Audit: $8 billion paid to rule-breaking U.S. and Iraqi contractors

Audit: $8 billion paid to rule-breaking U.S. and Iraqi contractors

news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON - An internal audit of some $8 billion paid to U.S. and Iraqi contractors found that nearly every transaction failed to comply with federal laws or regulations aimed at preventing fraud, in some cases lacking even basic invoices explaining how the money was spent.

In one example, $11 million was paid to a U.S. company without any record of what goods or services were provided, the IG wrote.

(visit the link for the full news article)

It is not uncommon to see anomalies every time there is an audit. What makes this interesting & worrying is it involves the US government.

As a director of a big Company I often describe to my staff and usually use as an example the US organizations (public & private) as a model when it comes to transparency of dealings & embezzlement issues.

But when a news like this comes out, you would wonder, whatever happened to the once reliable system? How could this anomaly ever happened?

While there is no immediate answer nor a definitive conclusion on the truth behind this, the presence of such big anomaly is somewhat unwelcome & frustrating.

Who are the guys who are really behind all of this? Can this be done by an individual or group? Could this be considered a corruption with some high ranking government people involved?

If indeed there is a conspiracy behind all of this, how far does it go with regards to authorities involved? And most importantly, who could be the highest government ranking person is responsible?



news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 23-5-2008 by searching_for_truth]

[edit on 23-5-2008 by searching_for_truth]

[edit on 23-5-2008 by searching_for_truth]

That's disturbing but ultimately not surprising. One of the over-arching themes of the Iraq war so far seems to have been the transfer of money from the taxpayer (both American and Iraqi) to private enterprise.

This has taken the form shown in this article as well as the unfair oil contracts which were hastily drawn up to give big oil a huge slice of the oil revenues which by rights should have gone to the Iraqi people.

It seems to be a new gold rush, if you want to make easy money set yourself up as a contractor in Iraq. Even the legitimate contracts seem to have been grossly over inflated which doesn't come as a shock to me when the very people overseeing them have financial stakes in the companies involved.

Shipping billions of dollars in hard currency over there to be plundered symbolises in physical form the thought process of the legislators in this war.

Hmm... Maybe we can nail Bush on bad accounting and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?

A lot of this money I would say is dark. Kickbacks to Blackwater Contractors, bribery funds to soldiers overlooking the Oil supplies, some dough for Iraqi Security forces, maybe money to cover their asses in friendly fire incidents/collateral damage, etc... that kind of thing.
It's necessary, especially in an illegal war like this, to maintain a certain degree of secrecy about "questionable practices".

And if booze and cigarettes don't work, money is generally the next easiest and most widely accepted option to G.I. Joes.

But I doubt anything will really come of this in terms of an investigation or commission.
Imagine trying to trace $11 million dollars from Iraq, to a US Company for services rendered. You think soldiers keep receipts?
Maybe the military accountants have the records archived?

Lol... it's like finding a needle in a stack of needles. Who the hell knows where the cash went or why. Dirty contractors and corrupt Officers know how to cover their tracks.

I can't find it now, but this is just an add on too all the work that was paid for over there, by us taxpayers, and didn't even get done. We should all be so used to getting 'the shaft' by our Gov't by now, that it's like driving a mini-cooper thru the Lincoln Tunnel.

this is just a feeble attempt by the outgoing Bush administration
to bury or otherwise obscure the 10s-100s of billion$
that the tens of dozens of war-profiteers were allowed to plunder
during the Bush-Cheney tenure.

By acknowledging a couple of billion here & a couple billion there,
it is thought that the larger picture of the real war-profiteers headquartered domestically will be glossed over & forgotten...

the article could very well be the first pointing of fingers at the numberous subcontractors in the Iraq theater and the Iraqi government itself...
the cover-up program is now underway, it's designed to distract the public as the 'magician' before us continues to make piles of money disappear

here's a follow up


The Powers That Be are ramping up the scale of distractions and pointing the blame. (Away from themselves)


Now it's Two Democrat leaders who are urging investigation of Iraqi leadership as the prime perpetrators of the embezzlement of Billion$
in USDollars and medical supplies...
(winding through the the Iraqi black-market, funding the Mahdi army,
eventually leading to attacks on US forces among other things)

see: www.opednews.com...