Pentagon can't account for $8.7 billion in Iraqi funds

[Raggz]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Baghdad — The Defense Department is unable to properly account for $8.7 billion out of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil revenue entrusted to it between 2004 and 2007, according to a newly released audit that underscores a pattern of poor record-keeping during the war.

Of that amount, the military failed to provide any records at all for $2.6 billion in purported reconstruction expenditure, says the report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is responsible for monitoring U.S. spending in Iraq. The rest of the money was not properly deposited in special accounts as required under Treasury Department rules, making it difficult to trace how it was spent.

Though there is no apparent evidence of fraud, the improper accounting practices add to the pattern of mismanagement, reckless spending and, in some instances, corruption uncovered by the agency since 2004, when it was created to oversee the total of $53 billion in U.S. taxpayer money

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ira...

---

A billion here, a billion there, who can keep track of 8.7 billion?

Time to cut back on schools to save cash?

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

"Though there is no apparent evidence of fraud, the improper accounting practices add to the pattern of mismanagement, reckless spending and, in some instances, corruption uncovered by the agency since 2004, when it was created to oversee the total of $53 billion in U.S. taxpayer money"


Simply amazing.

[JDPriestly]

105. "Reckless spending"

That's where the fraud is hidden.


That much money is missing, and they can't find where it went. That's fraud. It's concealment. It's fraud. People had a duty to turn in accurate financial accounting statements and turned in inaccurate ones. And now, those same people cannot say what they did with the money, where it went. When they turned in the statements that were inaccurate -- false -- they committed fraud on the US government.

Doesn't matter how nice they are, they committed fraud.

Some sweet kid goes into a clothing store and takes a pair of pants and a shirt worth $90. Do you think the clothing store will prosecute? You had better believe it.

And we are supposed to just sit and say "It wasn't fraud" when billions are missing -- billions that belong either to us (and will be made up for out of our tax money) or billions that belong to the Iraqis (which we will probably have to repay out of our tax money).

The poor, especially people of color, are imprisoned for petty crimes every day. But if you are rich, you can commit a really big, big crime and walk away.

No wonder people are angry. This is simply wrong.

[saigon68]

119. GRAFT BRIBERY & CORRUPTION

The military crawls on your wallet (Tax-Payer)

[Solly Mack]

160. Yep

[alllyingwhores]

111. Seriously...is this an Onion article?

[Solly Mack]

161. LOL! No kidding . "improper accounting practices" but not fraud...

Alrighty then.

[HillbillyBob]

130. As far as I can see Fraud covers from the day that (*) announced he

would run for office and just got bigger and bigger ever since.
Now the people that we stinted our food bills for is going to use that as an excuse to destroy the rest of our infrastructure and people like me on small SSd payments will have to eat catfood. (be sure its not purina..i have been to their rendering plants..and you don't want to know).

[Solly Mack]

162. True that...Bush was fraud personified.

[on point]

159. Actually, I think this Iraqi money, not US taxpayer money in any way.

The way I understand it, this money is the proceeds of the sale of Iraqi oil, which belongs to Iraq. The US, as the occupying power, was responsible for managing this this on the behalf of Iraq, but at no time was this American money.

Someone correct me if I am wrong on this....

Even so, it still tells a story of incompetence and corruption on the part of the Bush regime and their cronies. Since it wasn't American money, they probably figured no one would notice if a few billion went missing here and there.

This might be a lesser international war crime.

[Solly Mack]

163. I believe you're correct ...that it was oil sales money. Meant to go to rebuilding.

and now it's gone, with no documentation of where it went.

[Raggz]

164. That is what happened

Now the US taxpayers have to pay it back

[on point]

166. I can't wait for the trillions $ war reparations bill from Iraq.

You are probably right. The US (Taxpayer) is legally obligated to make good on the lost oil sales revenue.

Once it become clear that this was an illegal war, I can't wait for the trillion dollar war reparations for damages bill that the US taxpayer will be stuck with.

Not to mention the probably half a trillion dollars to refit and re-equip the US military, I know that is coming soon.


As Bugs bunny would say, "What a maroon"

[guruoo]

171. $12bn to Iraq - Biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve...

How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish

Special flights brought in tonnes of banknotes which disappeared into the war zone



An armed guard poses beside pallets of $100 bills in Baghdad.
Almost $12bn in cash was spent by the US-led authority

The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent.
The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee.

In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover.

Details of the shipments have emerged in a memorandum prepared for the meeting of the House committee on oversight and government reform which is examining Iraqi reconstruction. Its chairman, Henry Waxman, a fierce critic of the war, said the way the cash had been handled was mind-boggling. "The numbers are so large that it doesn't seem possible that they're true. Who in their right mind would send 363 tonnes of cash into a war zone?"

"One CPA official described an environment awash in $100 bills," the memorandum says. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack. "They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division's vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1



Mid-2003: A reporter in Iraq stands on a pallet
filled with shrink-wrapped bricks of C-Notes


'Fraud-free zone': Willis (center) in Iraq with two CPA colleagues, preparing to pay a contractor in 2003.


