Republicans send 360 Tons of Cash into a War Zone

[TWiley]

And.... it is possible that some if it found its way into the hands of insurgents
**********************
Full Story Here: http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-02-06-voa82.cfm


Henry Waxman, Democratic chairman of the House (Government) Oversight Committee, faults not only the methods used to transfer the money, but the lack of controls exerted once it arrived in Baghdad. "Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone? But that is exactly what our government did," he said.

Waxman refers to the shipment to Iraq of billions of dollars in cash from the Development Fund for Iraq held in a New York bank, adding it was possible some of the money found its way to insurgents.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-02-06-voa82.cfm

[lonestarnot]

1. 8 billion missing!

[TWiley]

3. Yes NPR radio said 1 Billion actually went to Insurgents

I read something here on DU that civil war was actually the bush plan for Iraq.

Remember Prescott Bush in WWII? As president of the Union Banking Corp, he financed the Nazi's war effort.

His boy George herbert walker, was involved in Iran Contra, arms for hostages,

Now, the Insurgents in Iraq funded by US Dollars?

[3waygeek]

8. IIRC, Dumbya's great-granddad

Samuel Prescott Bush sold weapons to the Kaiser before & during World War I -- four generations of treason.

[TWiley]

26. It runs in the family doesnt it NT

[John Q. Citizen]

9. Arms for cash for guns for cash for drugs for cash.for guns. Iran Contra. They

made a profit, too. Coming and going.

[ohioINC]

13. Those Damn Iranians...........

They must have used their operatives to tranfer the cash into Iran. We have to escalate the war!

[TWiley]

27. That is Soo funny .....

The irony is that it is true.

Maybe the "great thinker" in the Out-House will send a few tons of cash to Iran to get things heated up a bit.

[MissWaverly]

2. that was mentioned in Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse

it's good to hear it being discussed in the Congress, I love to hear the Republicans whining, why discuss this, it's old news. No, it's not, where is the money, what happened
to it, it certainly didn't go to help the Iraqi people, show us the money.

[sodenoue]

4. possible?

what a load. there is no coincidence of any magnitude. a strong insurgency necessitates our continued presence there, which is requisite to finishing construction on our enduring bases that bushco plans to use when we invade Iran, next month...

Just like 2003, we are moving towards an unjust war for oil and global hegemony.

Will we be forced to follow the chimp into another crusade? If bush gets his way, we (sadly) already know the answer to that.

[TWiley]

5. Welcome to DU sodenue !

And, I like your reasoning.
It is right on target

[MissWaverly]

6. we are eager to fight another country that didn't attack us

funny, how we don't go after those supplying the IEDs but those who have not attacked us
just like Iraq, what a coincidence and both these countries are rich in oil.

[calzone]

10. In all likelihood the IED's....

...come from the tons of Iraqi explosives and ordinance our leadership's incompetance allowed to fall into the resistances' hands just after the invasion.
The signal-scramblers that could thwart many of the IED's from detonating are held back from our forces for a reason that's not been released to the public (or the military).
The billions thrown at Iraq and allowed to be stolen are in contrast to the billions being proposed to be CUT from domestic social programs by Bush's new budget.
And I've believed for a long time that the instability in Iraq is facilitated by elements of our govt and it's allies.

[MissWaverly]

11. welcome, Calzone

I believe that certain elements would forment unrest to keep the profits coming, yes,
that is not beyond the realm of imagination. Yes, I don't think it was an accident
that huge ammunition dumps were ignored on the way to Baghdad, we were supposed to
be securing the country so we cut the locks off ammo dumps, jump back in the jeep
and zoom to Baghdad, makes sense.

[calzone]

20. Thanks MissWaverly

I still remember the radioactive waste we failed to secure and that fell into the hands of unsuspecting locals.
One storage dump had so much explosives stolen it would've taken several days and a convoy of trucks.

[MissWaverly]

22. Oh, you must mean Al Qaqaa

The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2004/1025missing.htm

[MissWaverly]

23. isn't it funny, 363 tons of US currency missing

and 380 tons of conventional explosives missing, oh, dear, what's a ton or two among
friends, let's keep that coverup alive, GOP.

[calzone]

25. Meanwhile......

..... http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush-wants-health-education-funds-for-war/2007/02/06/1170524094468.html

[MissWaverly]

34. see this from crooks & liars website on bremer testimony

Paul Bremer insisted that he’d improve controls by hiring a certified public accounting firm. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

The United States gave the contract not to an accounting firm but to a tiny consulting company, Northstar — which NBC News found is headquartered at a private home near San Diego.
“They violated the rules. They picked a contractor who didn’t meet their requirements,” says Paul Light, a government contracting expert and professor at New York University.
Northstar’s president says the Pentagon knew Northstar was not a certified public accounting firm and that four experienced employees went to Iraq and did a good job. However, one audit notes that a single Northstar employee maintained spreadsheets tracking billions of dollars.

http://crooksandliars.com/

[lpbk2713]

7. That could buy a hell of a lot of C4 for IED's.

..... and it probably did.

[partylessinOhio]

12. This is criminal especially in view of the fact that

CriminalBushWhoShouldBeImpeached has cut or eliminated funding for needy, elderly and veteran Americans.

