Senators ask where $8.8 billion in Iraq funds went

[Cocoa]

those dems are really getting picky aren't they

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6022261&pageNumber=0

<snip>

Three Democratic senators -- Ron Wyden of Oregon, Tom Harkin from Iowa and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota -- demanded an explanation from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the use of the funds by the CPA, which handed over authority to the Iraqis in June.

"The CPA apparently transferred this staggering sum of money with no written rules or guidelines for ensuring adequate managerial, financial or contractual controls over the funds," said the letter sent by the senators on Thursday.

"Such enormous discrepancies raise very serious questions about potential fraud, waste and abuse," said the senators.

A spokesman for the CPA Inspector General's office confirmed "field work" had been completed on the audit but declined to give specifics. He said auditors were awaiting comment from the Pentagon before releasing the final report, probably later this month.

more...

[Krupskaya]

1. Traitors!

We're at war! Don't look at that man behind the curtain!

[Inland]

2. Asking questions like that hurts the effort! Stop betraying our troops!

[spanone]

24. I hope you're joking

[Inland]

32. I kid, I kid

[Ghetto_Boy]

3. Gee, I saw it a couple days ago, hmmm. Well sorry its lost!

[Ghetto_Boy]

4. Did they check between the sofa cushions??

[tandot]

5. Bush: "My dog ate it...."

Why am I not surprised? What else would you expect from an Administration this incompetent and corrupt?

$8.8 Billion ... paid by us tax payers ... just thrown out the window by these incompetent assholes

edited for spelling

[htuttle]

6. Thrown out the window?

Oh no. I'm sure it was VERY carefully folded and placed in somebody's pocket.

[tandot]

9. It had to end up in someone's pocket...you are right with that....

It is thrown out a window in the sense that it will not be available here, to improve some schools, help the needy, or help any other program devastated by cuts in funding...

[0007]

14. I bet the guy in the photo below can tell you!

Dave Lesar

“We expect and want continuing reviews and audits that detail our work in Iraq. We welcome a thorough review of any and all of our government contracts,” said Dave Lesar, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Halliburton. “Any contract that is this large and grows this fast is, of course, going to be subject to question. We will work with all government agencies to establish that our contracts are not only good for the United States, but also the company is the best and most qualified contractor to perform these difficult and dangerous tasks.”

There were two specific issues addressed in the DCAA briefing.

Regarding fuel charges:
The Army Corps of Engineers directed Halliburton to buy and deliver fuel from Kuwait. The company sought and received bids from four suppliers. Only one met the Corps’ specifications and that is the one we, and the Corps, chose.

Halliburton has repeatedly tried to transfer the fuel delivery mission to a local supplier because it is dangerous for our people. So far, no one, including the Corps or the CPA, has been able to find a replacement for Halliburton. Halliburton only makes a few cents on the dollar when fuel is delivered from Kuwait to Iraq.

As the fuel overcharging allegations have surfaced in recent months, the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the Halliburton contract, said Wednesday ongoing audits have shown no signs of overcharging or any other impropriety.

Regarding cafeteria services Halliburton delivers to the soldiers:
The unidentified Pentagon source appears to be talking about a proposal not an invoice regarding the construction of cafeteria facilities. This is not an invoice that Halliburton has sent to the Defense Department. It is certainly unusual, unprecedented and disturbing that “sources” are publicly criticizing proposals that have not been approved and money that has not been spent.

We are proud to serve our troops, providing things like food, phones and the comforts of home. And, we are resolved to assist the people of Iraq by providing essentials like fuel for homes and transportation.

It is important to understand that the questions in themselves are a normal part of the audit process and not a condemnation of KBR processes. It is also important to understand the difference between fact and allegations. It is not fact that KBR has overcharged. KBR has acted in full accordance with its fiduciary and contractual responsibilities under the contract.

For more than 60 years, during both Democrat and Republican administrations, Halliburton has a record of service to the defense of the United States. We built war ships for the Navy in World War II, and we recently supported troops in Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti. In the first Gulf War, we helped bring half the oil wells under control in Kuwait. Halliburton employees are prepared to meet the challenge regardless of the difficulties and risks involved.

Halliburton, founded in 1919, is one of the world's largest providers of products and services to the petroleum and energy industries. The company serves its customers with a broad range of products and services through its Energy Services and Engineering and Construction Groups. The company's World Wide Web site can be accessed at www.halliburton.com.


Contact
Wendy Hall
[e-mail]
Manager, Public Relations
(p) 713.759.2605

[happynewyear]

15. another THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!!

THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!!

Memorize this face too! Just another ... THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!!

:dem: :kick:

[jimshoes]

22. I'll be looking forward to seeing him

with the rest of the * crooks when they are all brought up on charges and sentenced to many years in prison.

[BadGimp]

30. no it was STOLEN

plain and simple

[seemslikeadream]

7. Too bad the guy that knows the answer left town

awhile ago. Dov Zakheim

[seemslikeadream]

8. Getting to know Dr. Dov S. Zakheim

Dov S. Zakheim was sworn in as the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense on May 4, 2001. Dr. Zakheim has previously served in a number of key positions in government and private business. Most recently, he was corporate vice president of System Planning Corp., a technology, research and analysis firm based in Arlington, Va. He also served as chief executive officer of SPC International Corp., a subsidiary specializing in political, military and economic consulting. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he served as a senior foreign policy advisor to then-Governor Bush.

From 1985 until March 1987, Dr. Zakheim was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Planning and Resources in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy). In that capacity, he played an active role in the Department's system acquisition and strategic planning processes. Dr. Zakheim held a variety of other DoD posts from 1981 to 1985. Earlier, he was employed by the National Security and International Affairs Division of the Congressional Budget Office.

Dr. Zakheim has been a participant on a number of government, corporate, non-profit and charitable boards. His government service includes terms on the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad; the Task Force on Defense Reform (1997); the first Board of Visitors of the Department of Defense Overseas Regional Schools (1998); and the Defense Science Board task force on "The Impact of DoD Acquisition Policies on the Health of the Defense Industry" (2000).

A 1970 graduate of Columbia University with a bachelor's in government, Dr. Zakheim also studied at the London School of Economics. He earned his doctorate in economics and politics at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, where he was graduate fellow in programs of both the National Science Foundation and Columbia College, and then a research fellow. Dr. Zakheim has been an adjunct professor at the National War College, Yeshiva University, Columbia University and Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., where he was presidential scholar.
http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/zakheim_bio.html


Pentagon finance manager resigns

Thursday 11 March 2004

Rabbi Dov Zakheim's refused to tell journalists the exact reason for his departure on Wednesday. A former adjunct economics professor at New York's Yeshiva University, Rabbi Zakheim has spent more than 30 years working in various jobs at the Pentagon.

But he has also worked in private industry, specifically as a consultant to McDonnell Douglas and Boeing.


Rabbi Dov Zakheim,
Pentagon comptroller and chief financial officer, a conservative Republican who graduated from Jew's College in London in 1973, Zakheim first joined the Department of Defence in 1981 under former president Ronald Reagan.

He was responsible for such tasks as preparing defence planning guidance for nuclear war.

As Pentagon Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer, Rabbi Zakheim's priority has been financial management.
But that does not include additional spending needed to support US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - a sum expected to range from $30 billion to $50 billion.

A General Accounting Office report found Defence inventory systems so lax that the US army lost track of 56 aeroplanes, 32 tanks and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/635B6007-9DD0-436C-BFF6-E6521520B1C7.htm

[tandot]

11. Well, this is a very interesting article...Thanks, Seemslikeadream

This Administration is the most corrupt ever. And we thought Nixon was a crook... :mad:

[seemslikeadream]

16. Thanks tandot, it gets more interesting $1.1 trillion interesting

So where is that missing $1.1 trillion?


In a report to the DoD comptroller, Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim, acting Assistant Inspector General for Auditing David Steensma wrote: "We reported that DOD processed $1.1 trillion in unsupported accounting entries to DOD Component financial data used to prepare departmental reports and DOD financial statements for FY2000. For FY2001 we did not attempt to quantify amounts of unsupported accounting entries; however, we did confirm that DOD continued to enter material amounts of unsupported accounting entries to the financial data."

What this gibberish means is that the DoD still cannot account for at least $1.1 trillion from fiscal 2000 under former president Bill Clinton, and the assistant inspector general of DOD wouldn't even touch the unsupported money expenditures for fiscal 2001 because "material amounts" still couldn't be accounted for properly in the year George W. Bush came to power. The trillion-dollar question is how much is "material amounts"? Because the auditor would not "quantify" the amount, some fear it's worse than the previous year's unaccounted for $1.1 trillion.

Of course the Department of the Army, headed by former Enron executive Thomas White, had an excuse. In a shocking appeal to sentiment it says it didn't publish a "stand-alone" financial statement for 2001 because of "the loss of financial-management personnel sustained during the Sept. 11 terrorist attack."

