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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Funding the Insurgency

Funding the Insurgency

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Interesting and Depressing:

Iraq’s deadly insurgent groups have financed their war against U.S. troops in part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. rebuilding funds that they’ve extorted from Iraqi contractors in Anbar province.

The payments, in return for the insurgents’ allowing supplies to move and construction work to begin, have taken place since the earliest projects in 2003, Iraqi contractors, politicians and interpreters involved with reconstruction efforts said.

Apparently, Bill Ardolino reported this months ago on his trip to Iraq.

Reader Interactions

9Comments

  1. 1.

    searp

    And the rest of the insurgency and other terrorist operations are funded by the money we give to Middle Eastern countries for oil.

    We fund the terrorists, no way around that. We fund Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. Do you think for a second that the Iranians, Saudis, etc. would have the spare cash absent oil sales?

  2. 2.

    srv

    We must destroy the insurgency so we can rebuild it.

    I have a solution to the insurgency that will probably work faster than anything the nutters have come up with. Lets just repaint all those schools with lead paint.

  4. 4.

    Pb

    Hundreds of thousands sounds like a gross under-estimate, even for this.

    “If I do it in the Green Zone, it’s just putting gravel in Hesco bags and it would be about $16,000,” the contractor said. “But they needed it for Ramadi and Fallujah. I submitted an invoice for $120,000 and I’d say about $100,000 of that went to the mujahideen,” as Iraqis sometimes call Sunni insurgents.
    […]
    He said he was stunned when, from early 2004 to his departure in summer 2006, a parade of sheikhs with known insurgent connections were awarded contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    Remember, we literally flew billions of dollars into Iraq and gave it to contractors in backpacks. We can’t account for tens of billions of dollars. And that’s just money–there’s also “Iraq’s Arms Bazaar“:

    At least three U.S. government agencies are now investigating the massive “disappearance” and diversion of weapons Washington intended for Iraqi government forces that instead have spread to militants and organized gangs across the region. The potential size of the traffic is stunning. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month showed that since 2004, some 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, bought with U.S. money for Iraqi security forces, have gone missing.

    At retail prices in the United States, a Glock 19 costs about $500. On the black market in Turkey, it can fetch up to $3,500, according to the national police. A senior Turkish security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said his government estimates some 20,000 U.S.-bought Glock 9mm pistols have been brought from Iraq into his country over the last three years. “The problem on our side is that this corruption is so big they [the Iraqi and U.S. governments] cannot stop it,” said the official.
    […]
    But the first detailed investigation of the missing weapons was conducted last summer by Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. His team found there was a special problem with Glocks: 13,180 were missing, worth as much as $46 million on the black market. The more recent GAO study puts the total figure for missing pistols closer to 80,000.

    Funny story–George W. Bush purportedly invaded Iraq to disarm it, prevent it from arming others, and bring stability to the region. But, now that we’ve invaded and brought instability to the region, we’ve also brought with us more arms, and now Iraq is arming others with them.

  5. 5.

    Bubblegum Tate

    Funny story—George W. Bush purportedly invaded Iraq to disarm it, prevent it from arming others, and bring stability to the region. But, now that we’ve invaded and brought instability to the region, we’ve also brought with us more arms, and now Iraq is arming others with them.

    Did anybody else see that amazing “America to the Rescue!” segment on The Daily Show last week? It was fan-fucking-tastic. A perfect summary of our long, shitty involvement in the ME, which basically amounts to picking a strongman du jour, backing him, then moving on to the next regime when the one we were backing became to big for its britches.

  7. 7.

    whippoorwill

    Well of course the insurgents need to make a buck, What kind of war would it be if only one side has guns and bullets. Maybe next tax year we could have an insurgent deduction and we can all make a donation to spruce up Arlington National Cemetery.

  8. 8.

    The Other Andrew

    Given that this administration values enterprising, unregulated capitalism more than democracy, I can see why they think Iraq is a success.

  9. 9.

    Bubblegum Tate

    Pb–

    That episode has attained the coveted “Keep Until I Delete” status on my TiVo because of how awesome that segment was/is.

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