Iraq: Biggest Corruption Scandal in History - Newsweek.

[donco6]

And there is much more to come, especially on the little-noticed issue of contracting in Iraq, which the watchdog group Transparency International last year warned could become “the biggest corruption scandal in history." The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction is expected to issue a harshly critical report in May concluding that the CPA did not have disciplined contracting procedures in place, according to several people involved in drafting the report. If the Democrats manage to get control of the House later this year, it's all going to come in an avalanche of subpoenas and new investigations. Not that the Republicans have been entirely sitting on their hands. When Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, agreed to subpoena records of funds transmitted to Iraq, his House Government Reform Subcommittee learned that nearly $12 billion in U.S. currency was shipped to Iraq from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, much of it with little accountability.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11965317/site/newsweek/

And, here I am in my school district, having to fill out forms explaining my $12.00 discrepancy in a federal grant.

[mzmolly]

1. Recommended

So many scandals - so little public attention.

[WiseButAngrySara]

39. Here's another recent article...meant to respond to post #3..... K & R!

Edited to add more para's:

Iraq: One of the Greatest Financial Scandals of All Time

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032106A.shtml

by Callum Macrae and Ali Fadhil

<snip>

"At the start of the Iraq war, around $23bn-worth of Iraqi money was placed in the trusteeship of the US-led coalition by the UN. The money, known as the Development Fund for Iraq and consisting of the proceeds of oil sales, frozen Iraqi bank accounts and seized Iraqi assets, was to be used in a "transparent manner", specified the UN, for "purposes benefiting the people of Iraq".

"Because the Iraqi banking system was in tatters, the funds were placed in an account with the Federal Reserve in New York. From there, most of the money was flown in cash to Baghdad. Over the first 14 months of the occupation, 363 tonnes of new $100 bills were shipped in - $12bn, in cash. And that is where it all began to go wrong."

"A good example was the the Iraqi currency exchange programme (Ice). An early priority was to devote enormous resources to replacing every single Iraqi dinar showing Saddam's face with new ones that didn't. The contract to help distribute the new currency was won by Custer Battles, a small American security company set up by Scott Custer and former Republican Congressional candidate Mike Battles. Under the terms of the contract, they would invoice the coalition for their costs and charge 25% on top as profit. But Custer Battles also set up fake companies to produce inflated invoices, which were then passed on to the Americans. They might have got away with it, had they not left a copy of an internal spreadsheet behind after a meeting with coalition officials. The spreadsheet showed the company's actual costs in one column and their invoiced costs in another; it revealed, in one instance, that it had charged $176,000 to build a helipad that actually cost $96,000. In fact, there was no end to Custer Battles' ingenuity. For example, when the firm found abandoned Iraqi Airways fork-lifts sitting in Baghdad airport, it resprayed them and rented them to the coalition for thousands of dollars. In total, in return for $3m of actual expenditure, Custer Battles invoiced for $10m. Perhaps more remarkable is that the US government, once it knew about the scam, took no legal action to recover the money. It has been left to private individuals to pursue the case, the first stage of which concluded two weeks ago when Custer Battles was ordered to pay more than $10m in damages and penalties."

[Teena]

57. No surprise here...

Iraq was never going to be reconstructed with this money. It was always meant to "disappear" into the greedy hands of whoever could grab it first. If this weren't the case, don't you think there would have been extraordinary oversight on expenditures that even the most stupid knew would be very high.
No, all along the plan is to let Iraq fall into disarray, become easy pickings for the insurgency and those interested in splitting its factions and dividing the country. It will now be less of a threat to the real beneficiary in this whole charade - the government of Israel.

[WiseButAngrySara]

79. Welcome to DU! I agree with you concerning the appalling lack of

oversight on expenditures, but you almost make it sound as if Civil War in Iraq is what these B*tards have dreamed of and planned for?

[donco6]

62. Custer Battles is already infamous, with oore to come.

Those guys give war profiteers a bad name.

