news.bbc.co.uk — When Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in April 2003, Iraq was in a mess, despite its oil wealth. When US President George W Bush announced the war had ended, he promised the US would help to rebuild Iraq, saying: "Now that the dictator's gone we and our coalition partners are helping Iraqis to lay the foundations of a free economy."
Nov 9, 2006 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountNov 10, 2006
The summary does not do justice to the article - this is outrageous, but sadly, to be expected of the mess we made...Some quick quotes:---Stuart Bowen is the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. His task is to follow the paper trail - and after more than 100 investigations his work paints a grim picture of waste and mismanagement.Mr Bowen said billions of dollars were shrink-wrapped in plastic and flown out of the US to Baghdad."It was $2bn a flight, and I know of at least six flights," he said.---As the planes landed with their hefty bundles of greenbacks, they became the responsibility of a man named David Oliver.Mr Oliver was in Baghdad in the summer of 2003 as the CPA's first head of finance. He helped establish the financial framework, but resisted pressure to bring in outside auditors. As head of finance at the time surely he must know what happened to the $8.8bn?"I have no idea, I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't - nor do I actually think it is important," he said.---wtf?! /me holds spinning head...