"Show Me the Money!" - Waste and Fraud in Iraq from the Start-by Michael Collins

[kpete]

"Show Me the Money!" - Waste and Fraud in Iraq from the Start

Submitted by Michael Collins on Mon, 2010-08-30 08:36

.................

Let's see how well Bremer and the CPA did in the months after Baghdad was occupied.

Show Me the Money

Of the $19.5 billion disbursed in Iraq in just over a year after the invasion, $12 billion came from the New York Federal Reserve board in cash. This consisted of $1, $5, and $10 denominations to start and shifted to $100's over time. One shipment consisted of $3 billion in cash. The pallets holding the cash weighted nearly a ton.

In order to keep track of this type of money, a top notch accounting system is required. The CPA didn't like their first accounting firm. Instead, they hired a very small firm, North Star Consultants, Inc. out of San Diego, which apparently was located in a suburban residence. The $1.4 million contract with North Star didn't go far. There were no internal controls within CPA to handle this money, none, according to congressional testimony.

So to answer the question, "How well did the United States do in handling all this case, we'd have to say, "Who knows?"

.............

The $8.8 billion lost in the initial phases of the occupation is just a sample of a much wider problem. We'll have a much larger overall fraud rate at some point. But it will be too late. A job once well done is twice done. We'll be doing the accounting job forever on Iraq but we'll never see a dime of the money return to the Treasury.

<>

Mission accomplished for the greedy criminals who stole this money and much more out of other programs.

more:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/54598

[Autumn]

1. This is so infuriating,

why have we and our Democratic leaders allowed this to go unchallenged? What a fucking disgrace.

[autorank]

2. Isn't it!

The waste is a abuse of power and our hard work.

More infuriating is that we're getting these half assed stories from AP 8 years into it. The missing $8.8 billion
is simply an outrage. It's just gone, period, no where to be found. There's also money that went between the NY
Fed, a big bank there, and the Bank of Iraq (owned by a Wall Street bank) that's also just disappeared. Those were
all US controlled concerns.

We are nothing to them. We're just here to be manipulated into their next wealth transfer (war time is the best time
to move wealth from the middle class to the super rich, btw).

[Me.]

3. Great Piece

That Michael Collins writes terrific stuff! K & R.

[autorank]

4. I hear he's a sport;) n/t

[truedelphi]

5. Yet when Schwartzennegger asked Geithner on bended knee for

Twenty billion bucks as a "loan" to help kick start the economy here in California, Geithner said there wasn't that kind of money to go around.

I think Geithner might even have thrown in a tidbit or two of advice about how the individual states need to start demonstrating some responsibility. (Our "loaning" the Fed the money to begin with apparently doesn't count! This state gets 73 cents for every dollar it offers Washington DC.)

Here's one thought:
We had better ask our next Governor to see to it that California is a way stop on the transit route of money going from Fed Reserve to Kabul and Baghdad. I bet that way we could find ourselves some cash.

And then, when reading the article, you sure have to wonder why this wasn't done by
electronic deposit?

I help run a very small business - our international funds come to us electronically, and should we be required to pay out to someone in a foreign land, we would also do it through electronic debit also. That is just how businesses transfer money these days.

So what is up with "pallets of cash"?

[autorank]

10. You're a responsible business person

You want to know where the money comes from, where it goes. You want to be able to do an audit and make sure
things are done right.

You can trace EFT's. You can't trace cash. It's called "walking around money" at election time. You just hand
it out, pocket some for yourself, and nobody can account for it.

It is truly and outrage.

Little Timmy could care less about California. I didn't realize the give back from the Federal government was down
to 73 cents. That's revolution time if it's widely enough known.

Ellen Brown had a clever idea for California (my "homeland"). She said create a "Bank of California" with the states
assets backing it. Here scheme would right the budget problem immediately with that. Maybe Brown will do something
creative.

[truedelphi]

12. I confess that I don't know who

Ellen Brown happens to be. Is she related to Jerry Brown?

California might actually be getting 75 or 76 cents per dollar back from the Fed Government, now that so many households are on Food Stamps. In my County, 18 percent of the households are on them.

And a bit of an increase from the stem cell research that will be soon hitting the economy inside the San Francisco Bay area.

Places like San Antonio Texas get a much, much bigger return, due to all the DoD contracts.

And given your sense about the economy, have you seen the videos that "tinyrevolution.com" has up and running today, courtesy of the "Real News."

I am guessing that they would be right up your alley, intellectually speaking.

[truedelphi]

6. K & R. n/t

[autorank]

14. :)

[npk]

7. The war in Iraq was nothing more than a scheme

perpetrated by Bush to enrich his well politically connected friends. If you look at the prisons and hospitals built in Bagdad they were contracted out
to companies that had done business with the Bush family in the past.

And in most cases a lot of the infrastructures that was built was not needed and goes unused now.

[autorank]

8. It's a win - win for the super rich

They get the defense mojo going full boar, which includes "homeland" security spending AND they get to keep oil
prices higher than they would be if Iraq actually produced the oil it should. Very strange crowd, dangerous I'd
say. You are so right!

[Stinky The Clown]

9. Mikey, this is a BIG Fucking Deal

KnR

[autorank]

11. I'd like to guard this pallet of cash for a while

There's so much of it.



:evilgrin:

[BeHereNow]

13. K&R. Wish I could talk to you...

Honestly though, I am fearful for a family member
who knows something about some of this, at the very least.
He was there.
BHN

[kpete]

15. hmmmmmmmm

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Martin Luther King Jr.

[BeHereNow]

16. DU is not the place to discuss this particular situation.

Maybe I will PM Michael and see if he has a contact number.
I have discussed it with Vincent Bugiosi, he advised
treading with care in that it was potentially a very dangerous
disclosure.

BHN