Follow the Money
Watchdogs are warning that corruption in Iraq is out of control. But will the United States join efforts to clamp down on it?

by Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

April 4 issue - By many accounts, Custer Battles was a nightmare contractor in Iraq. The company's two principals, Mike Battles and Scott Custer, overcharged occupation authorities by millions of dollars, according to a complaint from two former employees. The firm double-billed for salaries and repainted the Iraqi Airways forklifts they found at Baghdad airport—which Custer Battles was contracted to secure—then leased them back to the U.S. government, the complaint says. In the fall of 2004, Deputy General Counsel Steven Shaw of the Air Force asked that the firm be banned from future U.S. contracts, saying Custer Battles had also "created sham companies, whereby fraudulently increased profits by inflating its claimed costs." An Army inspector general, Col. Richard Ballard, concluded as early as November 2003 that the security outfit was incompetent and refused to obey Joint Task Force 7 orders: "What we saw horrified us," Ballard wrote to his superiors in an e-mail obtained by NEWSWEEK.

Yet when the two whistle-blowers sued Custer Battles on behalf of the U.S. government—under a U.S. law intended to punish war profiteering and fraud—the Bush administration declined to take part. "The government has not lifted a finger to get back the $50 million Custer Battles defrauded it of," says Alan Grayson, a lawyer for the two whistle-blowers, Pete Baldwin and Robert Isakson. ...

The administration's reluctance to prosecute has turned the Iraq occupation into a "free-fraud zone," says former CPA senior adviser Franklin Willis. After the fall of Baghdad, there was no Iraqi law because Saddam Hussein's regime was dead. But if no U.S. law applied either, then everything was permissible, says Willis. The former CPA official compares Iraq to the "Wild West," saying he delivered one $2 million payment to Custer Battles in bricks of cash. ("We called Mike Battles in and said, 'Bring a bag'," Willis told Congress in February.) Willis and other critics worry that with just $4.1 billion of the $18.7 billion spent so far, the U.S. legal stance will open the door to much more fraud in the future. "If urgent steps are not taken, Iraq ... will become the biggest corruption scandal in history," warned the anti-corruption group Transparency International in a recent report. Grassley adds that if the government decides the False Claims Act doesn't apply to Iraq, "any recovery for fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars ... would be prohibited."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7306162/site/newsweek

[Pirate Smile]

2. So this happened between 2004 and 2007?

Surprise, surprise, surprise... I'm sure it's Obama's fault.

[KamaAina]

98. Naaaaah.

It's the Clenis' fault.

[avaistheone1]

128. This theft has continued going on under Obama's watch.

Graft fears as massive cash sums fly out of Kabul: WSJ

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/7477619/graf...

[givemebackmycountry]

3. "Though there is no apparent evidence of fraud"

Fuck that shit, it's not like $8.7 billion just freaking disappears into thin air.

"The rest of the money was not properly deposited in special accounts as required under Treasury Department rules, making it difficult to trace how it was spent".

Well shit, that happens to me all the freaking time!
I'm going to call my electricity provider tomorrow morning and tell them that.

"You can't disconnect me! Shit! I had money but it wasn't deposited in the special accounts, so I have no idea how the money was spent!"

Maybe they should take a look at the numerous bank accounts of the BFEE!
But, nah.
We have to look FORWARD!

[Blandocyte]

28. And we are looking forward

Forward to more of this kind of thing happening when the crooks and liars see that they can get away with it. But I "hope" that will "change."

[liberation]

78. No kidding, I just found a couple billion dollars in change in between the pillows of my couch...

... it happens all the time, totally innocent mistake.

Funny how the Fed government demands to know exactly how much money I have and how I spend it, while they can simply take my money and do as they please with it. "Responsibility" apparently is a one way street, I think this is not that much of a "deal" as it looks like a rip off. What is the point of all this? Work hard, give them my money, have them waste it on useless shit like endless war. I'd have no issue justifying paying taxes, as it is the price of living in society, if at least we were getting our money's worth in proper infrastructure, good public education for everyone, access to proper healthcare for every American citizen, etc.

Instead we're working hard to basically blow up our hard earned money in some hellhole, with nothing to show for it... and corporations with nil value propositions, like military contractors, getting more money is really nothing positive to show for that IMHO.

[truedelphi]

112. The state of California is going belly up.

But the people in this state get 73 cents for every dollar we dole out - so they can "lose" it.

Ahnold asked Timmy Geithner for a 20 Billion dollar loan, which would go a long way to keeping the teachers, fire fighters, police, social workers etc employed. And Timmy said the government could not afford to loan us the money that we gave them.

But hey, they can afford to "lose" the funds, I guess.

Just an honest mistake.

[grasswire]

85. no evidence of fraud, but there is corruption!

I wonder what the distinction is.

[Capitalocracy]

93. $8.7 billion missing = apparent evidence of fraud. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

124. Well, fer Chrissakes, if there's no trace of the money,

how would there be any trace of what happened to it?

[Scruffy1]

144. The corruption is so widespread

That I think everyone is afraid to even go there. Probably just about everyone field grade and up, and a whole lot of political connections. Wars always breed corruption.

[Amonester]

168. I look forward and I can sadly see the WaR criminals will be back. :(

I look FORWARD and I can sadly see the WaR criminals will be back in charge sooner or later.