Seriously, if I favored capital punishment, this would be the time. They took money that could have been used to protect troops, and used it for personal gain. I say we put them in a ring and invite all the families of dead soldiers to wrassle. They can pick up the pieces later.

Sorry to sound so freeperish . . .

[CrazyOrangeCat]

2. Kicked

[wordpix2]

3. this was reported on by Frontline (PBS) & repukes vow to cut PBS funding

Wonder why?

[donco6]

16. And, to top it off, our Special Ed funding was cut . . .

by 5.5%. Why? I believe the phrase was "domestic agenda items". I think that means the war.

[MadMaddie]

4. Isn't it amazing....there is absolutely no oversight over the monies

being funnelled to the contractors...no auditing...they fire anyone who speaks out against the Fraud...

Bunnatine Greenhouse comes to mind!!
http://www.whistleblowers.org/html/bunny_greenhouse.htm

[donco6]

13. Bunnatine is my hero!

Being a purchasing agent is so utterly thankless - until it comes time to balance the books. Then they bail your ass out of the fire. She should get a Congressional Medal of Honor.

[MadMaddie]

25. I agree...one of the hero's that will have their day.....

it's coming....

[glitch]

5. Web exclusive. God forbid they should inform their print readers. nt

[blm]

9. BINGO!!! This is EXACTLY why the public is so underinformed.

FOR SIX YEARS NOW, the really big stories that point to BushInc corruption have almost all been internet only, with scant print and no broadcast media discussions.

[glitch]

19. That way they can call us Internet Conspiracy Theorists.

Remember when Tony Blair was asked about PNAC and he responded that was an Internet Conspiracy Theory? Jackass.

They are such creeps, but more and more people are realizing they've been fooled by them, and won't be fooled again. We are no longer buying their shallow act.

They are destroying their own credibility, and for what? Failed ideology? Filthy lucre?
Whatever.

[Drewskie]

26. well, newsweek often gets some pretty conspicuous links off the

msn homepage... and of course millions of people get their dailey news off of there.

[Drewskie]

10. they had to get the Sigmund Freud cover story in this week. yea!(nt)

[cyberpj]

58. That's what I keep thinking - why aren't these stories in the mag? nt.

[Frustratedlady]

6. Incredible!

How much healthcare, school and/or Katrina aid would that cover? Surely, there were enough long-time employees already in place from other administrations to oversee these situations and correct them without needing George to tell them what to do. (God help us if he had.)

I'm so angry, I'm no longer shaking my head at their ineptness, I'm shaking my fist!

[donco6]

15. Well, let's see -

With my district's $34,000,000 in annual revenue - we would be covered for - oh - 353 YEARS!

[corkhead]

7. "Little Noticed" my ass; how about "UNREPORTED" by corp. media

:grr:

[blm]

11. Dem party needs to expose GOP control of media - especially the print

and broadcast media.

[EVDebs]

48. A collective $2.3 Trillion dollar toilet seat ! LOL ! eom

[Coexist]

8. check this out

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=726252&mesg_id=726252

[Higans]

64. good find

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. Heckuvajob bu$hco, Heckuvajob!

:grr:

[madokie]

14. I'm so sick of republicans

dangerously incompetent bunch of bastards. I know there is a few decent ones but they need to be cleansed never the less.

[Beetwasher]

17. 12 Billion Here, 12 Billion There, Pretty Soon You're Talking Real Money!

Heh.

"...his House Government Reform Subcommittee learned that nearly $12 billion in U.S. currency was shipped to Iraq from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, much of it with little accountability."

[Botany]

53. Be me to it.

12 billion shipped here .... (9 billion "lost" by Halliburton ...... $100 million for the
Lincoln Group to buy news) ............ 12 billion there and ...... :rofl:

This level of theft and greed is mind blowing.

[Inland]

18. needless war, lack of oversight, greed, cronyism, incompetence

All your fav republican themes.

