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Madison Ruppert
Two new audits conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction (SIGIR) have discovered that the United States Department
of Defense (DOD) cannot account for a whopping $2 billion it was given
to fund the reconstruction of Iraq.
To make matters even worse, the DOD is not even providing Iraq with a
complete record of the construction projects funded by the United
States, making the accounting even more difficult, if not impossible.
Back in 2004, Iraq provided $3 billion to the DOD to fund selected
construction projects, but only about one third of those funds have been
tracked according to the inspector general’s “January Quarterly Report
and Semiannual Report” which was released recently and can be located here (along with other reports released by the inspector general).
The DOD claims that they have “internal processes and controls” in
place to track the flow of money, yet they admit the “bulk of the
records are missing,” and claim that they are in the process of
searching for them.
Claiming you have internal controls while $2 billion is missing is
laughable and shows just how ludicrously incompetent our government can
be.
However, there is the very real possibility that this has nothing to
do with incompetence and instead is yet another example of individuals
in government conspiring to cash in.
This very well might be the case given that other documents including
monthly reports which document the expenses have mysteriously gone
missing as well.
Another indicator that this is something more than mere incompetence
is the fact that in June of last year, the New York Federal Reserve refused to disclose details about the billions of dollars the Fed sent to Iraq during the beginning of the invasion.
The inspector general claimed it was not the fault of the New York
Fed but instead the Iraqis since “They haven’t been sufficiently
responsive.”
Furthermore, earlier that month it was reported that $6.6 billion in fresh $100 bills was sent by plane to Iraq and then could not be accounted for by the DOD.
Then in October of last year,
the inspector general said that the $6.6 billion was not actually lost
but in fact made it to the intended destination and was under control of
the Iraqi government.
The report that supposedly dispelled the mystery surrounding the unaccounted for funds said,
“Sufficient evidence exists showing that almost all of the remaining
$6.6 billion remaining was transferred to actual and legal [Central Bank
of Iraq] control.”
For someone like me, the part which reads, “Sufficient evidence exists showing that almost all…” seems highly suspicious.
If they actually could account for all of the money they wouldn’t use
such ambiguous language, instead they would likely say something like,
“We have now found that all…” due to the fact that “Sufficient evidence”
and “almost all” are hardly conclusive.
The DOD seems mostly to blame for this, seeing as the new report
states, “From July 2004 through December 2007, DoD should have provided
42 monthly reports. However, it can locate only the first four reports.”
That’s right; the DOD actually provided less than 10 percent of the
reports they were supposed to produce, something which apparently SIGIR
didn’t notice for years.
Defense Under Secretary Mark Easton acknowledged, “a records
management issue,” in a response letter to the audit, and it seems that
they are placing the blame on the highly ambiguous “records management”
which is obviously a way to keep a single person from being held
responsible.
If they just continue to say it was a problem with records
management, they can simply say that there was a problem with protocol
and claim they fixed it without any individuals actually being held
accountable for their actions.
They claim that when records were available, which is obviously only a
small fraction of the time, they were congruent with other records and
contained “good financial documentation supporting individual payments,”
although that means absolutely nothing as it doesn’t help account for
the missing $2 billion.
According to CNN,
in a letter separate from the report sent by the inspector general’s
office to the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq the office said that the
government of the United States is not providing the Iraqis with a
complete list of the construction projects.
Furthermore, the letter says that the criteria for reporting projects
is a major part of the problem, seeing as only projects valued at
$250,000 or more are selected to be reported to Iraq.
This means that the DOD could hand out $249,999.99 contracts to their
cronies without having to report a single one. If that isn’t ridiculous
I don’t know what is.
The U.S. Embassy says this seemingly absurd system was designed in
order to help the government of Iraq “focus its limited resources on
sustainment of infrastructure and other large capital projects done
through U.S. reconstruction efforts,” according to the report.
The office of the inspector general argues in that the highly limited
list of projects, which they say is also “hampered by unreliable data
and other data entry problems” keeps Iraq from being able to properly
decide where they need to devote resources.
They also point out that Iraq very well might consider some
smaller-scale projects which do not meet the $250,000 reporting criteria
to be more important than those $250,000+ projects which are reported.
“Without more comprehensive knowledge about reconstruction projects
the [Iraqi government] will not be in a position to maximize the use of
its resources,” the report says.
This seems like a painfully obvious thing to say, but apparently the
inspector general believes that those in charge are so out of touch they
actually think that anything sub-$250,000 isn’t worth writing down.
According to the report, this ludicrous system has resulted in
billions of dollars in unreported spending, something which is obviously
a major problem but has somehow not been addressed since the Office of
the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction was established in
2004.
In response to the report, the Assistant Chief of Mission for the
U.S. Embassy in Iraq, Peter Bodde, wrote in a letter that while indeed
the system currently being used is incomplete, “it does capture the vast
majority of reconstruction projects and there is no other alternative
that captures more.”
I would ask Bodde, how could a system in which all of the spending is
reported not be considered an alternative? How would a system in which
everything is accounted for not capture more?
Bodde seems to think it doesn’t really matter, saying that the
reconstruction of Iraq “is now in its very last stages, and all
remaining capital projects will be reported through the asset transfer
process.”
It’s unfortunate that our government has become so wildly out of
control, blatantly spending funds like it doesn’t matter and claiming
anything under $250,000 isn’t worth reporting while there are families
in America starving and living on the streets.
Way back in June of last year, I wrote an article wondering where all the money spent on war actually goes, and it is quite unfortunately apparent that we still do not have a proper answer for that.
The total lack of accountability is a systemic problem and the fact
that this will likely be blamed solely on a flawed system and not the
individuals actually responsible for swindling countless dollars needs
to be addressed.
If people can continue to get away with this, there is absolutely no
incentive for them to stop this type of behavior and I bet that we will
continue to see government misconduct on a widespread level until
individuals are actually held responsible and the rule of law is
restored.
