American pariah forced to buy 'allies' - International Imperialism

American pariah forced to buy 'allies'
by Subodh Varma via rialator - The Times of India Saturday, May 31 2008, 8:28pm
international / imperialism / other press

US paying allies to fight war in Iraq

Over 180,000 payments, mostly since the war started in 2003, were made by the defense department to contractors for everything from bottled water to vehicles to transportation services.

In her testimony, Ugone also revealed that $135 million were given to forces from three countries UK, South Korea and Poland to facilitate their participation in the war. This is the first time that the US has officially admitted paying its allies in the so-called Coalition of the Willing that invaded Iraq in March 2003.

In his opening statement, Henry Waxman, chairman of the committee, said that wounded soldiers are getting notices from the Pentagon to return signing bonuses with interest since they had not completed the full term. "There is something very wrong when our wounded troops have to fill out forms in triplicate for meal money while billions of dollars in cash are handed out in Iraq with no accountability," he said.

In an earlier report released in November 2007, the Inspector General had concluded that the Defense Department couldn't properly account for over $5 billion in taxpayer funds spent in support of the Iraq Security Forces. It said that thousands of weapons, including assault rifles, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers were unaccounted for, and millions of dollars had been squandered on construction projects that did not exist.

Ugones testimony gave detailed examples of the bizarre manner in which US defense officials doled out huge amounts of money without recording where it was going. In one case a sum of $320 million was paid an Iraqi official for paying salaries with only an incompletely filled voucher signed by one official. Since no details of the spending plan were attached as required by Pentagon rules the auditors have no clue as to where the money went. This payment was made from assets seized from Iraq.

Auditors found that the Pentagon gave away $1.8 billion from seized Iraqi assets. There were 53 vouchers noting these payments but not even one adequately explained where the money went.

In another instance, two vouchers, one for $5 million and the other for $2.7 million showed payments to a vendor for goods and services provided except that there were no details of what goods or services were actually delivered.

Over $2.7 billion was spent on providing equipment and services to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). The auditors found that $2 billion of this was not properly accounted for. For example, 31 heavy tracked recovery vehicles costing $10.2 million were given to the ISF, but 18 of them could not be traced because identification numbers were not recorded.

© 2008 Times of India Limited

Missing Money in Iraq
by Christopher Brauchli via reed - Spot-On Saturday, May 31 2008, 8:43pm

A recent Congressional hearing on spending in Iraq put things in a whole new light. And a better light it is. At a hearing with the catchy title of "Accountability Lapses in Multiple Funds" before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform all sorts of interesting examples were offered by the representative from the Department of Defense Inspector General’s office that made earlier disclosures as to misspent funds in Iraq seem benign.

"Accountability” refers to the fact that the U.S. government spent an estimated $8.2 billion on Iraqi affairs and either forgot to get receipts or, when it got receipts, forgot put detailed descriptions of how the money was spent on those receipts. The reference to “multiple funds” means that it wasn’t only U.S. taxpayer dollars that were the victims of “accountability lapses.” Monies belonging to the Iraqi government known as “Seized and Vested Assets” were also subject to these lapses. The audit found that $1.8 billion in Iraqi assets over which the United States had authority was paid out in cash with no record of who got the money.

DOD Deputy Inspector General for Auditing Mary L. Ugone (that is her last name - it is not a government pseudonym given someone looking for missing funds) explained the audit was started when the DOD's Criminal Investigative Service found that there were inadequate controls over disbursement of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Funds belonging to Iraq that were disbursed by U.S. authorities, disbursals the U.S. was able to make because of the very close relationship the U.S. enjoys with Iraq’s money (and leaders) were also not adequately monitored.

Ms. Ugone told the committee that the Defense Department had appropriated $492 billion to support Operation Iraqi Freedom and that $2.8 billion of seized and vested Assets were to be returned to Iraq to “help rebuild its infrastructure and economy.” Ms. Ugone said that $1.4 billion in contract and vendor payments and $6.3 billion in commercial payments lacked minimum supporting documentation and information for proper payment.

Ms. Ugone’s testimony was 29 pages in length. At page 16 she describes the payment of $320 million in cash “to an Iraqi representative for Iraqi salary payments” that carried no indication of to whom the funds were provided or how many people were to receive salary payments. It seems appropriate that Iraqi funds be used to pay Iraqi salaries. It would probably have been helpful to indicate who got the salaries.

An exhibit attached to the hearing showed that David Dial, of Irmo, S.C. (home of the Okra Strut food festival) received a U.S Treasury check for an entity called IAP for $11,122,582.80 with no indication what it was for other than “Public Voucher for Purchases and Services Other Than Personal.” SFC Alderson Williams certified that the “voucher is correct and proper for payment,” according to documents accompanying Ugone's testimony. Another exhibit: A U.S. Treasury check for $5,674,075 went to Al Kasid Specialized Vehicles Trading Company c/o Federal Reserve Bank in Baghdad without a description of what it was for. Anyone wanting more examples can go to the Washington Post or the New York Times.

The difference between disclosures at the May hearing and earlier disclosures is that there was less embarrassment associated with the earlier disclosures.

We know from earlier reports that Parsons, a Texas construction company had a $243 million contract to build 150 health clinics in Iraq, paid itself $60 million of that amount for administration and management and, using the remainder, completed 20 of the 150 clinics. We know Parsons had a contract for $99.1 million to build the Khan Bani Saad Correctional Facility North of Baghdad that was to be completed by June 2006. When that date rolled around, Parsons said it could not complete it before September 2008 and it would cost an addition $13.5 million to complete. Pocketing what it had been paid Parsons went off to look in the classified ads or the White House for other work. The contract was cancelled.

KBR [Halliburton] overcharged for meals served troops in Iraq and delivered unsafe drinking water to those troops. (It has just entered into a new contract enabling it to share in a $150 billion contract to provide services to American soldiers in Iraq.)

The earlier reports were uplifting since they showed that a fiscally responsible Bush administration knew exactly to whom and for what monies were disbursed. Its only failure was insuring that the work for which payment was made was completed. By not tracking the purposes of the disbursements there is no risk of embarrassing anyone because of the failure of the recipient to complete the work for which it was paid.

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