Thieves and Clowns in high places

There's no excuse for the deadly mess in Iraq. Because of a combination of stupid neo-con ideology and felonious cronyism, reconstruction hasn't happened and rebellion against the occupation has grown. The Bush administration is responsible... Criminally responsible. It's time for them to go... and preferably, go to jail.

Iraq reconstruction riddled with waste, audits find

By DAVID WOOD - Newhouse News Service

WASHINGTON - The U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq, a strategic cornerstone of the war on terrorism, has been badly mismanaged, according to a growing body of evidence compiled mostly by U.S. government auditors.

Billions of dollars - some of it in shrink-wrapped bundles of $100 bills airlifted to Baghdad from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York - should have helped pay Iraqi bureaucrats, fix power lines and build schools. Instead, much of it can't be properly accounted for and millions have been stolen, auditors say. ...

... On the streets of Baghdad, U.S. military commanders began complaining early that the money rarely seemed to trickle down.

"We're losing the peace," a frustrated U.S. Special Forces Maj. Robert Caffrey said in June 2003 as Iraq teetered between the euphoria of seeing Saddam toppled and frustration at a U.S. occupation that seemed to bring no benefits. At the time, Caffrey was furious that he could get no money to foster local government or pay for small clean-up projects and schools.

Now back home in Hartford, Conn., Caffrey wrote last week in an e-mail that "it doesn't seem that much has changed in the last two years. Much to my sadness, when I said two years ago that we were losing the peace, I was more right than I knew.

"I'm astounded they still haven't gotten it right." ...
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