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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / No Big Deal

No Big Deal

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Exporting American-style capitalism to Iraq:

A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, an arm of the Democratic caucus, that an Iraqi auditing bureau “could not properly account for” the money.

While many of the projects audited “were not needed — and many were never built,” he said, “this very real fact remains: Billions of American dollars that paid for these projects are now gone.”

He said a report that went to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top Iraqi officials was never published because “nobody cares” about investigating such cases. Many investigators, he said, feared for their safety because 32 of his co-workers have been murdered.

No problem. Just tell Hank Paulson that if you don’t get 20 billion right now, you will wreck the economy. Then you will be ready to open up shop in Manhattan.

Reader Interactions

13Comments

  2. 2.

    SGEW

    Many investigators, he said, feared for their safety because 32 of his co-workers have been murdered.

    Now that’s deregulation.

  3. 3.

    Stimpy

    A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

    A week ago that would have sounded like a lot of money.

  4. 4.

    SGEW

    A week ago that would have sounded like a lot of money.

    I don’t even know what “money” means anymore.

  5. 5.

    Brian J

    Maybe some Iraqis decided to give the money to Norm Coleman so that he could figure out how to make ten to twenty times as much out of it.

    On a serious note, why isn’t this a bigger scandal? I don’t know if the Democrats have any role in this, but assuming they don’t, you’d think that they’d hammer the Republicans each and every day for this. For the party that likes to adopt the legacy of Harry Truman, one would assume, in a normal world, they’d be outraged over what’s happened. (My guess is, Harry Truman would be rolling over in his grave if her knew what was going on here.) No, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not the biggest sum of money, but I can think of plenty of things I’d rather see $13 billion spent on, like post-war treatment for veterans, helping low-income people enhance their retirement savings, or infrastructure investments.

  6. 6.

    SGEW

    On a serious note, why isn’t this a bigger scandal? . . . in a normal world, they’d be outraged over what’s happened.

    We do not live in a normal world. Also, we all have Outrage Fatigue.

    I can think of plenty of things I’d rather see $13 billion spent on, like post-war treatment for veterans, helping low-income people enhance their retirement savings, or infrastructure investments.

    That should be an Obama campaign ad, right there.

  7. 7.

    NonyNony

    And remember – this isn’t the kind of “money” we’re talking about on Wall Street where the money doesn’t actually exist except in the form of worthless promissory notes and electronic entries in a database – these guys had palates of cash lying around for these projects. And cash money is the kind of thing that, when it “disappears”, can reappear in the form of weapons and bombs. How much of this money has been turned into weapons that are being used to either attack US troops or to perform various ethnic cleansing operations within Iraq?

  9. 9.

    Tsulagi

    A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

    Mere crumbs fallen from the pie. Freedom crumbs.

  10. 10.

    DrDave

    A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

    It makes me feel better that they had to go resort to “elaborate” measures to steal the money rather than just, say, take it out of trucks or offices where it was lying around in piles unguarded.

    None of this is surprising. Andrew Natsios had the temerity, years ago, to suggest that the entire war would only cost the American taxpayer $1.3 billion and Larry Lindsay was summarily canned when he suggested that it might cost over $100 billion. So add this $13 billion to the list of other atrocities this war has brought. And maybe be thankful that at least KBR/Halliburton didn’t get it.

  11. 11.

    The Moar You Know

    He said a report that went to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top Iraqi officials was never published because “nobody cares” about investigating such cases. Many investigators, he said, feared for their safety because 32 of his co-workers have been murdered.

    Bush: THAT LUCKY S.O.B. MALIKI WHY CAN’T I DO THAT?

  12. 12.

    The Moar You Know

    I don’t even know what “money” means anymore.

    No one does. It used to be a medium of exchange for work. That ended with the rise of the investment economy. For a while it was an convenient substitute for carrying around bars of gold. Then it became a completely arbitrary unit of measure that still supposedly had some kind of tie to the “work” that one did.

    Now it is an essentially meaningless concept, printed and destroyed at will. Life is going to become quite interesting in this world when folks finally figure out that the distribution of goods, services and property is essentially arbitrary.

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