They now know nothing will be done to stop them.

When robbers get away scott free, they'll sure enjoy robbing again. (duh)

[wakemewhenitsover]

169. "Though there is no apparent evidence of fraud..."

The phrase kind of jumps out at you, doesn't it?

[Booster]

4. The Pentagon has been one of the biggest scams for a very

long time now. Like that pallet of 8 billion in cash that somehow disappeared (or is this that same cash?)

[tclambert]

25. One pallet couldn't hold $8 billion in cash.

A pallet could hold maybe $100 million in hundred dollar bills. You'd need 80 of those to hold $8 billion.

[Botany]

39. 1 billion in $100 bills

[tclambert]

122. That's almost 12 full pallets for $1B. So, around 90 for $8B.

Keep that in mind when you're making ransom demands.

[ProudDad]

148. Two Words: Wire Transfer (n/t)

[JDPriestly]

107. Waxman learned this in an oversight committee hearing.

The following article is not from a reliable source. (Note the misspelling of Bremmer's name.) But it reports pretty accurately what I remember learning from reports on Waxman's committee hearings.

Paul Bremner , former head of the US led civilian administration in Iraq was quizzed by a Congressional committee which is investigating allegations of fraud. Mr Bremner defended his decision to send billions of dollars in cash to Baghdad during the years 2003 to 2004. These funds originally came from Iraqi oil revenue and frozen assets.

Much of the money sent by Bremner went missing and can still not be tracked to this day. When questioned by Henry Waxman, the democratic Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Mr Bremner answered; "that he had done his best to kick-start Iraq's economy."

Henry Waxman asked," who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?." He added, "But that is exactly what our Government did. There is no way of knowing whether the cash which totals $9 billion and flown over on pallets from the US would end up in enemy hands."

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/143983/paul_br...

[flyarm]

5. It was probably the bundled money used and thrown as footballs!

and think about it..this doesn't include the money lost by Rummy!

[EFerrari]

7. Yeah, it's "lost".

The Pentagon is the world's biggest money laundering scam.

[flyarm]

10. You have that 100% right!!

[bulloney]

33. But we continue to give the Pentagon more money whenever they ask for it.

I contend we can painlessly whack at least 50% off our military spending in this country and put that money to better use, such as social spending, infrastructure, alternative fuel development or deficit reduction.

I've said for a long time military spending is the biggest rathole in our federal budget.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

51. The MIC and interest on the debt account for well over $1T a year.

[flyarm]

92. NO "WE" don't ,.. our elected (or not) polititicans do! eom

[wordpix]

63. "lost" in the same way billions on Wall St. was "lost" @ $211,000/hr. for hedge fund managers

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2...

snip: A 2007 report by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy found that the top 20 private-equity and hedge-fund managers made more in 10 minutes than average-paid U.S. workers earned in a year. Top executives at hedge funds averaged $12.6 million a week, or $210,700 an hour based on a 60-hour week, compared with the $29,500 the average worker made in 2006, researchers found.
snip

But let's bail them out!!!!
These people really need a shot of accountability.

[peace frog]

89. They used the bundled cash

as logs for their wood-, er I mean, cash-burning stoves, or perhaps they used the individual bills to light their see-gars. In any event, it's all gone now.

[lurky]

6. The report was written by

"the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is responsible for monitoring U.S. spending in Iraq"

According to Wikipedia, "The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) was created in October 2004" to oversee spending of reconstruction money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Inspector_General_...

Now, when did they say the money start disappearing?

[OnyxCollie]

58. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction

http://www.sigir.mil/about/leadership.html

Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., has served as the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction since October 2004.

He previously served as the Inspector General for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA-IG), a position to which he was appointed in January 2004. Mr. Bowen's mission includes ensuring effective oversight of $52 billion appropriated for the reconstruction of Iraq. Mr. Bowen has served President George W. Bush as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary and Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel. He has been a partner at the law firm of Patton Boggs LLP, in its Washington, D.C. office. Before his White House tenure, Mr. Bowen served as Counsel to the Bush-Cheney transition team; and from 1994 to 2000, he held a variety of positions on Governor George Bush's staff in Texas, including Deputy General Counsel, Deputy General Counsel for Litigation, and Assistant General Counsel.

From 1992 to 1994, Mr. Bowen served as an Assistant Attorney General of Texas in administrative law litigation. And from 1991 to 1992, he served as Briefing Attorney to Texas Supreme Court Justice Raul Gonzalez. Mr. Bowen is licensed by the Texas State Bar, Board Certified in Administrative Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, a variety of lower Federal courts, and all Texas state courts. Mr. Bowen spent four years on active duty as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force, achieving the rank of Captain. He holds a B.A. from the University of the South, attended Vanderbilt Law School, and received a J.D. from St. Mary's Law School.

While it doesn't sound like Stuart Bowen is anything more than a bush toadie, I've read his report, "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience",

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/world/2008...

and it provides a detailed account of how much of a scam Iraq was/is right from the start.

[Nite Owl]

65. He's still there?

Why were any of Bu$h's people kept on at all. All the departments should have been purged by now.

