[Vision2020] Piles of Cash, Little Accountability in Iraq

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (February 15, 2005) Spokesman Review -

Remember Country Joe and the Fish 37 years ago and a stanza in "Fixin' to
Die Rag":

"Come on wall street don't be slow
why man this war is a go-go
there's plenty good money to be made by
supplying the army with the tools of its trade
let's hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
they drop it on the Viet Cong

And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for
don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam
And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee we're all gonna die"

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Ex-official: Piles of cash, little accountability in Iraq 
Associated Press
February 15, 2005

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials in postwar Iraq paid a contractor by stuffing $2
million worth of crisp bills into his gunnysack and routinely made cash
payments around Baghdad from a pickup truck, a former official with the U.S.
occupation government says.

Because the country lacked a functioning banking system, contractors and
Iraqi ministry officials were paid with bills taken from a basement vault in
one of Saddam Hussein's palaces that served as headquarters for the
Coalition Provisional Authority, former CPA official Frank Willis said.
 
Officials from the CPA, which ruled Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, would
count the money when it left the vault, but nobody kept track of the cash
after that, Willis said.

"In sum: inexperienced officials, fear of decision-making, lack of
communications, minimal security, no banks, and lots of money to spread
around. This chaos I have referred to as a 'Wild West,' " Willis said in
testimony he prepared to give Monday before a panel of Democratic senators
who want to spotlight waste of U.S. funds in Iraq.

A senior official in the 1980s at the State and Transportation departments
under President Ronald Reagan, Willis provided the Associated Press with a
copy of his testimony and answered questions in an interview.

James Mitchell, spokesman for the special inspector general for Iraq
reconstruction, told the AP that cash payments in Iraq were a problem when
the occupation authority ran the country and they continue during the
massive U.S.-funded reconstruction.

"There are no capabilities to electronically transfer funds," Mitchell said.
"This complicates the financial management of reconstruction projects and
complicates our ability to follow the money."

The Pentagon did not comment. But the administrator of the former U.S.
occupation agency, L. Paul Bremer III, in response to a federal audit
criticizing the CPA, defended the agency's financial practices.

Bremer said auditors mistakenly assumed "Western-style budgeting and
accounting procedures could be immediately and fully implemented in the
midst of a war."

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Take care, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 
 
--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.