Iraq Money

How are your tax dollars being spent in a war far far away?

Luxury cars, a $20,000 Harley Davidson motorcycle, $10,000 Breitling watches and mountains of cash were all part of an elaborate corruption scheme in Iraq that involves at least seven Americans, including five Army reserve officers.

Who is watching these folks?

A former Iraq reconstruction official, Robert Stein, a convicted felon who was inexplicably put in charge of $82 million in contracts, pleaded guilty Thursday to corruption, bribery, and weapons charges.

Who put this person in charge?

"He essentially funneled contracts to his cronies and received bribes," said Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, in an interview with NBC News.

Who were his cronies?

"It shows the brazenness of the people who were around those sums of money and what they thought they could get away with," says Frank Willis, a former official with the Coalition Provisional Authority who has criticized the way the CPA handled cash.
E-mails cited in court records indicate that some unnamed U.S. officials even demanded specific cars: a white SUV and an electric blue sports car.

Who are these officials?

And what about the projects that were supposed to be built or refurbished in Iraq? A series of audits by Bowen's office found major problems. "There were millions of dollars in grants and contracts," he says, "that simply went for no work at all."
Bowen says cash was sloppily handled.

(This may be the understatement of the year)

"The management of cash was haphazard at best. We found that it was kept in footlockers of the trailers that people that lived there," he says. "There was a safe that wasn't locked in the bathroom of the office."

Some of the work that was done was shoddy, according to one audit. For example, a recently repaired elevator at Hilla General Hospital collapsed, killing three Iraqis.

The end result of it all on the ground in Iraq?

"The reconstruction efforts in the South Central Region, around Hilla, failed," says Bowen. "It failed because we had a person of significant responsibility, the person in charge of that money simply committed repeated criminal wrongdoing."
To place all this blame on one person is ludicrous. There is obviously going to be a major cover-up and the true culprits who enjoyed all the benefits will walk away without a blemish, and with some very nice parting gifts…

Fight the Machine