2006_04_01_archive

Robbery_not_reconstruction_in_Iraq

Robbery_not_reconstruction_in_Iraq - The Boston Globe: "Robbery, not

reconstruction, in Iraq

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | April 18, 2006

The great liberator of Iraq was actually the hyena that cleaned out

the nation.

Halliburton over here, a corrupt company over there, we have heard

various individual cases of overcharging and fraud by American

firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last weekend, a Globe story

connected some of the dots of corruption. Of $20.7 billion in Iraqi

bank accounts and oil revenues seized by the Coalition Provisional

Authority in the US-led invasion of Iraq, $14 billion was given out

for reconstruction but tens of millions of dollars were unaccounted

for. A year ago, an audit by the inspector general found no

evidence of work done or goods delivered on 154 of 198 contracts.

Sixty cases of potential swindles are under investigation.

Halliburton and its hundreds of millions of dollars of overcharges

or baseless costs are well known. But millions more were taken by

companies that promised to build or restore libraries or police

facilities, or deliver trucks and construction equipment. Money was

given to the puppet government with no follow-up. US government

investigators can account for only a third of the $1.5 billion

given by the CPA to the interim government and it appears that a

substantial portion of the $8 billion given to Iraqi ministries

went to ''ghost employees.''

Because of the way the United States set things up after the

invasion, contractors are immune from prosecution by Iraqis. And

even when firms are prosecuted, the millions of dollars in fines go

to the US Treasury, not the Iraqi people. It amounts to two

invasions. First the bombs. Then the banks.

This is robbery, not reconstruction.

It also amounts to yet another slow-motion lie by the Bush

administration. The magnitude of the corruption brings into sharper

relief the claims made by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul

Wolfowitz a month before the war.

The claims came from the same infamous testimony before the House

Budget Committee where Wolfowitz said Army chief of staff Eric

Shinseki was ''wildly off the mark'' for saying several hundred

thousand troops would be needed to stabilize Iraq. Wolfowitz told

the committee that the administration was ''doing everything

possible in our planning now to make post-war recovery smoother and

less expensive.''

Besides pooh-poohing Shinseki's estimates, Wolfowitz said a

Washington Post story that quoted administration officials as

saying the initial invasion would cost $60 billion to $95 billion

was also way off the mark. Speaking about such administration

officials, Wolfowitz said, ''I don't think he knows what he's

talking - he or she knows what they're talking about. I mean, I

think the idea that it's going to be eclipsed by these monstrous

future costs ignores the nature of the country we're dealing

with.''

''It's got already, I believe, on the order of $15 billion to $20

billion a year in oil exports, which can finally - might finally be

turned to a good use instead of building Saddam's palaces. It has

one of the most valuable undeveloped sources of natural resources

in the world. And let me emphasize, if we liberate Iraq, those

resources will belong to the Iraqi people, that they will be able

to develop them and borrow against them.''

''It is a country that has somewhere between, I believe, over $10

billion -- let me not put a number on it - in an escrow account run

by the United Nations. It's a country that has $10 billion to $20

billion in frozen assets from the Gulf War, and I don't know how

many billions that are closeted away by Saddam and his henchmen.

But there's a lot of money there and to assume that we're going to

pay for it is just wrong.''

Wolfowitz was wrong on nearly every point, except for the idea that

there was about $20 billion floating around Iraq to seize. It has

been three years and all Iraq has become is a ''free-fraud zone,''

according to one of the attorneys for whistleblowers in Iraqi

swindles. Recently, the Army found that Halliburton had $263

million of exaggerated or unexplainable costs on a $2.4 billion

no-bid contract, yet still paid Halliburton $253 million of the

$263 million.

Halliburton is in 103rd place in the Fortune 500 with $21 billion

in revenues and just under $2.4 billion in profits. Halliburton

gets its $2.4 billion no-bid contract nearly paid in full while the

Iraqi people are out of much of their $21 billion. We liberated

Iraq. The resources belong to American contractors."

posted by Truth teller at 11:42 AM | 2 comments links to this post

Albright warns of Iraq disaster

Aljazeera.Net - Albright warns of Iraq disaster: "Albright warns of

Iraq disaster

Sunday 23 April 2006, 22:29 Makka Time, 19:29 GMT

Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, has warned that

the invasion of Iraq may end up as one of the worst disasters in

American foreign policy.

In an interview with The New York Times published on Sunday, Albright

said she did not think Saddam Hussein had been an imminent threat to

the United States.

'You can't go to war with everybody you dislike,' she said.

'I think Iraq may end up being one of the worst disasters in American

foreign policy.'

Asked what she would consider the greatest mistake of the Bush

administration, she said what troubles her is that democracy is

getting a bad name 'because it is identified with imposition and

occupation'.

She said much of what she had worked for during her tenure under Bill