[alllyingwhores]

110. Sounds more like he's not anything more than part of the scam...

[lurky]

125. So, why would a Bush insider on the fast track to glory

take a thankless, "impossible" job in a hellish war zone, and continue to hold on to that job for six years and counting.

This guy was a partner at Patton Boggs. He was involved with the 2000 recount and transition. He was on the White House staff. He was part of the inner circle, going back to Texas. He presumably knows where the bodies are buried. Why would they want him there, and why would he choose to do it?

[OnyxCollie]

132. Good questions.

Q: Why would they want him there?

One expects that most, if not all, people who were in positions of oversight during the bush administration were put there to ignore corruption.

Q: Why would he choose to do it?

Personal advancement or monetary gain, perhaps.

This came out right after bush left office. The SIGIR would have to come up with something fairly accurate; It's not like anyone is going to believe things are hunky dory. But, just like the DOJ report that showed the DOJ had become politicized, nothing is likely to come from it.

[lurky]

134. Agreed.

A "friendly" cop can be very helpful to organized corruption. He is definitely someone they can trust, who has proven his loyalty and been involved with previous dirty tricks and sleaze (Florida 2000).

In the report, he boasts about finding "millions" of dollars worth of corruption and catching dozens of wasteful or fraudulent situations. Of course, this is chicken change given the size of the fraud, but it makes him look effective while the big crime continues uninterrupted.

Career-wise, this would be a serious detour for him, given his background. He was a partner in a top Washington law firm and a high-level staffer in the White House. He could have parlayed that into any number of extremely lucrative or powerful positions in business, government, or media. Imagine the legal practice he could establish with his resume. This Inspector General job is not only thankless, but he admitted from the beginning that it was guaranteed to fail. Failure does not get you a lot of professional advancement or political glory. On the other hand if he got even a small percentage of that missing money...

[guruoo]

173. in '03-04'nearly 281 million notes, ($12bn) weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[QUALAR]

8. Check The Bagmen

Unless there has been a change in policy, members of Congress are exempt from luggage inspections on their return to the country. What better way to smuggle some loose change found in Iraq or Afghanistan. I don't know of many politicians I'd trust around such large sums of money. It's sad that a few honest enlisted military finance personnel have been assassinated over there. Maybe by one of Cheney's death squads. Money has corrupted both wars to a point that we will lose even if we win. How can one realistically define a win after so much of our national treasure has been wasted?

[KamaAina]

99. And all this time I thought those repukes were all going over there for cheap photo ops.

Silly me.

[Tx4obama]

9. Here's a link to a compliation of videos regarding $23 Billion in missing money on Grayson's website

http://www.graysonforcongress.com/page.asp?PageId=5

There are ten videos there on the above link.
Whoever hasn't seen them yet should try to find the time to do so

[defendandprotect]

13. Thanks -- saved it --

[defendandprotect]

11. Rumsfeld couldn't account for $2.3 trillion -- eventually $3.4 trillion . . . I think ...???

And, right after that "no plane" hit the Pentagon right where the accounting/records

were being stored --

shucks!

Guess they don't check serial numbers when they ship billions of dollars wrapped in plastic

shipped on pallets?

shucks!

[Politicalboi]

12. Did they look under Rummy's desk?

The Pentagon also "misplaced" 2.3 Trillion on 09/10/01. Oh well I guess it's just so hard to keep track of so much money. I wish I had that problem. Maybe the Pentagon has a hole in it, and the money fell out. Could happen. LOL!

[Sherman A1]

14. Shocked!

I just can't believe that they would not have all our money accounted for?????

[Joe Bacon]

29. Did anyone ask Franky Graham where it is?

I bet Franky has a big stuffed Samaritan's purse stuffed with that cash!

[butterfly77]

56. I guess that is

why now republiCONS don't want any more spending since they already got THEIR PIECE OF THE PIE...

[Grinchie]

15. How can one account for money that never existed in the first place?

After all, it's conjured out of thin air..

[truthisfreedom]

16. Follow the money to bush and cheney.

Find it all.

[OnyxCollie]

60. Follow the money to Paul Wolfowitz.

While he was head of the World Bank, Wolfowitz oversaw the Iraq Reconstruction and Relief Fund, the pile of money used for paying contractors, etc.

Wolfowitz was a hawk when it came to refusing aid to other countries because of "corruption", but he turned a blind eye to the corruption in Iraq.

[Hubert Flottz]

17. That's the bundles of cash they were playing football with in Iraq.

Hard to tell how much the bushies got away with.

[Hubert Flottz]

18. Hell the country even had money to pay the faith based bush

loving preachers off with when Bush was handing out bribes to buy votes. Now the GOP is SO worried about spending money. Bush was spending money like a drunken AWOL for eight years to buy power for the neocons.

[Botany]

19. The Iraq War was all about making money for certain groups and people

The biggest slush fund in history is from the Iraq war .... the money wasn't lost it was stolen.

[Raster]

20. "... the money wasn't lost it was stolen"

As was the election that precipitated the Iraq war.

[Ganja Ninja]

21. Now I think I know what Dick Cheney kept in his office safe. n/t

[wordpix]

68. also, why he put out his back moving his office by himself - the boxes of cash must have been heavy!

