$12bn in cash to Iraq, wasn't enough?

	Duration: 02:36 minutes Upload Time: 07-02-15 16:50:17 User: Tommytime8 :::: Favorites :::: Top Videos of Day
Description: The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent. The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee. In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover. Details of the shipments have emerged in a memorandum prepared for the meeting of the House committee on oversight and government reform which is examining Iraqi reconstruction. Its chairman, Henry Waxman, a fierce critic of the war, said the way the cash had been handled was mind-boggling. "The numbers are so large that it doesn't seem possible that they're true. Who in their right mind would send 363 tonnes of cash into a war zone?" The memorandum details the casual manner in which the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbursed the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets. "One CPA official described an environment awash in $100 bills," the memorandum says. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack. "They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division's vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds." The minutes from a May 2004 CPA meeting reveal "a single disbursement of $500m in security funding labelled merely 'TBD', meaning 'to be determined'." The memorandum concludes: "Many of the funds appear to have been lost to corruption and waste ... thousands of 'ghost employees' were receiving pay cheques from Iraqi ministries under the CPA's control. Some of the funds could have enriched both criminals and insurgents fighting the United States." According to Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, the $8.8bn funds to Iraqi ministries were disbursed "without assurance the monies were properly used or accounted for". But, according to the memorandum, "he now believes that the lack of accountability and transparency extended to the entire $20bn expended by the CPA". To oversee the expenditure the CPA was supposed to appoint an independent certified public accounting firm. "Instead the CPA hired an obscure consulting firm called North Star Consultants Inc. The firm was so small that it reportedly operates out of a private home in San Diego." Mr Bowen found that the company "did not perform a review of internal controls as required by the contract". http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2008189,00.html
Comments
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Tommytime8 ::: Favorites or how about Saddam hatted terrorist more then you hate Mexicans?..lol 07-06-01 02:55:33 __________________________________________________
Tommytime8 ::: Favorites Not at all. Who do you think put the bath party into power? Who gave permission for Iraq to invade Kuwait, then attacked them anyway? Saddam was never a threat, we crippled Iraq, never stopped bombing them all thoughout the 90's and murdered thousands via the sanctions(an act of war) Iraq was nothing, if anything Iraq was an alley- Saddam hated terrorist more then you do now. 07-06-01 02:52:28 __________________________________________________
jamesryanphoto ::: Favorites Sup dog little history stumps you or what? 07-05-31 23:55:11 __________________________________________________
Tommytime8 ::: Favorites Bush was never right about Iraq, not on any single point, ever. 07-05-31 22:57:03 __________________________________________________
jamesryanphoto ::: Favorites bush is 100% right in iraq and 100% wrong on the border! 07-05-31 22:24:17 __________________________________________________
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Tommytime8 ::: Favorites dude, we have to pay the money back, in fact we are paying back- do some homework. ..we're never pulling out of Iraq, we're building permanent bases there. 07-04-14 14:43:31 __________________________________________________
katmaidog ::: Favorites OH RIGHT! And the same people in the same system that lost the first 12 billion is in charge of replacing it! It won't be done. We're gonna pull out and leave the Iraqis twisting in the wind, penniless. 07-04-14 08:51:01 __________________________________________________
Tommytime8 ::: Favorites fuck you dumbshit! Better do some research, we are paying that money back, it's in the new budget, retard. 07-04-14 02:39:50 __________________________________________________