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Iraq reconstruction money disappearing to corruption { April 30 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/friday/opinion_0419f70ad082e0b3000f.htmlhttp://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/friday/opinion_0419f70ad082e0b3000f.html
New looting in Iraq
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Friday, April 30, 2004
Surf over on the Web to marketplace.org and watch the "Cost of the War in Iraq" ticker click along at about $520 a second. This week, the total was chugging past $112 billion, including military and reconstruction costs. Too much of that money is being stolen.
Marketplace, a Minnesota Public Radio program, reported last week on rampant corruption in the Iraqi rebuilding effort. "Americans are footing a $20 billion tab to build schools, bridges, houses and power grids in Iraq." Marketplace found that "millions, possibly billions, of taxpayer dollars are disappearing in a web of bribes, kickbacks and price-gouging." Some examples:
* Iraqi ministry officials show up at the central bank and literally haul out bags of money with no one asking questions.
* Stores in Baghdad openly sell medicine and equipment -- refrigerators, microscopes -- stolen by employees from the Ministry of Health and sold on the black market. Other departments are similarly looted.
* U.S.-appointed members of the Iraqi Governing Council are accused of taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes.
* The international anti-corruption group Transparency International estimates that at least 20 percent of American taxpayers' money for Iraqi reconstruction is being siphoned off.
* A subsidiary of Halliburton hired a Kuwaiti firm to buy and transport oil for Iraq. The Pentagon official in charge of buying oil for the military said he could buy it for less than half the $2.64 per gallon the private company charged.
The Pentagon, Justice Department and Congress know that some companies see Iraqi reconstruction as a license to steal. Yet the preventive and punitive actions they have taken are minor. Even if the administration were dedicated to stopping the fraud, there are too few qualified people trying to watch too much money being spent too fast. Part of the scandal was built-in. At the Bush administration's insistence, measures to increase oversight and punish war profiteering were defeated before Congress appropriated billions for Iraq.
Corruption could deepen after June 30, when the Bush administration insists on handing over some form of sovereignty to Iraqis. The mechanics are unknown, but to the extent that the turnover includes turning over keys to the vault, corruption may increase.
That the United Nations will oversee parts of the transition is not seen as a cure, given the current oil-for-food scandal. That program, administered by the U.N. from 1996 until this year, saw Saddam Hussein earn $10 billion in kickbacks on $67 billion in oil sales intended for humanitarian aid to Iraqis. U.N. officials allegedly skimmed billions of their own. Congress and an independent panel are investigating that scandal. Because Iraq's reconstruction could cost another $50 billion to $100 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it is even more important to attack that emerging scandal.
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