[Altoid_Cyclist]

22. Well, I'm sure that Bremer and Senor are innocent.

After all, the shrub only appointed honorable and decent people right?

What a giant XXXXL scheme this invasion has been. Can we leave yet?

[tanyev]

38. And I'm sure that no fine upstanding CPA/Heritage Foundation employee

tucked any wads of cash in their suitcase before they headed home.

[butterfly77]

61. Senor made sure he...

got his share along with,Bremer,Ari Fleisher,Wolfowitz,Andy Card,Rove,Lindsay Graham,LIEberman,McCain,etc..

They want to stay until they obtain VICTORY and hide the lies and theft they have perpetrated on the American people..I need to recall who I kept seeing take a little visit over there ,maybe to pick up their share

Remember when bush use to say "IT'S YOUR MONEY!"

[Altoid_Cyclist]

82. Maybe that's why Mike Pence was always there also.

Millions of people either killed, injured, homeless or displaced and these bottom feeders used it as a way to become rich.

Anger is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings at this point.
The worst part is knowing that none of these ghouls will ever be brought before the world court to face justice.

BTW... I hope that it was clear that I was being sarcastic when I mentioned Bremer and Senor being innocent. Everything about the Cheney Whitehouse was so corrupt and evil that I was too lazy to put the sarcasm tag on since people would know that I couldn't be serious.

This song is about the IMF, but so much of it fits the "liberation" of Iraq that I couldn't resist. Just substitute BFEE for IMF.

Call it Democracy by Bruce Cockburn

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament --
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

[DainBramaged]

90. Excellent memory, Dan 'big head' Senor, the 'head' of it all.

He needs to be waterboarded.

[butterfly77]

106. I will never forget..

and there is much more they think we will forget or think that we didn't tell others.

They now all show up on morning joe to re-write history but,me and many more are watching and haven't forgotten the bush years and how everyone who went against their lies were called conspiracy theorists...THEY LIE RIGHT IN YOUR DAMN FACE!

[xchrom]

23. recommend

[tclambert]

24. Is that in cash? Do you have any idea how much that WEIGHS?

If it went out in check form, there'a paper trail somewhere. If it's in $100 bills, it would weigh over one and a half MILLION pounds.

[No Elephants]

26. 8.7 BILLION? Who worries about single digit billion dollar figures anymore?

Now, if it were 8.7 trillion, that might get our government's attention.

(Notice, I said "might.")

[Blandocyte]

27. Can we get a funny vid of W looking under a chair for it?

man, that "looking under the chair for WMDs" was some funny stuff, I don't care who ya are.

[barbtries]

30. "no apparent evidence of fraud"

except the missing billions?? ya think?

jeez

[Aristophrenia]

31. The Great Seymour Hersh accounted for it

several years ago when he revealed it went into CIA covert operations into destabilizing Iran as part of the counter measures against Irans influence in the Shiite uprising which saw them regain power.

End of story - but of course all those Iranian protesters were out on the street, just like the return of the Shah, for free - pigs fracken arse.

They were paid in the 50's by Kermit - and they were paid again by Dick.

[Enthusiast]

32. I've never heard this on

ABC, CBS or NBC so it can't possibly be true.

[happygoluckytoyou]

34. think the $ is currently bashing democrats in preelection commercials

[Botany]

37. and it went to buy up progressive radio stations so they could be flipped ...

...... to all sports, right wing crap, and all Jesus talk.

In Columbus a Catholic group got $1.5 million o buy the license of our local little progressive
station.

The Iraq war was all about the money and the oil.

[valerief]

49. Oil is money. War is always about $$$$$$$. To bad volunteers never realize this. nt

[LargeGreenSpider]

67. Thank you. Excellent post.

And a very true story you'll never see in the rancid M$M.

[wordpix]

66. & organizing all those tea party rallies & paying for speakers like Dummy Palin

[Soylent Brice]

35. K&R

[Yeahyeah]

36. Seems like it might be all,like,some kind of a racket.

[deutsey]

40. Wow...what is it with Iraq? So many things disappear there it's like the Bermuda Triangle.

WMDs, ancient Iraqi artifacts, American and Iraqi lives...now, $87 Billion.

Oh, and U.S. credibility.

How do all of these things keep vanishing over there? It's aaaaaaaall a myyyyyyssssssterrrryyyyy...

[BreweryYardRat]

138. Nitpick: Many of those artifacts, and almost all of the most significant ones, were recovered.

Read Thieves of Baghdad for the whole story -- it's by an officer named Nick Bogdanos, who was responsible for securing the museum and recovering most of the artifacts.

In short, museum personnel stashed a lot of the best stuff in their own residences, or in secret locations only they knew about, and didn't bring it back out until well after the museum was secured by US forces...and after the reporters had moved on from their initial stories about the looting.

Bogdanos is kind of a gung-ho sort, but he has ethics -- when asked by a reporter why he didn't shoot the looters who fled the premises as his force arrived, his response boiled down to: "They were unarmed."

He also worked diligently to recover the artifacts that had actually been stolen, not just temporarily concealed for safekeeping.

