BBC Uncovers Lost Iraq Billions

By Jane Corbin BBC News

Waxman: "It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

War profiteering

While President George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious.

"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.

Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.

Missing billions

The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in west London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004.

Judge Radhi al Radhi: "I believe these people are criminals."

He and his associates siphoned an estimated $1.2bn out of the ministry. They bought old military equipment from Poland but claimed for top-class weapons.

Meanwhile they diverted money into their own accounts.

Judge Radhi al-Radhi of Iraq's Commission for Public Integrity investigated.

He said: "I believe these people are criminals.

(I wonder, do all Iraqis have this talent for understatement?)

"They failed to rebuild the Ministry of Defence, and as a result the violence and the bloodshed went on and on - the murder of Iraqis and foreigners continues and they bear responsibility."

Mr Shalaan was sentenced to two jail terms but he fled the country.

He said he was innocent and that it was all a plot against him by pro-Iranian MPs in the government.

There is an Interpol arrest warrant out for him but he is on the run - using a private jet to move around the globe.

He stills owns commercial properties in the Marble Arch area of London.

Freeze the accounts of every company that was involved in no-bid contracts or anything else that might even appear suspicious. Put the CEOs and other company officers on trial for fraud, theft by deception and any other law a good prosecutor can think of (don't forget the RICO statutes) and if they are found guilty, dump the money back into the treasury, put the corporate officers in prison for about for as many years as possible, under the law, and make it damned clear that we will not tolerate these elite sons-of-bitches stealing the money of the working poor and the middle class.

Either the law handles it or there is no law and the people will deal with it, sooner or later!

And that includes you, Mr. Shalaan

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

For BushCo: Mission Accomplished

Greg Palast in Chicago on October 27th at an Event Sponsored by BuzzFlash.com: Toward the end of the Clinton Administration the Price of a Barrel of Oil was Below $20, Now It Has Reached an All-Time Record of More than $90 a Barrel. As Far as Bush and Cheney are Concerned, Mission Accomplished.

A BUZZFLASH ALERT

Speaking before a full crowd in Chicago on Saturday evening, October 27, the indefatigable investigative reporter Greg Palast challenged the conventional wisdom that the Iraq War is a failure for Cheney and Bush.

Palast, of course, agrees that it is a disaster from the perspective of loss of life and a prodigious waste of dollars -- and that it is harmful to the national interests of the United States. But, he contends that from the perspective of Cheney and Bush the war has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Why?

Because, Iraq has become a huge "profit center" for American corporations due to the privatization of the war. Halliburton and Blackwater are only the most visible examples of rampant profiteering, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.

In short, as Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman have also contended, the Iraq War (and the impending Iran attack) are market expansion initiatives for the corporate backers of the Republican Party -- and the most basic economic outlook at the highest levels of the GOP: America is the sole superpower and deserves to assert -- at its will -- its market dominance for the benefit of its corporations.

Once again, that's not to say that terrorists don't exist; it's to simply recognize that they are being used as an excuse to seize new markets -- and to put the hard-earned tax dollars of middle income Americans into the profit column of large "no-bid" contracts for corporations who are the financial backbone of the GOP.

This is not a radical theory; it's actually the reality in Iraq.

This might explain a recent column that BuzzFlash posted from of all places the FOX "News" website by one of their military analysts, Col. David Hunt .

This was the headline that BuzzFlash posted on the October 23rd column:

Red Alert. This is From a FOX "News" Analyst of All People: "We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it. Nice job again guys — now, pull the damn trigger. Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden. You cannot make this crap up; truth is always stranger and more telling than fiction. Our government, the current administration and yes, our military leaders included, failed to kill bin Laden for no other reason than incompetence." Of course, there is the distinct possibility that the White House doesn't want Osama dead. They need him alive as a bogeyman to scare up Americans. 10/26

Okay, so why would the Bush Administration, on multiple occasions, not pursue the chance to take Osama bin Laden out?

Because, as Thom Hartmann observed when BuzzFlash was recently on his program, the Bush-Cheney crowd needs him as a bogeyman. In order to achieve the corporate profiteering goals of the GOP, you need a distraction to keep Americans from figuring out the sleight of hand that is going on -- and nothing distracts people like fear for their lives.

Patriotic Americans -- true patriots, not the cognac swilling, cigar smoking shills in the right wing echo chamber (bought, owned and salaried by the corporations getting fat off the hog under the Busheviks) -- should be daily reminded that demagoguery is the means by which the Republican Party has maintained control of the terms of the debate over the Iraq War and the impending air attacks on Iran.

It is a primal emotion to fear for your life against people who would do it harm. Giuliani is the symbolic and Bushevik-backed heir to the cudgel of 9/11 used by the demagogues to fatten the pockets of their corporate backers. (Remember that Giuliani's police chief and short-lived Homeland Security Chief appointment by Bush was the mobbed-up and corrupt Bernard Kerik.)

Palast also argues that the goal of the Bush Adminsitration is not to seize the Iraq and Iran oil fields to make more of the black gold available, but rather to control the output so that supply is limited in order to raise the profits of the oil companies. Since Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq, the price of oil has skyrocketed and the oil corporations have pocketed billions and billions of dollars in record windfall profits.

The goal of the Bush Republican Party is not to protect us from terrorism, but rather to use terrorism to advance their international and domestic economic agenda.

That is truly a Halloween frightfest of potential catastrophic proportions.

(Palast spoke at a special event sponsored by BuzzFlash.com and co-sponsored by WCPT (850am), progressive radio in Chicago. The evening was hosted by Columbia College.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.