Losing billions in Iraq

Filed in archive risk on July 28, 2010

The quagmire that is Iraq continues with revelations that the United States defence department can't account for close to $9 billion of money used for reconstruction.

According to that report, the US Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction found that no one in the defence department could oversee how money from the Development Fund for Iraq was spent. The poor record keeping means that seven years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, there is next to no electricity, clean water and sewage available.

So where did the money go? The $8.7 billion probably disappeared in various back door deal. It's rife in Iraq with news reports that GE has been fined $23 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it provided $3.6 million worth of kickbacks in the form in the form of cash, computer equipment, medical supplies, and services to get contracts from the Iraqi Health Ministry or the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

All of which raises serious questions about whether there is any point to the US occupation of Iraq.