***

The rest of your points, however, are valid.

[deutsey]

174. I'm glad to hear that n/t

[paparush]

41. How many schools and hospitals could that have built back home?

Thinking of Ike's speech.

[butterfly77]

62. and affordable housing

[dropkickpa]

137. This is from Iraq oil money, not US funds

[Roy Rolling]

42. Correct me if I'm wrong...

the money went to extend unemployment benefits? I'm just guessing, but I know the Republicants wouldn't vote to extend benefits if they didn't have a source of funds that would not add to the deficit.

[Roy Rolling]

43. New Oversight

Next up in charge of Iraqi money: Bernie Madoff.

[donco6]

44. And what will happen? They'll get more money for accountants.

What would happen to me if I were "missing" $100 in federal funds?

An auditor's letter to the Department of Education, my Superintendent, and the School Board, warning about malfeasance.

[jberryhill]

45. They really need to check their pockets before doing the laundry

I'll bet they can find a lot of that money in the dryer.

[JerseygirlCT]

46. I'd check Cheney's accounts... nt

[wordpix]

64. and that goes for his daughters---I'm sure he's given some away to them

[valerief]

47. So this in addition to the 9 billion Rumsfeld spoke of on 9/10/2011. nt

[newspeak]

71. actually, I thought it was 1.2 trillion

Wow, a lot of things were going to seep out before 9/11. Rummy's public admission of missing money, and I read, that the media was going to expose the actual vote tally in Florida, showing Gore actually won Florida.

[valerief]

74. I think you're right about the 1.2 trillion. Yeah, 9/11 sure changed everything.

In favor of the crooks!

[KansDem]

48. Caymans? Switzerland? Liechtenstein?

Better start checking those offshore tax havens.

There's nothing like being played for chumps by the elites...

[RedCloud]

50. They get so freaking high salaries and this is how they '"repay" us?

Talk about welfare recipients and their fraud. Start with our "intelligence" and "defense". Big savings to be found there.

[newspeak]

73. actually, I think of them as some kind of carnie guys

(not all carnie guys), but those great cons who fleece some of the suckers. They'll be barking come and win, see how easy it is (Iraq-flowers in the streets), and then they got you. You're pouring money in attempting to win that cute stuffed teddy (american dream)--finally, you have nothing left to spend because they've got it all and you're left with no teddy and no money.

[OnyxCollie]

76. Or you win the teddy

and find that it's coated in cadmium and lead and was made in China.

[realFedUp]

52. Move along, nothing to see here.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Wiki wackey leaks about our occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq:
unnaccounted billions, mass civilian killings, covert troops, stoning(s),
Pakistan supporting the “Taliban” etc. etc. etc. And this is new(s)?
The real news is that this administration is continuing
the BushCheney war(s) depleting more monies, lives, and
the belief in what this country seemingly believed in. The
current meme of this country should be:

Move along, nothing to see here.

[butterfly77]

53. So I guess this..

is the missing 9 billion.

[cbdo2007]

54. That's like buying a car and only getting one of the tires. Then being expected to not worry about i

t.

[demi moore]

55. only 8.7?

i can see why people want to go back to a conservative party. fiscal responsibility! i'm sure that would have been 10 fold under gore
god i miss the bush admin. oww now im getting weepy

[City Lights]

57. K&R.

Cut them off. They're obviously too incompetent to handle a budget so large. Time for them to hold bake sales or go door-to-door selling candy and wrapping paper.

[wordpix]

59. "no apparent evidence of fraud"??!!$$$ ?? Losing $8.7 billion doesn't point to fraud?

I know, I know, this is "Obama's War," not BushCo's.

[flyarm]

88. They have to get the money to Pay the Taliban from somewhere ..don't they??. eom

[Nite Owl]

69. If this were Medicare/Medacaid

money that was missing it would be all over the news, and their would be all kinds of investigations to prove we spend too much and the system is being scammed by poor people.
Not so much now since it's Pentagon.

[seafan]

70. Just "another one of those mysteries" that we're not supposed to look back on....

Per usual, our media dutifully wait for the *proper amount of time* to pass before noticing this story:


July 26, 2010

Pentagon can't account for $8.7 billion in Iraqi funds, LA Times




We didn't need a stinkin' accounting report (Repost below)



How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish

By David Pallister
The Guardian (UK)

8 February 2007



An armed guard poses beside pallets of $100 bills in Baghdad. Almost $12bn in cash was spent by the US-led authority

The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent.
The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee.

In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover.
Details of the shipments have emerged in a memorandum prepared for the meeting of the House committee on oversight and government reform which is examining Iraqi reconstruction. Its chairman, Henry Waxman, a fierce critic of the war, said the way the cash had been handled was mind-boggling. "The numbers are so large that it doesn't seem possible that they're true. Who in their right mind would send 363 tonnes of cash into a war zone?"

The memorandum details the casual manner in which the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbursed the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.
"One CPA official described an environment awash in $100 bills," the memorandum says. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack.

