The Case of the Missing $21 Billion - Who's Following the Iraq Money?

[im10ashus]

By DAVE LINDORFF

During the days of the Nixon Watergate scandal investigation, reporter Bob Woodword was famously advised by his mysterious source, Deep Throat, to "follow the money" as a way of cracking the story.

Well, there is a lot of money to follow in the current scandal that can be best described as the Bush/Cheney administration, and so far, nobody's doing it.

My bet for the place that needs the most following is the more than $9 billion that has gone missing without a trace in Iraq--as well as $12 billion in cash that the Pentagon flew into Iraq straight from Federal Reserve vaults via military transports, and for which there has been little or no accounting.

When word of the missing money first surfaced in 2004, Congress passed legislation creating an office of Special Inspector General, assuming that this new agency would root out the problem and figure why all that taxpayer money had disappeared, and why only minimal reconstruction was going on in destroyed Iraq, instead of a massive rebuilding program as intended.

cont'd...
http://counterpunch.com/lindorff06072006.html

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1. I thought Volecker would uncover something.

He probably did and it thus got suppressed as a matter of national security.

[im10ashus]

2. My favorite part of this article:

Given all this, it seems almost unfathomable that Democratic Party leaders would be insisting, as have Rep. Nancy Pelosi (R-CA) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, that there would be no impeachment hearings in Congress if Democrats were to succeed in winning back Congress this November.

What better way to follow that money than an impeachment hearing into why the president unconstitutionally subverted the intent of Congress in establishing an office of special inspector general for corruption in Iraq?

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3. Kerry's good at following the money.

Let's appoint him special prosecuter after the 06 elections.

[im10ashus]

4. It's so unfathomable to me.

How even rethugs couldn't be interested in what is happening to OUR tax dollars. One more thing that pisses me off about our sorry state of affairs.

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5. As long as they share in the profits.

Unlike Oil for food where they weren't part of the corruption.

Republicans are simply loan sharks that finance things with OPM.