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War profiteering: $23 billion "lost, stolen or not accounted for" in Iraq

post #1 of 7
6/11/08 at 4:50pm
Thread Starter 
After World War II, companies were prosecuted and convicted for war profiteering. In contemporary times, what "may well be the largest war profiteering in history" is ignored by the US media while gag orders prevent those involved from talking about it. This report is out of the UK.

Quote:
BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions
By Jane Corbin
BBC News

Henry Waxman
Waxman: "It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

War profiteering

While President George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious.

"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.

Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.

Missing billions

The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in west London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004.

He and his associates siphoned an estimated $1.2bn out of the ministry. They bought old military equipment from Poland but claimed for top-class weapons.

Meanwhile they diverted money into their own accounts.

Judge Radhi al-Radhi of Iraq's Commission for Public Integrity investigated.

He said: "I believe these people are criminals.

"They failed to rebuild the Ministry of Defence, and as a result the violence and the bloodshed went on and on - the murder of Iraqis and foreigners continues and they bear responsibility."
The rest is at the BBC.
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post #2 of 7
6/11/08 at 5:01pm
I'd say something about this, but I'm too fucking angry to come up with a coherent statement. I'd love to hear what the remaining one in four idiots who still defend this shit-stain of an administration have to say about this.
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post #3 of 7
6/11/08 at 5:35pm
Some British guy siphoned an estimated $1.2bn???? Then he FLED!? I don't know British law but it seems foolish to put someone who siphoned off 1.2 BILLION dollars out on bail... or you know, not have a couple of guy's eyeing him.
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post #4 of 7
6/11/08 at 6:37pm
There was a thread for this article at the time, but seems a good place to bring it up again: Taibbi's The Great Iraq Swindle from Sep. '07.

The whole article's fascinating in a "holy shit, no fucking way" sense, but here's one of my favorite passages:

Quote:
There isn't a brazen, two-bit, purse-snatching money caper you can think of that didn't happen at least 10,000 times with your tax dollars in Iraq. At the very outset of the occupation, when L. Paul Bremer was installed as head of the CPA, one of his first brilliant ideas for managing the country was to have $12 billion in cash flown into Baghdad on huge wooden pallets and stored in palaces and government buildings. To pay contractors, he'd have agents go to the various stashes -- a pile of $200 million in one of Saddam's former palaces was watched by a single soldier, who left the key to the vault in a backpack on his desk when he went out to lunch -- withdraw the money, then crisscross the country to pay the bills. When desperate auditors later tried to trace the paths of the money, one agent could account for only $6,306,836 of some $23 million he'd withdrawn. Bremer's office "acknowledged not having any supporting documentation" for $25 million given to a different agent. A ministry that claimed to have paid 8,206 guards was able to document payouts to only 602. An agent who was told by auditors that he still owed $1,878,870 magically produced exactly that amount, which, as the auditors dryly noted, "suggests that the agent had a reserve of cash."

In short, some $8.8 billion of the $12 billion proved impossible to find. "Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?" asked Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee. "But that's exactly what our government did."
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post #5 of 7
6/11/08 at 6:43pm
Whenever I read this shit, my first thought is "Why couldn't I get a piece of that pie?" I would only need a million or so to keep me happy, I don't need the whole billion.
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post #6 of 7
6/12/08 at 1:43am
You could have. Halliburton sells stock, as do Raytheon, L-M, and so on. The outfit I work for makes one of the comm systems on UAVs among other US military applications as well as two of the three companies mentioned above, and your government was good enough to fund the R & D. It was no Iraqi Money Cube, but we do appreciate it.
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post #7 of 7
6/12/08 at 1:50am
i want to be a weapons dealer.
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