"They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division's vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds."
The minutes from a May 2004 CPA meeting reveal "a single disbursement of $500m in security funding labelled merely 'TBD', meaning 'to be determined'."
The memorandum concludes: "Many of the funds appear to have been lost to corruption and waste ... thousands of 'ghost employees' were receiving pay cheques from Iraqi ministries under the CPA's control. Some of the funds could have enriched both criminals and insurgents fighting the United States."

.....

To oversee the expenditure the CPA was supposed to appoint an independent certified public accounting firm. "Instead the CPA hired an obscure consulting firm called North Star Consultants Inc. The firm was so small that it reportedly operates out of a private home in San Diego." Mr Bowen found that the company "did not perform a review of internal controls as required by the contract".

.....

Mr Bremer, whose disbanding of the Iraqi armed forces and de-Ba'athification programme have been blamed as contributing to the present chaos, told the committee: "I acknowledge that I made mistakes and that with the benefit of hindsight, I would have made some decisions differently. Our top priority was to get the economy moving again.

.....

U.S. President George W. Bush awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Dec. 14, 2004. Bremer was the chief U.S. person in Iraq until sovereignty was granted in June. (UPI Photo/Roger L. Wollenberg)



July 27, 2010. And they still walk free.

[Blue Owl]

72. Unacceptable

n/t

[highplainsdem]

75. K&R

[Evasporque]

77. Go to some Iraqi and American cemetaries...

They will find it there.

[peacetalksforall]

79. What happened to the 4.3 trillion? Trillions or billions?

[robinlynne]

80. Let's see, how many jobs can we create when we ask for that 9 billion back?

[tclambert]

123. AT $50K per job, you could make 180,000 jobs.

But those jobs would create more jobs when those people want to go shopping or have lunch, and so on, and so on.

[peacetalksforall]

81. They cared as much about money accountability as much as they cared about our kids. And

as much as they cared about today's humans who tried to live as human beings in the area known as the Cradle of Civilization. Thieves and liars. They stole from and lied to the citizens of the U.S. of America and the world.

[superconnected]

83. I can only think of one place to spend billions - defense contractors.

[Joe Chi Minh]

84. ... and how the right wing love to blether about 'throwing money' at socially

beneficial, heck, even direly needed, projects, such as the repair of rail and road bridges and, I dare say, a whole lot of other forms of physical infrastructures.

Prioritizing the most real and pressing priorities in the form of social infrastructure, such as health and education, would, of course, be many bridges too far. The country would be ruined, it would lose its AAA rating, Wall Street would be annihilated, and so on and so far.

[flamingdem]

86. I bet some of that money will now be used to get Righties into office in the midterms

Talk about "WAR CHEST"!

[OnyxCollie]

87. K&R. nt

[begin_within]

91. "no apparent evidence of fraud" ??? Isn't $8.7 billion missing considered evidence?

[xiamiam]

94. THIS IS A CRIME...a real prosecutable crime if anyone had any interest in

taking on the Pentagon..looks like the only one is Julian Assange..ghhezus

[Loki]

95. Lost in the pockets of the criminals

that inhabited the White House during those years. How convenient.

[lib2DaBone]

96. But make sure unemployment insurance is paid for.... no deficit spending...

Oh.. and BTW.. we have to gut your Social Security and fire your kids's teacher... too costly you know....

And all you people with a family of 5 that are sleeping in your car and eating cat food... you are going to have to move on.. you can't park here.. it looks bad for our gated community. We are going to call the cops on you and have you removed.

[Carnage251]

97. The U.S. has to straighten out its priorities

[taught_me_patience]

100. It's under Cheney's death bed.

[Kurovski]

101. Mission accomplished!!

See now, that there is what Bush meant by that phrase. It's almost unfair to call him a liar.

[cornermouse]

102. Its not that they can't.

Its that they don't and won't dare tell the truth.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

103. That's in addition to the $2.3 TRILLION that the Pentagon can't account for?

Either a lot of people's Cayman Islands bank accounts are bulging, or our country has been pulling off a large number of very nasty black ops to an even greater extent than the leftiest leftist knows.

[raccoon]

175. Thank you. I was wondering that myself. nt

[JDPriestly]

104. OK, now we have embezzlement and theft -- the money went somewhere.

The only way to find out where the money went, where it is would be to indict a few people. Steal an old car and you go to jail. Steal billions and you enjoy your retirement on a ranch somewhere.

When will we see justice, blind justice in this country?

[SoapBox]

108. Good GAWD...BILLIONS!

So are those BILLIONS of oil money in addition to the BILLIONS (or is that TRILLIONS) of TAX PAYER dollars, funneled to the bottomless-pit Pentagon?

[Bluebear]

109. Oh well, I'm sure it will be appropriate to "look forward"

[Tx4obama]

113. Alan Grayson: videos of $23 BILLION of missing money, link below

Here's a link to a compilation of videos regarding $23 Billion of missing money on Grayson's website

http://www.graysonforcongress.com/page.asp?PageId=5

There are ten videos there on the above Grayson link regarding the missing money.
Whoever hasn't seen them yet should try to find the time to do so

[jgraz]

114. If this missing money had gone to welfare or schools, Fox would be all over it

And the Obama administration would be scrambling to fire someone.