[Divine Discontent]

14. The sheer incompetence of the whole SHAM operation pisses me off

FUCK them... (I'll feel bad about using that word later, not now) frankly, I'm beyonndddddd fed up. From now on, I am hostile on the subject of the war. And for those of you who love a good laugh, you can put, 'what took you so long', well have at it. Just know, you don't know all I've called and wrote about the subject in 4 years, but I can't remain polite anymore about it, they lied about EVERYTHING and it's as if he wants chaos, like Hitler, so he can coddle people when they mess up and make them loyal to him, the smart ones flee his failing empire and tell us about the mess (a la Richard Clarke). I've voiced my deep concerns against this war from day one that I heard that Shrubya was getting tired of the international team looking for WMD's not finding any and demanding Iraq give up it's weapons...

damn sham fraud ass liars, all of them, and anyone who still backs this war as being needed, and doesn't want the troops home quickly! I wish Feingold or Clark would run.



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[unblock]

15. embezzlement is only "incompetent" if someone goes to prison....

so far they're looking plenty competent.

[Divine Discontent]

16. oooh,,,, YOU! lol

I couldn't agree more, considering... I hope that they don't look so competent in about 3 months...



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[MissWaverly]

18. I also wish Feingold, Clark or Gore would run

I agreed that anyone who voted for the Iraq War did so because it was politically shrewd
at the time, they knew there was not enough there to justify it, they had to, if they
had any sense of what's best for the country, they would not run for prez in
2008 after enabling this illegal war.

[Divine Discontent]

24. well, hopefully at least ONE of them will run and get a TON of support from us n/t

[MissWaverly]

33. I sure hope so

I really want someone who does not triangulate, I don't want someone to give a speech with
the applause pauses all pencilled in, I want the candidate to consider the big picture,
the best for the American people. I am sorry but as much as I like many of the current
candidates, I don't buy the I voted for the Iraq War Defense myself. If we could figure out
that something was fishy so could they, they didn't even seriously debate it, because GWB
was high in the popularity polls at the time. I don't want a president who makes decisions
on what's popular but what is in the best interests of the American people not the neocons,
not the oil lobby, not Wall Street and certainly not the military-industrial complex.

[Divine Discontent]

39. right on!

and the few that said, "WOH WOH WOH! This intelligence doesn't make sense" need to be strongly considered. I trust the D's far more than the R's, but you're right, cowardice in the shadow of a popular president shouldn't have occurred if they believed the war was wrong, because how brilliant would they have looked today if they fought hard, like Kucinich.

[MissWaverly]

40. Read Dean's Worse than Watergate

"Curious myself, I decided to parse Bush's argument for War with Iraq. With only a few hours of research on-line, reading source documents that the President himself had cited,
which were publicly posted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.S. Department
of State, the CIA and the United Nations, I was amazed at the patently misleading use of
the material Bush had presented to Congress. Did he believe no one would check? The falsification was not merely self-evident, it was feeble and disturbing."

quotation taken from John W. Dean's Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George
W. Bush, page 146, Warner Books, NY 2005

[Porcupine]

17. and not a single ledger book. nt

.

[MissWaverly]

19. ledger book? how about receipts?

people were using wheelbarrows to carry the cash away.

[proud patriot]

21. Staggering

:grr:

[MGD]

28. It's so hard to fund covert black ops with money on the books

what with all that congressional oversight and personal accountability/liability/responsibility. Missappropiating funds in this way allows our favorite alphabet groups leeway to conduct the kind of operations that nobody talks about and that most people would prefer to not even know about.

[TWiley]

30. All the stories .......

About the dead civilians, many of which have one thing in common:

They have had holes drilled into their bodies with a cordless electric drill. I would think it has to take either a highly trained professional, or a serious sadist to commit such an act.

Looking at probabilities as factored by huge amounts of cash, it seems very likely that many of these "deaths" were not due to sectarian violence, but rather they were due to the activities of mercinaries.

[MissWaverly]

35. also how many iraqis have access to "cordless" drills

and what would they charge them with, they have no electricity, their entire struggle is
hand to mouth scurry for water and food every day through dangerous streets, there is
no home depot in Baghdad. Another jarring element, just like the dog leashes at Abu
Ghraib, those soldiers did not pack them in their duffel bags as they went off to
Iraq, the same way with the video equipment.

[truthisfreedom]

29. So obviously, they wanted the insurgents to get their hands on that money to perpetuate the war

so they could continue dumping cash into the deep pockets of the mercenary companies and halliburton, guaranteeing everyone giant retirement cushions and power and money flowing through the military-industrial complex for decades to come. It was all about shifting the center of power.

[SpiralHawk]

31. corrupt republicon cronies -- stealing from America

as usual

republicon = no honor

[Vinca]

32. If only I had known - I could have been a "ghost" employee.

[Bandit]

36. Ever tried taking ten thousand dollars of your own money out of the bank?

The rigamarole they put you through is amazing but if Bush* wants to send twelve billion in untraceable hundred dollar bills no one even asks why....I would venture a bet that a great multitude of Swiss Bank Accounts were opened around the same time as the twelve billion went missing...

[GreenTea]

37. How can ANY republican possibly defend this act of fact?

What possible tab dance would they try? Do they have no shame, which should immediately pushed in their face, they don't...they'll lie and make some bullshit excuse for the monkey Bush!

[Blue_Tires]

38. ttt

only the criminals and thieves get rich in this day and age