send in the international peacekeepers.

[Hub'ite]

And that's why western countries should refrain from occupying countries. Modern western society is just not compaitble with occuapation. Clinton had the right idea, apply political pressure, and if all esle fails bomb them into submission. When the dust settles send in the international peacekeepers.

That WOULD have been a good idea except we had no international help.

[bigfootedfred]

Nothing about government seems to worry you. And I doubt we will be getting back any of the money lost. At any rate, read this article: Money For Nothing

holy ****....

I had no idea the corruption ran so deep, i thought it was bad....but.
This describes billions of dollars, meant for rebuilding Iraq, Wasted, squandered, and worst of all, Stolen.

The people they hired for "rebuilding Iraq"
Are equally appalling.

One such volunteer was Simone Ledeen, daughter of leading neoconservative Michael Ledeen. Unable to communicate in Arabic and with no relevant experience or appropriate educational training, she nevertheless became a senior advisor for northern Iraq at the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad. Another was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s older brother Michael who, though utterly unqualified, was named director of private-sector development for all of Iraq.

Illegal oil Exports, people making some cash..

There was also considerable money “off the books,” including as much as $4 billion from illegal oil exports.

Another contractor case...

A $500 million power-plant contract was reportedly awarded to a bidder based on a proposal one page long. After a joint commission rejected the proposal, its members were replaced by the minister, and approval was duly obtained. But no plant has been built.

The Iraqi Security forces.

Nearly all payrolls in the national guard and national police were also inflated, leading to uncertainty over how large the security forces actually were—still an open question. Absentees from the nominal rolls of police and soldiers provided by government ministries are believed to number in the tens of thousands, and as the United States Congress has figured out, frequently cited figures on available trained manpower are largely imaginary.

More money meant for the Army, misused.

Sources report that much of the money that was designated for the development of a national army and police force is actually going to units that are exclusively Kurd or Shi’ite in expectation of a day of reckoning over the country’s oil supplies. The Kurds have made no secret of their desire to continue their autonomy-bordering-on-independence and have stated that they regard Kirkuk as their own.

The Shi’ites have possession of the oil-producing region to the south and are using their control of the Interior Ministry to fill police ranks with their own pro-Iranian Badr Brigade members as well as militiamen drawn from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. The Sunnis are the odd men out, virtually guaranteeing that, far from becoming the model democracy the U.S. set out to build, Iraq will descend deeper into chaos—aided in no small part by the culture of corruption we helped to fortify.

So basically, most the money is gone.
Iraqi's are worse off than when saddam was in power, Electricity, Gas, Oil, and water, are all still at much lower levels
than the levels saddam managed to maintain, after over 2 years...
An the national army and police is in equal chaos.

[imb39]

And people complained about the UN Food for oil scandal...

[Guderian]

That WOULD have been a good idea except we had no international help.

The only reason America did not have international support is because they did not want it. They refused to listen to the international community, the refused to listen to the weapons inspectors, they refused to listen to anyone who viewed the issue of WMD critically. The Bush adminstration wanted this war and that's what they got, there's no point in blaming the international community because there was never any serious intention of applying political pressure by the Bush aministration.