[Joe Chi Minh]

115. I don't suppose there would be a record of the chain of custody for such a piddling amount.

[melm00se]

116. chump change

compared to Medicare Fraud:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/23/60minutes/mai...

[grahamhgreen]

117. The war is a joke. It was a scheme to steal money. We need a real 9-11 investigation.

[wildbilln864]

118. Well that's better...

than the $2.3 trillion Rumsfeld reported they couldn't account for on Sept. 10th, 2001!

[benld74]

120. Its located where the WMD's are!

[svpadgham]

121. I'll bet if 3 bucks were unaccounted for

from the Food Stamp program there would be calls to have it shut down.

[Starry Messenger]

126. And is the White House calling for firings?

Like they do for teachers? Accountability is only for little people.

[Bluenorthwest]

127. Corruption but no fraud? Are they serious?

Good thing we turned that page.

[Prometheus Bound]

129. This was Iraq's money. The US STOLE it from the Iraqi people.

[GreenTea]

131. Probably more like over 10 billion dollars-War for profit & stealing for republicans & corporations

It was OUR tax dollars they stole - Not the rich' or corporations tax dollars they got their huge tax cuts well before the war started.

[gateley]

133. Isn't this an old story -- or is this an ADDITIONAL 8 + billion that vanished? nt

[Jefferson23]

135. What else is new? n/t

[katty]

136. of course they can't, o, too bad-and we have people starving

unemployed and homeless here. and they will not be held accountable for 1 cent-as usual.

[Octafish]

139. For the Pentagon, that's chump change.

They're used to missing TRILLIONS.

And, for some reason, they never have to explain a thing.

[dropkickpa]

140. Oopsie, the DoD must have left it in their other pants!

And this wasn't a war for oil, suuuuuuuuuure! We won't profit in ANY way from Iraqi oil in this war, we're just trying to free the people. But somehow all this Iraqi oil money just keeps on going missing, the world's shoddiest workmanship is paid for at a premium price using these funds - using non-Iraqi workers (halliburton, etc) when their unemployment rate is sky high, and the hits keep a coming!

[Ignis]

141. K&R

[lovuian]

142. the US Government officials military corporations are theives

and some people like Bush and Cheney have walked away with Billions of dollars

Iraq was just away of stealing from the Iraq people and American people

and Obama was elected to arrest and CONVICT these thieves

but Obama's Justice Department has done NOTHING

if they ignore it
then they are part of the stench of corruption

[Ticonderoga]

149. "they are part of the stench of corruption"

well said.

[cate94]

143. K & R

Why isn't someone being prosecuted? Improper accounting? Give me a break. Fraud, theft or whatever. No problem here, just move along...

[TBF]

145. Well since they lost $8.7B

I'm sure glad we voted to give them another $60B today. Good times!

[rhett o rick]

146. No problem, the admin will give them a free pass. nm

[ProudDad]

147. While blowing the SHIT out of over $7 TRILLION over the last 10 years

Just a drop in the bucket!


The Permanent War Economy is the BIG FRAUD!!!

[ladywnch]

150. Is this in addition to the pallet of money that they lost shortly after

we liberated Bagdad or is this the same money and they still can't account for it?

[truthtelleralways]

151. We're being looted

As usual.

[alp227]

152. Tea Party outrage over this? Hmm...

Last time I checked there haven't been any verifiable reports about health care/social service money gone missing. But I do know now that billions in defense money have gone missing as have money for bailed-out banks, charter schools, etc.

[nightrain]

153. well today we can add another $33 Billion going to that region, soon to be accounted for....

oh... except for the wounded, dead, or maimed. War, what is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Unless you're Xe, Halliburton, General Dynamics, or the like. The only growth sector in the US economy is weaponry.

[MichiganVote]

154. Its ok. All those richy school teachers who get cut will make up for it.

[Divine Discontent]

155. a farce... the whole damned thing... you KNOW where the money went as well as I do - Illegally into

the pockets of a bunch of damn criminals.

[guitar man]

157. It wouldn't surprise me

To find out it was in the cargo bay of Air Force One when *junior came back from one of his trips over there.

[russspeakeasy]

156. Get your priorities straight

if we would just fire the teachers and get rid of that pesky
minimum wage, we could wage a 3 day war on Pakistan...or give
another 1/2% tax cut to Steve Forbes... 

[missheidi]

158. You mean people in the Bush admin could count?

Wow! Maybe someone needs to check Cheney's pockets...

[Thor_MN]

165. Withold it from their allowance. Until they come up with it, no money for black ops.

[HughMoran]

167. How many times have we discussed this on DU? 100? 1000?

Funny how it's now MSM news - the MSM are ass holes.

[earth mom]

170. Let's see-no health care, no jobs, Social Security on the verge of annihilation,

rich assholes on Wall Street are living it up on OUR taxpayer dime, the genocide and endless wars continue and the corporate bastards have destroyed the Gulf of Mexico and untold amounts of wildlife...

and now those fucking bastards have gone and lost BILLIONS of dollars that no doubt taxpayers in this country are gonna be on the hook for-just like with the Bankster Bailout.


We are so screwed it ain't funny.

[earcandle]

172. Let me at their accounting system. I will find it asap.