Helicopter Geithner’s NY Fed $40 Billion Iraq Money Drop

[kpete]

Helicopter Geithner’s NY Fed $40 Billion Iraq Money Drop

. . . And the documentation to support the claim that Basel made the deliveries is garbage:

One document Basel showed CNBC was a one-page receipt of shipment for a billion-dollar delivery in April of 2006. Basel typed it up himself. It read, in part: “This is to testify that we, the undersigned, have received in our custody from … the total amount of USD 1,000,000,000.00 (United States Dollars One Billion Only).” At the bottom were the hastily scrawled signatures of two officials of the Central Bank of Iraq.

What this “documentation” proves is no one gave a damn as to whether the money was properly handled. Do you honestly think that anyone on the receiving end counted the money when he delivered it? $1 billion in $100 bills is for all practical purposes NOT countable unless you have lots of super high speed counting machines. Basel was evidently doing what he could to protect himself against accusations of pilferage through these made-up receipts.

Now that Basel is the official face of how the funds got to the Iraqi central bank, it is a certainty no one else will come forward. It may be true that the total was $40 billion and it may be that Basel was the only person to handle the logistics of getting the pallets from the airfield to the central bank. But this is all a tad too tidy, and serves to divert attention from theunanswered question of how much money really left the New York Fed, which is essential to determine how much went missing.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/helicopter-geithners-ny-fed-40-billion-iraq-money-drop.htmlcom...

[brewens]

1. None of it really went "missing". It's missing to us but not to

whoever Bush and Cheney intended to give it to. It went right where it was supposed to go and is safely stashed in someones overseas account.

[gateley]

3. I was just going to ask you all where you thought it wound up, but

what you say sure rings true. Wow.

[dkf]

2. If the central bank of Iraq says they want their funds don't we have to give it to them?