CPA Bilks Iraq Coffers of Millions
Reported by Marie Therese - July 31, 2004 -
Charges of fraud in Iraq contracts - U.S. authority lost track of millions, auditor reports by T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times Friday, July 30, 2004
Washington -- A comprehensive examination of the U.S.-led agency that oversaw the rebuilding of Iraq has triggered at least 27 criminal investigations and produced evidence of millions of dollars' worth of fraud, waste and abuse, according to a report by the Coalition Provisional Authority's inspector general.
The report also says that U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq failed to keep good track of nearly $1 billion in Iraqi money spent for reconstruction projects and can't produce records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for.
The CPA, for example, paid nearly $200,000 for 15 police trucks without confirming they were delivered, and auditors have not located them, the report said. Officials also didn't have records to justify the $24.7 million price tag for replacing the Iraqi currency, which used to carry Saddam Hussein's portrait, the report said.
The report is the most sweeping indication yet that some U.S. officials and private contractors repeatedly violated the law in the free-wheeling atmosphere that pervaded the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild the war- torn country.
More than $600 million in cash from Iraqi oil money was spent with insufficient controls. Senior U.S. officials manipulated or misspent contract money. Millions of dollars' worth of equipment could not be located, the report said.
To read the rest of the article go to The San Francisco Chronicle
COMMENT:
The CPA is under investigation for fraud? I'm shocked, shocked.... No, I'm not shocked at all. I'm sad.
There seems to be a style of political media manipulation in vogue these days. It's a kind of what I call the "preemptive strike" technique. It goes like this.
A political party knows there's a really damaging story in the pipeline working its way to the media.
The party needs to blunt the effect of the story.
The solution is to float another story on the same general topic that is almost as bad only with a different perpetrator.
For example, let's say you know that the media will be breaking the story of the Coalition Provisional Authority's mismanagement of tax money in Iraq. So, you marshall your surrogates for a couple of months beforehand to expose corruption in another organization, perhaps the United Nations, perhaps the opposing political party or some big corporate executive (or all of these).
In essence, when the CPA story is finally released, you've taken the teeth out of the report by highlighting corruption somewhere else. This technique is one of Bill O'Reilly's pet peeves - using one wrong to justify another wrong. He gets really upset when his guests try to do this (although, on occasion, he has lapsed into it when defending President Bush).
In my opinion there is another story working its way into the mainstream media. In anticipation, the administration is floating stories about survivors of Saddam's massacres. FOX has covered this extensively. I cannot help but wonder if this is a preemptive strike to blunt the disgust and moral outrage that will surely arise once average Americans know about the rape of children that was in the original prisoner abuse videos.
At the time of the Senate hearings, Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain both warned against the suppression, saying that it would be better to put everything out on the table all at once. For some reason, the administration has chosen to ignore their advice and withhold large portions of the materials. It is just a matter of time before they surface. I think the Bush administration is hoping that they've buttonholed this story until after November's election.
For a brief report on this go to The Washington Times.