[donkeyotay]

20. That reminds me to add this to the list of reasons to impeach the CEO

Mr. MBA Adult President has presided over vast corruption and war profiteering. Will we ever find out which rat holes our money went down, the money we do not have for schools, health care, etc.?

The Iraqi rathole along with the Katrina rathole. Did you know they quit recovering bodies in December of 2005 and didn't start up again until March 2006 because there was no money for it? Even after the billions of dollars congress authorized, there was no money to pick up the dead bodies.

Add being a crook to these 3 reasons to impeach:

1) He lied to Congress and the American people for an illegal war.

2) He has debased our nation by illegally making us a nation of torturers.

3) He illegally spies on us and is using terror as an excuse to turn America into a police state.

That ain't even the half of it, just the highlights.

[Art_from_Ark]

82. Or "lowlights", as the case may be

[Faygo Kid]

21. Eisenhower warned us. Bush has now realized his nightmare.

Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan et al - all the presidents have gone along with the military-industrial complex. But W. has taken it to a whole new level. It is now America, more than any other single hateful thing. Impeach him. Now.

[TahitiNut]

22. "$12 billion in U.S. currency was shipped to Iraq"!!!

In cash!?!! That's just f*cking mind-boggling. When individuals can be arrested for exporting over $10K in U.S. currency and military personnel are paid in scrip, it's literally astounding to contemplate the sheer volume of such shipments! This isn't a wallet or briefcase - or even several hundred - this is multiple cargo-sized shipments!! This is an intrinsically-unauditable plundering of the Federal Reserve. There is absolutely nothing that can rationalize this global-scale theft.

[donco6]

29. YES! Cash! It had to be crated or something.

How on earth do they EVER balance their books? If my auditor finds one payment without appropriate backup, I get written up to the Board of Education. And this $12 bil in CASH has NOTHING to back it up! Jeebus!

[leftchick]

37. $100,000 Bricks of $100 bills or "footballs"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/09/60minutes/main1302378.shtml

<snip>

There were no banks or wire transfers to pay them, no bean counters to keep track of the money. Just vaults and footlockers stuffed with billions of dollars in cash.

"Fresh, new, crisp, unspent, just-printed $100 bills. It was the Wild West," recalls Frank Willis, who was the No. 2 man at the Coalition Provisional Authority’s Ministry of Transportation.

The money was a mixture of Iraqi oil revenues, war booty and U.S. government funds earmarked for the coalition authority. Whenever cash was needed, someone went down to the vault with a wheelbarrow or gunny sacks.

"Those are $100,000 bricks of $100 bills and that’s $2 million there," Willis explains, looking at a photo of brick-shaped stacks of money wrapped in plastic. "This, in fact, is a payment that we made on the 1st of August to a company called Custer Battles."

Willis says the bricks of money were also sometimes referred to as footballs "… because we passed them around in little pickup games in our office," he says laughing.

[donco6]

43. Oh! Good old "Custer Battles" - here's more on THEM:

They've been found guilty of - GASP - Fraud!


http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13379

[EVDebs]

23. DoD can't find $2.3 Trillion, the deficits are huge

One says each US citizen owes $27,000 already...CBS News 'War on Waste' awhile back says Rummy can't find a missing $2.3 TRILLION dollars...and Iraq is costing $250 billion every three years...and Bush says we can't leave until he's out of office, in '08, or impeached (whichever comes first).

The strategery of incompetence is mindblowing.

Sun Tzu and the Art of Spying
by Noah Leavitt, AlterNet. Posted January 5, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/rights/30394 /

Embedded in this article is further insight on Sun Tzu's thinking on warfare which the Bush administration appears to be taking too far,

""Deception must be ongoing, and unpredictable: "Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.""

The incompetence and ineffectiveness of this administration is breathtaking. They REALLY are winning. The incompetence and ineffectiveness just gets better and better each and every day. I can hardly stand it. Truly in their puzzle palace of mirrors they have made Black become White and 2 + 2 = Whatever.

They have taken Stalin and Churchill's admonishion about truth, 'In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies', to the extreme.

