This is not an example of Big Gubument wasting money, this is an example of what happens when we don't have enough government oversight of how taxpayer money is spent.
This is a "small government" problem, not a Big Gubument problem.
The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), created by the Bush Administration and headed by Paul Bremer, was not a real U.S. Government agency. It was not voted on or authorized by Congress. It was never sanctioned by the UN Security Council. It was not subject to U.S. or Iraqi law. Yet it received and disbursed $ billions in Iraqi and U.S. taxpayer cash -- much of it going into the hands of shady U.S. contractors with no staff or qualifications, but with plenty of political connections with the GOP and White House.
The UN even tried to audit the CPA, hiring KPMG to do the job, but the CPA prevented KPMG from getting necessary access.
Yet another example of how the Bush Administration has screwed up the occupation of Iraq, trying to do everything quickly, on the cheap, with little or no planning -- and sharing the spoils of war with political friends.
Billions Over Baghdad
By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
Vanity Fair | October 2007
Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency—much of it belonging to the Iraqi people—was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam's palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.
No comments:
Post a Comment