Maine Owl

More evidence of fraud right under the nose of Senator Susan Collins

$13 Billion in Iraq Aid Wasted Or Stolen, Ex-Investigator Says
By Dana Hedgpeth - Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2008; Page A19

A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, an arm of the Democratic caucus, that an Iraqi auditing bureau "could not properly account for" the money.

While many of the projects audited "were not needed -- and many were never built," he said, "this very real fact remains: Billions of American dollars that paid for these projects are now gone."

My first question is, Why is this buried on Page A19? The bigger question is, Why is the lede buried?

Investigations by Iraqi oversight agencies also found that some of the money sent to the Defense Ministry was diverted to al-Qaeda in Iraq, Adhoob said, and deposited into banks in Jordan and elsewhere.

If I had a loved one killed in this war, I'd be livid. My own government, however unwittingly, was funding the enemy. Shameful.

Here are some archive posts on Iraq fraud and the years of less-than-interested approach to oversight of this by Senator Susan Collins:

Daylight Robbery (June 2008)
Iraq waste, fraud, and abuse dissected by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Susan Collins and the Oil-for-Food double standard

Politics-charged announcement follows summer filled with assertion of Iraqi government power

By any stretch, 8,000 is a modest draw down:

President Bush: Here is the bottom line: While the enemy in Iraq is still dangerous, we have seized the offensive, and Iraqi forces are becoming increasingly capable of leading and winning the fight. As a result, we have been able to carry out a policy of "return on success" ? reducing American combat forces in Iraq as conditions on the ground continue to improve.

Predictably, both McCain and Obama think their own ideas about Iraq are vindicated. The design, however, clearly is for Bush to help McCain get the upper hand because the announcement reinforces his "maverick" image in being an early "surge" promoter.

But the "surge" is far from the only or even any reason at all it looks like Iraq is quieter, for now. Patrick Cockburn offered in a short piece last week parts of the story missing from all the American political narratives:

How the Bush Administration is Helping McCain:
The Fake U.S. Victory in Iraq
By PATRICK COCKBURN

Much of what the White House is now doing is done to help the Republicans in the presidential election. The aim is to give the impression that Iraq has finally come right for the US and victory is finally in its grasp. The surge is promoted as the strategy by which the tide was turned and it is true that the Sunni uprising against the US occupation has largely ended.

But it has done so for reasons that have little to do with the surge or American actions of any kind. Crucial to the success of the government against the Mahdi Army has been the support of Iran. It is they who arranged for the Shia militiamen to go home.

Obama, for his part, pointed out today the money sink-hole the "wrong" war in Iraq will continue to be:

Obama: We will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq while the Iraqi government sits on a $79 billion surplus. In the absence of a timetable to remove our combat brigades, we will continue to give Iraq's leaders a blank check instead of pressing them to reconcile their differences. So the President's talk of "return on success" is a new name for continuing the same strategic mistakes that have dominated our foreign policy for over 5 years.

I find it unseemly for Obama (and other politicians like both Susan Collins and Tom Allen) to take the handy course of whipping the Iraqis over their treasury, seeing how U.S.-run contractors and quislings have stolen Iraq blind over those five years. I'd be more more impressed if he acknowledged the death, destruction, and displacement the Iraqi people have suffered over these years and promised that his administration would get the American boot off of Iraq's neck.

Note & update: Earlier in the summer I had been concerned about the onerous so-called "Status of Forces" agreement and colonial oil proposal the Bush Administration had been attempting to impose on Iraq. An excellent piece describing what had ensued over the summer to cause the Bush Administration to back off is HERE:

Is the Maliki Government Jumping Off
the American Ship of State?
Michael Schwartz , TomDispatch.com , Sep 8, 2008

In the past few weeks, the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made it all too clear that, in the long run, it has little inclination to remain "aligned with U.S. interests" in the region. In fact, we may be witnessing a classic "tipping point," a moment when Washington's efforts to dominate the Middle East are definitively deep-sixed.

The client state that the Bush administration has spent so many years and hundreds of billions of dollars creating, nurturing, and defending has shown increasing disloyalty and lack of gratitude, as well as an ever stronger urge to go its own way. Under the pressure of Iraqi politics, Maliki has moved strongly in the direction of a nationalist position on two key issues: the continuing American occupation of the country and the future of Iraqi oil. In the process, he has sought to distance his government from the Bush administration and to establish congenial relationships, if not an outright alliance, with Washington's international adversaries, including the Bush administration's mortal enemy, Iran.

Hmmm. The ungrateful wretches. It won't be easy for them under either McCain or Obama, but it may not be long before the Iraqis themselves cast off that American boot.

Baghdad treasury flush with oil revenue

A front page story in the Wall Street Journal last week and THIS item from Reuters reveals the steps being taken by the Iraqi government to increase its military might and solidify its perceived victory over competing factions.

Iraq eyes Lockheed F-16 fighter aircraft purchase
Fri Sep 5, 2008 12:13pm EDT
By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, Sept 5 (Reuters) - The Iraqi government has asked for information about buying 36 F-16 fighter aircraft built by Lockheed Martin Corp ...

The request, received Aug. 27, is being reviewed "in the normal course of business" as part of the U.S. government-to-government arms sale process, said Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman.

F-16s are among the world's most advanced multirole fighters and a powerful symbol of military ties to the United States. Iraq's interest in the fighter jet, reported first by The Wall Street Journal, could spark concerns among neighbors worried about advanced arms in the hands of a country still facing major internal challenges. ...

What better symbol of the normalcy of relations between Iraq and Washington? The Iraqi government has jelled in recent months and now sees its future as a blossoming U.S. client state (ally in the Terror War?).

With Iraqi oil pumping and the petrodollars flowing into the U.S. military-industrial complex as powerful weapons needed for maintaining "stability" flow back, the not unfamiliar pattern of Arab client states doing the bidding of the U.S. comes to Iraq.

But you know the part of this story I really find amazing is just how typical the Iraq situation is becoming. Reuters mentions that the most advanced F-16s are being produced in Poland, Israel, Greece and Pakistan; while Morocco has recently become the "25th and latest overseas buyer with a deal for 24 new Block 50/52 models"!

After the crushing blows and millions of deaths and displacements in Iraq, U.S. mandarins revel in a "stable" future that will be grim indeed for the bulk of the population. Meanwhile, discussion of whether or not unbridled militarism is right for America is the farthest thing from the attention of the presidential campaign.