bushCartel Criminals Extraordinaire; $600 million of YOUR money gone

[LynnTheDem]

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.

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.

"In the early days, there was no record keeping. They were flushed with money and seized assets. People just didn't follow established procedures," said Charles Krohn, a former CPA official. "You were dealing with inexperienced people who didn't understand that there's always a day of reckoning."

Besides the more than two dozen criminal cases under investigation by the inspector general, about 35 other matters have been referred to other U.S. agencies for further investigation, said James Mitchell, an inspector general spokesman.

Former CPA officials and contracting experts said they were surprised at the number of criminal investigations described in Bowen's report. They noted that criminal corruption charges in the U.S. involving federal contracting were rare.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0730-03.htm

Rare...when a real government is in the White House, unlike the fraudulant fakes squatting in it now. "Inexperienced people" who don't understand "there's always a day of reckoning"". Yep, that's the bushCartel to a T.

Bet we know now why the rightwingnuttery keep spouting fake indignation over the fake "oil-for-food scandal", of which the ONLY PERSON who SAYS he has any proof is that Iranian spy AHMED "thanks suckers!" CHALABI; must distract Americans from the PROVEN theft & fraud of the bush Administration!

Will it work? With the help of the US State Stenomedia and the incredible and total ignorance & stupidity of the rightwingnuts, 51% of America will remain totally oblivious. Remarkable!

[xchrom]

1. i just don't think americans care

news like this is important -- but more important are the ears that receive the news.
i just think americans care more about punishing somebody with war than they do about being bilked.
i think the so called purple middle is just fine with news of theft as long as there are some dead arabs involved.

[highnooner]

2. 1st Reported July 20th

LA Times.

http://www.unknownnews.net/040803lili.html

[acmavm]

3. Our democratic reps in the House and Senate should be shouting

"where is the money" every single day.

The problem is they are starting to act like the bush* cabal. They think once they've pried it from our hands and taken it from our paychecks (before we even get ours) it belongs to them.

It's just not showing incompetence and theft on greed on one side because by their silence, both parties are guilty.

[teryang]

4. What about the billions in Reconstruction funds unspent?

...I heard Armitage promising a committee a spending target of $300,000,000.00 a month after the money sat unused for months. A significant portion of these funds was converted to military use without any Congressional authorization. The holdup on reconstruction spending was the worsening security situation in Iraq, which since Armitage's spending target speech, has gotten much worse.

This is a handy little slush fund that administration cronies can dip into at their leisure.

There is way more than 600,000,000.00 in Iraqi funds unaccounted for. This is why the phony UN oil for food scandal was created in the media, to distract the public from Bremers provisional governments flight from UN auditors.