In the old tv show MASH, a Col Flagg of the CIG (CIA, but we know who they really are), would pop up out of garbage cans and give us all a guffaw. Sadly, the image of Bush, Cheney or Rummy doing likewise is all too real.

[WiseButAngrySara]

45. In evil hands, wise counsel is always corrupted and misinterpreted to

satiate personal interest and greed. They are also well versed in Machiavelli's The Prince, and The Art of War, and IMHO have given Machiavelli a horrible reputation.

[EVDebs]

47. Look at how Bush is abandoning his base in order to do RFIDs

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x730325

basically putting RFIDs everywhere. Bush's base of evangelicals should be clamoring for his impeachment NOW but are sitting on their hands letting this happen. Dems aren't that stupid and will not go down without a fight.

[WiseButAngrySara]

49. Thanks EVDebs for the link and comments...One would have to be

blind not to realize the extent of this administration's immorality. The M$M keeps everyone blind to some extent, and they are equally guilty both for the War itself, and the cover-up of corruption.

[file83]

68. I sometimes wonder what they are actually spending that $2.3 Trillion

on...my imagination runs wild...

Deep underground cities to survive the coming Apolcolypse (That they will make happen).
Vast moon bases on the far side of the moon (for the same reason above).
Fat Swiss Bank accounts that these people will keep in their families for EVER.

There is no way the money is just "disappearing". It's going somewhere. Who knows...

[EVDebs]

76. Check out Blank Check by Tim Weiner. Congressional payola and blackops

appear to be a major indicator of where it really goes.

http://www.namebase.org/sources/PR.html

Also, book some time ago The Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade by Alfred McCoy

www.namebase.org/sources/BJ.html

is a classic in showing where much of the covert money originates and gets laundered through.

All unconstitutional and illegal but, heh, how you gonna stop 'em ?

[kentuck]

24. They're robbing us blind!

The total is so much, it is incomprehensible.

[The_Casual_Observer]

27. This was to be expected from the very start, and was reported

from the first day of the Iraq mess. Open ended "Contracts" were being written without any control and without a budget from the start. It was/is a free for all.

[madmunchie]

28. It has been mind boggling to me that with all of the "reported"

money that is unaccounted for AND the large numbers of private contractors going into Iraq getting the big paychecks (but even they are getting screwed because they are not getting the full amount of what are supposed to be paid. The corporation that has hired them is actually getting part of their pay)that there hasn't been more talked about on these obvious "black holes" that all the money is being poured down into.

We cannot affored to pay soldiers properly or vetrans, but we can give corporations fat contracts to hire private workers to do the soldiers job??????

This has been absolutely sickening and so obvious from the beginning. * is getting every penny that they can get their greedy hands on and they are padding pockets of everybody around them.

[central scrutinizer]

30. Bushco was prescient

He knew there would be massive war profiteering and since it was going to be done by his base, he got ahead of the curve with Executive Order 13303

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030522-15.html

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that the threat of attachment or other judicial process against the Development Fund for Iraq, Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, obstructs the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in the country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq. This situation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

I hereby order:

Section 1. Unless licensed or otherwise authorized pursuant to this order, any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void..........<end excerpt>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=4397

[WiseButAngrySara]

46. The BFEE and the PNAC neocons are grotesquely sleazy and IMMORAL!

N/T

[opihimoimoi]

31. The BIG PICTURE is not the minutiae, although small chips add up, but

Why and WHO....ITS THOSE PUBs dats doing it to us...and those that control/assist THEM, thats the Mil Ind Complx we were warned about a long time ago..

Its those Corp Masters who gain from OUR Pain....


Its Time to clean House...Vote Blue and we find out the Truth

Come, we go find Blue Paint...

[Kber]

32. Is all this "missing money" included in the 1$ trillion cost estimate

or is that extra?

Just asking.

[mokaye]

33. It's highway robbery

and this misadministration has got to be held accountable.
One way or another.

