VS kan niet zeggen waar 95% Iraaks oliegeld heen is!

[Fredo]

Audit: US can't account for $8.7B in Iraqi funds
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY and SINAN SALAHEDDIN (AP) – 5 days ago

BAGHDAD — The U.S. Defense Department is unable to properly account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the U.S. for rebuilding the war ravaged nation, according to an audit released Tuesday.

The report by the U.S. Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction offers a compelling look at continued laxness in how such funds were being spent in a country where people complain basic services like electricity and clean water are sharply lacking seven years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The audit found that shoddy record keeping by the Defense Department left the Pentagon unable to fully account for $8.7 billion it withdrew between 2004 and 2007 from a special fund set up by the U.N. Security Council. Of that amount, Pentagon "could not provide documentation to substantiate how it spent $2.6 billion."
The funds are separate from the $53 billion allocated by Congress for rebuilding Iraq.

The report comes at a critical time for Iraq, which four months after inconclusive elections squabbling political factions have still not agreed on a new government.

Despite security gains made since 2008, bombings remain near a daily occurrence that compound the frustrations and fears of Iraqis increasingly weary of the political crisis — one many say reflects how the country's politicians are more interested in their own interests than those of the nation.

The continuing impasse was highlighted on Tuesday when Iraqi lawmakers gathered for the second time this month only to indefinitely postpone the parliamentary session because there was still no decision on the new government.

Acting speaker Fouad Massoum told reporters that the postponement was designed to give the political blocs more time to discuss contentious issues and agree on the distribution of positions in the new government.

"With every delay, the suffering of the Iraqi people and security risks are increasing," lawmaker Salman al-Jumaili told reporters, criticizing the move.

The U.S. audit is unlikely to do anything but further stoke that frustration felt by Iraqis who continue to suffer from poor infrastructure despite the billions spent.

The audit cited a number of factors behind the inability to account for most of the money withdrawn by the Pentagon from the Development Fund for Iraq.

It said most of the Defense Department organizations that received DFI money failed to set up Treasury Department accounts, as required.

In addition, it said no Defense Department organization was designated as the main body to oversee how the funds were accounted for or spent.

"The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss," the report said.

Calls to Iraqi officials for comment went unanswered.

The Defense Department, in responses attached to the audit, said it agreed with the recommendations laid out in the report about establishing better guidelines for monitoring such funds, including appointing an organization to be responsible for overseeing such funds mostly likely by November.

The audit found that the U.S. continues to hold about $34.3 million of the money even though it was required to return it to the Iraqi government.

The audit did not indicate that investigators believed there were any instances of fraud involved in the spending of these funds.

The DFI includes revenues from Iraq's oil and gas exports, as well as frozen Iraqi assets and surplus funds from the now-defunct, Saddam Hussein-era oil-for-food program.
With the establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq shortly after the start of the U.S. invasion in 2003 until mid-2004, about $20 billion was placed into the account.

The Iraqi government had agreed to allow the U.S. continued access to the funds after the CPA was dissolved in 2004, but it revoked that authority in December 2007.

In other developments, seven people were killed in a series of bombings and apparent assassinations in Baghdad and Mosul, a northern city where al-Qaida is believed to still have a strong presence. Among those killed were two women shot dead in their home by gunmen and a Baghdad electricity official who died of wounds sustained after a morning roadside bombing.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Voor 95% van alle oliegeld kan men dus niet deftig aantonen waarvoor het is gebruikt. Hoeveel van die 8.7 miljard dollar zou blijven plakken zijn waar het niet hoort?

[Andy]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Fredo

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...CiqGwD9H7F6202


Voor 95% van alle oliegeld kan men dus niet deftig aantonen waarvoor het is gebruikt. Hoeveel van die 8.7 miljard dollar zou blijven plakken zijn waar het niet hoort?

Enorm veel. In de beginjaren was er gewoon geen controle op heropbouwprojecten. Contracten om scholen te bouwen werden getekend, geld werd gestort... en door het gebrek aan controle op de eigenlijke bouw werden de scholen niet afgewerkt. Met als gevolg dat er vandaag op tal van plaatsen in Irak halfafgewerkte gebouwen (scholen, ziekenhuizen, electriciteitscentrales en waterzuiveringsstations) moeten staan. Ik herinner me dat Hillary Clinton enkele jaren terug aankondigde dat er meer controle zou zijn op dergelijke projecten, en dat bedrijven zouden moeten kunnen aantonen dat ze het geld besteed hebben. Maar ik betwijfel of daar ook echt iets van in huis gekomen is. In het controleren van hun eigen kapitalisten blinken de VS niet erg uit, terwijl de politieke wil om Irak herop te bouwen erg beperkt is. Rumsfeld zei reeds in 2003 of 2004 dat het niet aan de VS was om te betalen voor de heropbouw van het land. De VS hadden de Irakezen immers al bevrijd...

[netslet]

Gerelateerd nieuws, maar dan uit Afghanistan: Corruption Suspected in Airlift of Billions in Cash From Kabul

KABUL—More than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, a sum so large that U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.

The cash—packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into airplanes—is declared and legal to move. But U.S. and Afghan officials say they are targeting the flows in major anticorruption and drug trafficking investigations because of their size relative to Afghanistan's small economy and the murkiness of their origins.

Officials believe some of the cash, if not most, is siphoned from Western aid projects and U.S., European and NATO contracts to provide security, supplies and reconstruction work for coalition forces in Afghanistan. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization spent about $14 billion here last year alone. Profits reaped from the opium trade are also a part of the money flow, as is cash earned by the Taliban from drugs and extortion, officials say.

The amount declared as it leaves the airport is vast in a nation where the gross domestic product last year totaled $13.5 billion. More declared cash flies out of Kabul each year than the Afghan government collects in tax and customs revenue nationwide. "It's not like they grow money on trees here," said a U.S. official investigating corruption and Taliban financing. "A lot of this looks like our tax dollars being stolen. And opium, of course."

...

[D'ARTOIS]

Het gaat dus zeker goed in Afghanistan (voor een select aantal mensen wel te verstaan).

[ministe van agitatie]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door D'ARTOIS

Het gaat dus zeker goed in Afghanistan (voor een select aantal mensen wel te verstaan).

Deze berichten bevatten deels de essentie van beide conflicten.