So where is that missing $1.1 trillion? Traditionally the top dogs at the Pentagon haven't liked the word "missing." The rationale at DoD has been that just because the money can't be accounted for doesn't mean it is lost, stolen or strayed. According to Susan Hansen, a spokeswoman for DoD: "These are unsupported entries. When the auditors go to audit the books and they look at the balance sheet for the year, someone has entered in an adjustment because they made an error somewhere."
more




http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=246188

[sofa king]

31. That's curious.

Isn't that Naval Intelligence guy who warned of the WTC attacks and who is now hiding out in Canada claiming that someone walked off with a trillion dollars in 2000-2001?

[seemslikeadream]

33. No it's this guy - Grand old profiteering

Yet even Allbaugh is small-time compared to the latest defector to the private sector, Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim, who announced two weeks ago that he will be leaving for a partnership at Booz Allen Hamilton, the technology and management strategy giant that is one of the nation's biggest defense contractors. Although Zakheim is not nearly as familiar as Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, or Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, he too has been identified as one of the ultrahawkish "Vulcans" who shaped Bush foreign and military policy from its earliest days. Zakheim has bustled through the revolving doors before, serving as a deputy undersecretary of defense during the Reagan administration, where he worked for Perle before leaving government to join a missile-defense contractor.

At the mammoth Booz Allen firm, Zakheim will join R. James Woolsey, the former director of central intelligence and Perle associate on the Bush Defense Policy Board. These were the defense intellectuals who favored invading Iraq long before Sept. 11 -- and long before any U.N. resolutions on the topic were introduced.
So far Booz Allen has yet to win any major Iraq contracts of its own, although it has shared Pentagon boodle for several years with Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that is by far the biggest contractor out there. (At a recent hearing on Halliburton's scandal-scarred performance in Iraq, Zakheim did his best to defend the vice president's old company. "They're not doing a great job," he shrugged, "but they're not doing a terrible job.")

Booz Allen swiftly jumped on the Baghdad bandwagon last May, when it co-sponsored (with the Republican-connected insurance giant American International Group) a postwar conference on "The Challenges for Business in Rebuilding Iraq" that featured speeches by Woolsey and Undersecretary of Defense Zakheim. (The price of admission for industry executives ranged from $528 to $1,100 a head.) Included was the chance for executives to participate in a "not-for-attribution session that will permit a dynamic, frank exchange of views on the opportunities and challenges businesses will face in post-conflict Iraq."

More recently, Booz Allen was listed as a partner in a controversial $327 million contract to outfit the new Iraqi army. The prime contractor in this murky deal was Nour America Inc., which on closer inspection turned out to be controlled by a close associate of Ahmad Chalabi, the dubious former exile promoted by Perle, Woolsey and their ideological associates as the best possible leader for Iraq after Saddam. Chalabi is a leading member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and enjoys enormous influence inside the Defense Department, which issued the Nour contract. Unfortunately Nour had scant qualifications, if any, for the lucrative contract. After protests from more qualified contractors who had lost out, the contract was withdrawn for rebidding. Meanwhile, Booz Allen denied any role in the Nour affair, aside from a post-bid $50,000 consulting contract.


more
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:iUASMhjvMuIJ:www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/03/30/profiteers/+Booz+Allen+Hamilton+Zakheim&hl=en


GovCon Executive Speaker Series Featuring Former DCI James Woolsey

The GovCon Council is pleased to present this event in partnership with the International Exchange Business Council (IBEC), an emerging initiative of the Fairfax County Chamber.

R. James Woolsey has said that strategic security is the greatest challenge the business world faces today. In his role as a Vice President and officer in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Global Assurance practice, Mr. Woolsey helps corporations and government agencies integrate security into their strategic business planning in an effort to protect the vital networks upon which we all depend.

Those networks - electricity grids, oil and gas pipelines, telecommunications infrastructures, financial systems, food production and delivery systems and hundreds of others - are constructed to be responsive to the public and easily accessed and maintained. However, in a post-September 11 world, these characteristics translate to vulnerability.
http://www.gcn.com/events/16483.html

[happynewyear]

13. look closely at this face: Memorize the face of a THIEF & a LIAR!

THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!! THIEF! LIAR! THIEF! LIAR!!!

:dem: :kick:

[leesa]

42. Dov's an interesting sort of guy, ain't he?

[southernleftylady]

10. Look at this little tidbit..

One of the main benefactors of the Iraq funds was Texas-based firm Halliburton, which was paid more than a billion dollars out of those funds to bring in fuel for Iraqi civilians.

hmmm...
do we really need to ask where the money went???

