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October 04, 2003
Corruption and waste
Looks like the Iraqi Governing Council may be more concerned about the wasting of taxpayer money and possible corruption within the awarding of contracts for rebuilding Iraq than some of our own Senators and Representatives are.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 3 — Last month the Iraqi Governing Council questioned why the American occupation authority had issued a $20 million contract to buy new revolvers and Kalashnikov rifles for the Iraqi police when the United States military was confiscating tens of thousands of weapons every month from Saddam Hussein's abandoned arsenals.The article details other issues with waste and corruption that are apparently widespread in the way America is going about the rebuilding of Iraq. And sadly, this isn't even surprising - we've all expected it ever since it was announced that some of the largest "no-bid" contracts were going to Cheney's old firm, Haliburton, and it's partners and subsidiaries.On Wednesday the Iraqi council, in a testy exchange with the occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, challenged an American decision to spend $1.2 billion to train 35,000 Iraqi police officers in Jordan when such training could be done in Iraq for a fraction of the cost. Germany and France have offered to provide such training free.
These decisions are being questioned by Iraqi officials as Congress is also seeking to examine how the American occupation authority and the military are spending billions of dollars here. Iraqi officials and businessmen charge that millions of dollars in contracts are being awarded without competitive bidding, some of them to former cronies of Mr. Hussein's government.
"There is no transparency," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the Governing Council, "and something has to be done about it.
"There is mismanagement right and left, and I think we have to sit with Congress face to face to discuss this. A lot of American money is being wasted, I think. We are victims and the American taxpayers are victims."
Just as a general principle, it's probably not a good thing to have the Iraqi Governing Council see us as engaging in waste and corruption, because we kind of need for them to trust us a bit, and that doesn't really go very far toward achieving that goal.
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Posted by thorswitch at October 4, 2003 03:36 PM
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