[newyawker99]

85. Hi mokaye!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[donco6]

34. I don't think there's any way of knowing.

The books are so sloppy, you can't tell.

[ladjf]

35. Wrong. The "Biggest Corruption Scandal" in history is the

current Republican Party's illegal seizure of the U.S. Government. Their coup d'etat will be studied in political science classes for hundreds of years as the classic technique for carrying out a bloodless coup, without the knowledge of the governed. Most Americans do not as yet realize that their government has been taken over by ruthless thugs.

[file83]

67. No doubt. $23 billion is chump change compared to the "unaccounted"

$2.3 Trillion missing from the Pentagon's books. Hell, they even admit to having spent $20 billion alone on "integrating" their accounting systems (which they blame on the seeming "discrepency").

$2.3 Trillion missing, and no one in the media is covering it.

Watch the congressional hearing in which Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) questions Donald Rumsfeld and others on the missing money (she also covers 2 other issues). WATCH them NOT refute the claim that TRILLIONS of dollars are missing. They just say "we're looking into it".

Now THAT is the biggest scandal in history.

[ladjf]

72. Too busy worrying about lost , pretty white women.

C. McKinney is one of our bravest and insightful politicians. She is grossly underrated.

[cassiepriam]

73. Bingo. nt

[lutefisk]

36. Just think of all the young Republican CPA millionaires

All those unqualified young Republicans went to Iraq and worked for the CPA for a reason- and it was more than just resume building. They were paid for their loyalty- the Florida 2000 elections, etc... just a wild guess

[NoAmericanTaliban]

38. So many scandals So little time - I've always thought that the missing

money in Iraq & contractor rip offs was going to explode one day on the news. There has been more & more of it out - 60 minutes had a segment on it a month ago. More & more will come out as wistleblowers come out, but still waiting for the big public outcry about the incompetent way this was handled by the fiscial conservative GOP. This should be a huge dem talking point for election fodder.

[LiberalUprising]

52. Should be but

won't be.

Ever wonder why?

[WinkyDink]

40. There's a magazine called "1000 Most Expensive Homes for Sale".

Now I know where the money is coming from, for those $55 million price-tags.

[Lostnote06]

41. No-Bid Contract vs Wellstone

.....If I recall correctly Sen.Wellstone was a leading voice in restricting Govt contracts to Carribean based Companies.....

[donco6]

42. Yes. Interesting, no?

Just one lonely senator, standing in the way of all that money . . . hmmm . . .

[donkeyotay]

51. He would have led the opposition to the war. He was critical of our

activities in Columbia. He was called the Conscience of the Senate. How appropriate that he is no longer around to trouble them. Not that I'm saying he was assassinated, though, because that would be crazy when everyone can see from this thread what fine, honest government we have.

[donco6]

60. I'm no tinfoiler, but in that case,

and in light of events since then, I would not be at all surprised to find that he was "offed" by big business.

[newyawker99]

86. Hi Lostnote06!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Lostnote06]

87. Thank You NY.....

........I've simply returned from a lengthy hiatus...lol....good to be back

[RedEarth]

44. KR

[Ksec]

50. So theyre corrupt and incompetent?

Finally the world is finding out what we knew all along.

Its a bitch to be so right when its about something so wrong.

[Botany]

54. Only one thing to do .....

Medals for everybody. I wonder how much of this loot made it's way back
to bush/Cheney 04?

[Ksec]

55. LMFAO Damn man. You nailed it again.

[Blutodog]

61. Looters !!

The looters didn't stop at the Mus. of Antiquites they moved right along to the US Treasury. I guess Rummy would say "Shit Happens!" The Bu$h Admin. is nothing more then a Klepocracy.

[quiet.american]

56. Friend who works at a bank told of a Wall Street guy who was shaking--

A mutual friend of ours mentioned once that a client had come in for a personal appt. with our friend, who works at an NYC bank.

This guy was a Wall Street-type, and literally shaking as he blurted out that billions in cash, gold and silver were being looted from NY vaults without any accountability other than that the order came from the Bush administration.