[tom_paine]

12. Cayman islands Bank Accounts, Uncle Karl's Dirty Tricks Black Budget

Porter Goss' "secure the Florida Vote" Black Ops Budget

Have I missed anything?

[Barrett808]

17. Why do they hate America? n/t

[gatlingforme]

18. Bush " I choked on it" My dogs woke me up. Whew.!!!

[donkeyotay]

19. we've been robbed

Nope, don't have your social security, schools are a mess, no training to replace the job you lost... we're left fighting ever more bitterly over the few crumbs left while the military-industrial complex plunges off the deep end of corruption.

I object. Does anybody besides the 12 people here care? Hello ABCCBSNBCCNNFUX? Corporate crime is taking this country down. Hello? Anybody home?

:argh:

[shanti]

36. if kerry manages to pull this out

this country will be in shambles by the time * is gone. believe that.

[teryang]

20. Congress abdicated its fiscal responsibility

...when it authorized massive funding with little to no oversight or controls. Now it's a big surprise, they can't find the money.

[lovuian]

21. It would be nice to have 8.8 Billion for the Floridians

This is the Biggest Theft of America

and Congress Pentagon and FBI just watch it stolen

[TheCentepedeShoes]

23. This, IMHO

is why Bush*Co was so desperate to gain power in the first place (to cover up what they did prior to Jan '01) and why they are so desperate to retain power now (to cover up what they've done since). Once they're just Mr/Ms Private Citizen again, they'll be helpless to stop the shit from flying in their direction. When Kerry wins in November, I expect a mass exodus to Brazil.

[Disturbed]

25. Bremmer

Did anyone check his lugage as he quickly escaped Iraq?

[TheCentepedeShoes]

27. Presents for

a girl from Ippanema, perhaps?

[are_we_united_yet]

26. Can't account for 8.8 Billion

Is this a problem?

[Yavin4]

28. I Don't Know Where The Money Went, But Paul Bremer Is....

scheduled to be on MTV Cribs next week. I think that's some kind of a clue.

[BadGimp]

29. STFU you loosers

This is THEIR money not ours!!

How are we think even for a moment that we have a right to know where the funds went.

{end sarcasim, begin crying}

[kodi]

34. republican motto: "my back is turned boys, steal what you can."

.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

35. What's $8B to an organization that can't account for TRILLIONS?!

http://whereisthemoney.org/

[struggle4progress]

37. Our government is controlled by professional thieves!

From the same story:
"In one example, the audit said the CPA paid for 74,000 guards even though the actual number could not be validated. In another, 8,206 guards were listed on a payroll but only 603 people doing the work could be counted"


August 10, 2004
Iraq Reconstruction: How Not To Do It

Late last year, an investigation by Mother Jones uncovered a network of K Street firms in Washington that were lobbying government officials for reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Timothy Mills, a partner at Patton Boggs, a lobbying firm, said that the rebuilding process in Iraq was nothing less than a government-sanctioned bonanza: "Western companies, if they make the right connections early enough, have the potential of being swept into the mainstream of Iraqi commerce." Charges of cronyism ran rampant. But only over the past few months has the media discovered that this cronyism was such an integral reason for the botched reconstruction effort. Iraq, it turns out, has been ill-served by those who have tried to rebuild it.

On Monday, The New York Times spoke out, saying, "Things have gone so obviously wrong with America's approach to rebuilding Iraq." The list of failures runs long. Of the $18.4 billion allocated for reconstruction last fall, only $600 million has been put to use. (At the time of the handover, authorities had spent a paltry $366 million.) Meanwhile, many projects remain stalled, stifled by both the unstable security conditions and the incompetence of the occupation authorities.

None of this is exactly new information. But when one takes the broad view of the reconstruction process, the breadth and depth of corruption and incompetence remains staggering. The blame extends all the way up, from the civilian occupation in Iraq, to the private reconstruction contractors, to the Bush administration itself.
<more>

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2004/08/08_513.html

Wednesday 4th August 2004 :
$1.9 Billion of Iraq’s Money Goes to U.S. Contractors
By Ariana Eunjung Cha

Halliburton Co. and other U.S. contractors are being paid at least $1.9 billion from Iraqi funds under an arrangement set by the U.S.-led occupation authority, according to a review of documents and interviews with government agencies, companies and auditors.

Most of the money is for two controversial deals that originally had been financed with money approved by the U.S. Congress, but later shifted to Iraqi funds that were governed by fewer restrictions and less rigorous oversight.

