The U.S. Financial Crisis - in Iraq

[pegleg]

Source: yahoo news

The U.S. military in Iraq has been extolling the achievements of its cooperation with civilians in the fight against extremists and insurgents. The mechanism of that cooperation, however, is greased by cash - and the budgetary spigot for it has been tightening in recent months.
That does not sit well for officers like Captain Joel Brown, in charge of Eagle company for the 2-2 Styker Cavalry Regiment. For him, money spent bankrolling the Sunni al-Sahwa ("Awakening") movement is money well spent. Al-Sahwa patrols neighborhoods in his area and effectively works as a local muscle, beating back insurgents and keeping the peace where local law enforcement has long since abandoned. When Brown's company arrived in southern Baghdad in August they found 50 roadside bombs in one day; they would sometime engage in two or three firefights daily. Now he pays nine Sunni contractors to manage 10 checkpoints with about 300 guards, in the process protecting schools, clinics and key intersections 24 hours a day. Soon there will be a total of 1,000 guards.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080123/wl_time/theusfinancialcrisisiniraq

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It's damn sad when we have to bribe them to like us! Just imagine how much good could be done in this country by helping out american citizens who need it.

[Javaman]

1. the patient is bleeding out...nt

[flashl]

2. We sent pallets of money. What more do they want?

Tuesday 07 February 2007

The U.S. Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said on Tuesday.

The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.

Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.


US Sent Pallets of Cash to Baghdad

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On 12 April 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority in Erbil in northern Iraq handed over $1.5 billion in cash to a local courier. The money, fresh $100 bills shrink-wrapped on pallets, which filled three Blackhawk helicopters, came from oil sales under the UN’s Oil for Food Programme, and had been entrusted by the UN Security Council to the Americans to be spent on behalf of the Iraqi people. The CPA didn’t properly check out the courier before handing over the cash, and, as a result, according to an audit report by the CPA’s inspector general, ‘there was an increased risk of the loss or theft of the cash.’ Paul Bremer, the American pro-consul in Baghdad until June last year, kept a slush fund of nearly $600 million cash for which there is no paperwork: $200 million of this was kept in a room in one of Saddam’s former palaces, and the US soldier in charge used to keep the key to the room in his backpack, which he left on his desk when he popped out for lunch. Again, this is Iraqi money, not US funds.


Where has all the money gone?

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. "had been entrusted by the UN Security Council to the Americans " - CASH?

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are they nuts?

Ain't that sorta like handing a truckload of booze for safekeeping to a known alcoholic?

Yeah

You get it, doncha . .

sheesh

[TheLastMohican]

4. HAHA

They don't know the middle-east trickery - take the money and then later show the middle finger.
Worked like that for thousands of years.

[hollowdweller]

5. What they should have been doing all along paying the locals

Surely the success of Al Qaida is at least the money they throw around. We need to be giving the locals money instead of Blackwater and Halliburton.

[flashl]

6. The locals probably do not want the money this way ...

No regrets or culprits, just cash for series of random killings

American officers are quietly paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars to relatives of those killed or injured in arbitrary shootings by troops

Guardian Unlimited
Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Wednesday November 26, 2003

...

In the months since America's war in Iraq, an uncounted number of ordinary Iraqis have been killed or maimed by the army that boasts daily of its swift "liberation" victory.

The US military has not punished any soldier for shooting an unarmed civilian and refuses even to keep count of the civilians its soldiers kill. Yet for several months now, American officers have been quietly paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to relatives of the dead and injured, offering polite but carefully-worded condolences and promising investigations that lead nowhere.

...

More than 900 claims have been filed with the brigade, which is responsible for 1.5 million people in the al-Rashid district of Baghdad. Since July, Capt Murphy has paid out an astonishing $106,000 (£62,500) in 176 different cases. Payments are given for damage to cars and houses, injury and death. The money frequently covers little more than the cost of the traditional three-day funeral ceremony. Only rarely does the army admit any liability.