Salon: The Buck Stops Where? Iraq and $ Waste/Corruption

[livvy]

The Buck Stops Where?
by Arianna Huffington
Salon

http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2005/02/10/truman/

The buck stops where?
Only 27 cents of every dollar spent on rebuilding Iraq actually reaches Iraqis. It's time for Congress to investigate the corruption that's pouring billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers' money down the drain -- or into Halliburton's pockets. >snip

In 1941, as the United States was on the verge of entering World War II, Sen. Harry S. Truman launched an investigation into reports of widespread waste, corruption and mismanagement in the nascent war effort. Over the next three years, the Truman Committee held hundreds of public hearings, visited military bases across the country and ended up saving taxpayers $15 billion. His efforts also saved countless lives by rooting out contractors using inferior materials and producing shoddy equipment. >snip

By even the most charitable standard, the effort to rebuild Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster. A cornucopia of waste, fraud, ineptitude, cronyism, secret no-bid contracts and profiteering cloaked in patriotism. There is the $9 billion the U.S.-led occupation government can't account for; the over 70 investigations into potential criminal cases involving U.S.-funded projects; the ongoing billing disputes with Halliburton, which despite having repeatedly ripped off taxpayers continues to receive billion-dollar contracts; the $20 billion in Iraqi oil money kept track of by a single accountant; the study showing that up to 30 percent of reconstruction funds are being lost to fraud and corporate malfeasance. Whether you are passionately in favor of the war or passionately against it, don't you want to know exactly where our money is going and how we can stop the corruption? >snip

Now Leach, together with Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., is considering the best way to revive the Truman Committee bill and bring it to the floor, where it will be very hard to vote against it. "We're going to put out a 'Dear Colleague' letter this week," Leach told me, "to see how many cosponsors we can get for the legislation. This is more urgent now than it was when I first introduced the bill. We have to give the public confidence that their money is being used wisely. Accountability is difficult at home and much more difficult abroad, so oversight is even more critical.">more

[MSgt213]

1. I liked to see the ad, but getting it through Bush media will be hard

We need to know where this money is going with all the cuts Bush is proposing for us.

[Skittles]

2. look at the things the soldiers are asking for at www.anysoldier.com

tooth paste? soap? deodorant? It gets worse - latex gloves, mechanic gloves, clothes, FOOD - THINGS THEY NEED TO LIVE AND DO THEIR JOBS. Then ask yourselves WHERE THE F*** IS ALL OUR MONEY GOING?

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Agreed. It's time to stop the enronizing of America using fake cases

for War the same way that Enron used fake power failures to frighten Californians into making bad decisions.

[harlinchi]

4. This is standard policy. How much of the money spent on ...

the war on poverty actually reached poor folks? How much of the billions conservatives will say was spent assisting Blacks actually reached Black people? Shall we talk about the monies appropriated over the years to assist Native Americans that not only did not help but actually hurt, e.g., the first use of biological weapons known (nice, warm, smallpox laden blankets for the freezing savages). The US has finally gotten around to treating the rest of the world as they historically have treated poor folks, Blacks and Indians.