WP: Iraqi Corruption on the U.S. Watch

[sabra]

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2005/09/iraqi_corruptio.html

Iraqi Corruption on the U.S. Watch

Stories about massive corruption on the U.S. watch in Iraq are not new. Nor are they going away. Iraqi officials told The Washington Post and other news organizations yesterday that they will soon bring charges against the country's former minister of defense Hazem Shaalan.

This story has been building for months. The Independent of London reported yesterday that U.S.-appointed officials in the country’s Ministry of Defense squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi money on overpriced and outdated military equipment after the Bush administration transferred sovereignty to an Iraqi government in June 2004.

Patrick Cockburn’s dispatch adds some detail to the arms corruption scandal first reported in August by the Arab cable news site Aljazeera.net and the American newspaper chain Knight Ridder. Estimates of how much money has been wasted vary widely, but named sources in all three stories agree the amount was huge.

The reports underscore the continuing costs of the Bush administration’s failure to anticipate security problems after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. In the rush to build up the Iraqi armed forces in the face of the burgeoning insurgency, Iraqi officials, working closely with U.S. advisers, squandered more than $1 billion, Finance Minister Ali Allawi told the Independent. (Ali Allawi should not be confused with the pro-American Ayad Allawi who served as prime minister in 2004 but is no longer in the government.)

"The failure to notice that so much money was being siphoned off at the very least argues a high degree of negligence on the part of US officials and officers in Baghdad," Cockburn wrote.

[Inland]

1. Iraqis only lost ONE billion? Pikers.

The US can't account for nine billion, and moreover, congress isn't even going to investigate.

That's the way the BIG BOYS steal money.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

2. Good Article -

This is where we should get the money to pay for Katrina - from the millions of wasted & corrupt money from the Iraq payola scam. What is the latest news on the $8 billion or so that went missing? We need to find that money & use it to pay for Katrina.