Our friend was taken aback because the guy had always been a business-like, calm, cool guy, and for him to whisper this in low tones while constantly looking over his shoulder was completely out of character.

I didn't really know what to make of this, but every time I hear stories about the corruption, and billions missing, I think about that guy.

[KAT119]

59. K&R!

[RazzleDazzle]

63. And THIS shows that virtually all of Congress should be impeached

as well, or CERTAINLY those who served on committees that had ANYthing to do with this war and the money appropriated and spent, or rather misspent.

[Joanne98]

65. It wasn't little noticed to me. I consider Washington and Wall St...

A creature with the same blood stream. I call them the "Two W's". My new hobby is the forex market. Talk about dirty!

[DLnyc]

66. Somebody help please! ?Connection to US funding terrorism in Iraq?

I remember a steady stream, in the early months of the Iraq war, of Iraqi's being caught with wads of cash. The official story was Saddam holdovers were funding terrorist operations in Iraq. Looks to me now like the cash could have been coming from a suprising (to most Americans) source: the US government.

I am trying to search DU archives for some of these stories, but I'm not to up on how to do this search. Can anyone help?

[Miss Chybil]

69. Bush to Republicans

"Don't worry. I've got it covered."

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

70. Starting to make sense, all those 20-somethings the Coalition Provisional

Authority hired to cabinet level positions, isn't it now?

So they could look the other way while the shrubco pros looted the U.S. Treasury, probably enriching themselves, their friends, and Repub campaign coffers for the next generation or two.

[donco6]

78. That makes a horrific amount of sense.

And explains everything about that situation. Why they would pluck these kids out of college to run things. They could appear enthusiatic and sincere, while not even knowing they were just being stooges.

[The Backlash Cometh]

71. Oops. We're running over our quota forf bad news. We'll have to save

this one for next week.

[Just Me]

74. Kick to catch those malignant profiteers!!!

CONVICT THOSE ASSHOLES, ALL OF 'EM!!!!! :grr:

[Blue_Tires]

75. BY FAR

years from now (if there is still an america)..People will realize that the chain of events from the '00 election to enron to 911 to the invasion will make Teapot Dome look like a bum stealing pennies out of a fountain....

[Name removed]

77. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bluesbassman]

80. Here's how the "investigation' will go down...

They'll begin by appointing Lee "Whitewash" Hamilton to lead the investigation, with Bob "Watermelon" Barr as his co-chair.

Next they'll interview top Pentagon, Haliburton and CPA officials(without any needless swearing in or any other such nonsense).

The official result of the investigation will be that war is hell, and how can anyone be expected to keep track of that much money in a war zone.

Finally they will conclude that there needs to be better auditing controls in place for our next pre-emptive invasion into Iran so that the hard earned American taxpayer dollars are distributed wisely.

Case closed, nothing to see here, move along.

We deserve better.

[spag68]

81. Iraq money

That may not be all of it. I read over the weekend that the UN gave the bushco 24 B in oil for food money towards "reconstruction" costs. How about one of you young smart computer guys finding out if this is accurate.

[democrank]

83. What`s the problem?

Bush`s "strong economy" created so many piles of extra cash that he could just hand money out like Halloween candy.

[Land Shark]

84. when you take a core govt function and privatize it, what really happens

is that you take it out from under the Constitution (private parties are not subject to the constitution)

then the "scandals" are that we have to struggle to get our Constitutional protections (and the protection inherent in the fact that the govt is nonprofit) BACK

EXAMPLE: govt contractors find it more profitable to have mess hall tents centralized, even in battle zones. More soldiers get killed because a nonprofit but usually more expensive approach would be to disperse the soldiers once food is served....

SECOND EXAMPLE: Voting is privatized to computerized vendors, who claim not to be subject to the constitution or Freedom of Information, claim trade secrets and now we have secret vote counting elections, and we have to fight to get our birthright BACK

THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT NEGOTIABLE!