For the first 14 months of the occupation, officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority provided little detailed information about the Iraqi money, from oil sales and other sources, that it spent on reconstruction contracts. They have said that it was used for the benefit of the Iraqi people and that most of the contracts paid from Iraqi money went to Iraqi companies. But the CPA never released information about specific contracts and the identities of companies that won them, citing security concerns, so it has been impossible to know whether these promises were kept.

The CPA has said it has awarded about 2,000 contracts with Iraqi money. Its inspector general compiled records for the major contracts, which it defined as those worth $5 million or more each. Analysis of those and other records shows that 19 of 37 major contracts funded by Iraqi money went to U.S. companies and at least 85 percent of the total $2.26 billion was obligated to U.S. companies. The contracts that went to U.S. firms may be worth several hundred million more once the work is completed.
<snip>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37822-2004Aug3?language=printer
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=2435+


U.S. Won't Turn Over Data for Iraq Audits
By Colum Lynch
Aug 12, 2004, 19:14
Friday, July 16, 2004; Page A16

UNITED NATIONS, July 15 -- The Bush administration is withholding information from U.N.-sanctioned auditors examining more than $1 billion in contracts awarded to Halliburton Co. and other companies in Iraq without competitive bidding, the head of the international auditing board said Thursday.

Jean-Pierre Halbwachs, the U.N. representative to the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB), said that the United States has repeatedly rebuffed his requests since March to turn over internal audits, including one that covered three contracts valued at $1.4 billion that were awarded to Halliburton, a Texas-based oil services firm. It has also failed to produced a list of other companies that have obtained contracts without having to compete.

The Security Council established the IAMB, which includes representatives from the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in May 2003 to ensure that Iraq's oil revenue would be managed responsibly during the U.S. occupation. The council extended its mandate in July so it could continue to monitor the use of Iraq's oil revenue after the United States transferred political authority to the Iraqis in June.

The dispute comes as the board released an initial audit by the accounting firm KPMG on Thursday that sharply criticized the U.S.-led coalition's management of billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenue. The audit also raised concerns about lax financial controls in some Iraqi ministries, citing poor bookkeeping and duplicate payments of salaries to government employees.
<snip>

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10845.shtml

[DU GrovelBot]

38. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

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This week is our third quarter 2004 fund drive. Democratic
Underground is a completely independent website. We depend almost entirely
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your support.

[struggle4progress]

39. $8.8b in Iraq unaccounted for

US audit cites lax 'stewardship'
By Sue Pleming, Reuters
August 20, 2004

<snip>
The audit was first reported earlier this month on a website run by retired Army Colonel David Hackworth, a journalist. A US official confirmed that the contents of the leaked audit cited by Hackworth were accurate.
<snip>

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/08/20/88b_in_iraq_unaccounted_for/

[miss_kitty]

40. BACK IN JUNE, CHRISTIAN AID FIGURED $20b WAS MISSING

Christian Aid of the UK offered a stunning report of this missing money on June 28, 2004...and we're not hearing about it, really, until now? and then it's been magically reduced.

WHERE'S THE $11.2b NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT?
here are some old links to the beginning of this claim....know your history. it's not something to knock a few flip comments off about. this to me, is total proof of their guilt of the sacking and pillaging of Iraq.
and if we don't stop it, give them BACK THEIR MONEY, not just the 8.8b that's be clucked over here, but ALL of it, we are just as guilty as they are.
i am providing some links here to some previous 'missing money' reports:

Aug 11th, 2004 Capitol Hill Blue
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_5017.shtml

Cheney's Old Company Can't Account for $1.8 Billion

July 16, 2004 the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1262373,00.html

UK blocks US plans to spend oil fund on museum
My headline was ‘UK Stops US Efforts to Build Bremer’s $10M ‘Saddam Museum’–Using Iraqi Oil $ not Yet Missing’


June 28, 2004 Christian Aid The Original Report ABOUT 20b MISSING, NOT 8.8b, released the same day Viceroy bremer handed over the ‘reigns of power’ the the selected gov’t of Iraq, and slunk out of the middle east like a dog off a gut wagon.
there is a link to the report in this article.
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/news/media/pressrel/040627.htm

Fuelling suspicion: the coalition and Iraq's oil billions
My headline was ‘Coalition of the Thieving? $20B of Iraq's Own Money not Accounted for: Anyone Check Bremer’s Pockets?’


can you imagine if we kept our personal books this way?

[drscm]

41. Do repugs care? They still have over 78 billion out of 87 billion

for Bush supporters to mishandle.