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Was The Iraq War Merely A Smokescreen For "The Largest Theft Of [Taxpayer] Funds In National History"?
Back in 2004, following the disastrous Iraq war, started on false Weapons of Mass Destruction pretenses, and which was nothing but a backdoor subsidy to various energy contractors close to the Bush administration, the US government decided to impose a mini Marshall Plan and literally flood the country with billions in crisp $100 bills. The LA Times reports: "Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time." And here we are making fun of the Chairsatan and his puny helicopter. Yet where the story gets very disturbing is that it now seems that more than half of this "reconstruction" funding was blatantly stolen! "Despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things. For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be "the largest theft of funds in national history."" Is another huge political embarrassment in store for the current US administration (even if on this occasion it can legitimately be blamed on the predecessor?): it appears so: "The mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, and an irritant to Washington's relations with Baghdad. Iraqi officials are threatening to go to court to reclaim the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, seized Iraqi assets and surplus funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program." Prepare for many more hearings involving Halliburton et al. As for where the money is - why, it has long been spent.
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According to the National Priorities Project's CostOfWar.com, a website providing a running tally of the expense incurred by U.S. wars, the cost of the Iraq conflict is now nearly $801 billion. However, when medical and disability claims are included, as well as the cost of replacing equipment and weapons, economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes estimate the eventual cost of the war could be between $4 and $6 trillion, The Christian Science Monitor reports.
Some of these funds include $20 billion spent annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to NPR. In addition, a recent report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting estimates that between $31 and $60 billion may have been lost to waste and fraud thanks to "poor planning and payoffs" over the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Indeed, as the U.S. prepares to withdraw completely from Iraq by the end of the year millions more in military funds are expected to go to waste. Faced with little alternative due to shipping costs, the U.S. military has already given away $250 million worth of equipment to the Iraqi government, including everything from tanks to office supplies. As entire bases that cost billions to construct are turned over to Iraqi hands, the tally is only expected to increase over the coming months.
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whitegp wrote: Chump change compared to the incompetence that is the legacy of Bush's War of choice.
This Independent watches both sides, but has not forgotten the Bush Idiocy, the president no one wants to campaign with.
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FredHayek wrote: "W" was re-elected so he can't be all that bad, right? People had four years to see him in action and still said he is better than the Dem. And that was after years of war.
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