High on the Hog War Types Somewhere Are Living Very Rich

The Untold Story 

(still a mystery)

Bush-appointed Special IG Arrives in Iraq (2004)

We Sent Billions back to Iraq

L. Paul Bremer

(gets his reward)

What the U.S. Got Back in Return

(look at Iraq today as proof)

The story and link to the article is adapted from the book: “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War” by James Risen, to be published Tuesday (October 14, 2014) by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

It is a great mystery for sure - a few notes are here from that NY Times article and from here and here.

WASHINGTON — Not long after American forces defeated the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein in 2003, caravans of trucks began to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington on a regular basis, unloading an unusual cargo — pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills. The cash, withdrawn from Iraqi government accounts held in the United States, was loaded onto Air Force C-17 transport planes bound for Baghdad, where the Bush administration hoped it would provide a quick financial infusion for Iraq’s new government and the country’s battered economy.

Over the next year and a half, $12 billion to $14 billion was sent to Iraq in the airlift, and an additional $5 billion was sent by electronic transfer. Exactly what happened to that money after it arrived in Baghdad became one of the many unanswered questions from the chaotic days of the American occupation, when billions were flowing into the country from the United States and corruption was rampant.

More from here, in part (my focus): Former Treasury Department officials also questioned the need for the flights. The Treasury had already sent $1.7 billion in cash from Iraqi government accounts in the United States to Baghdad in the first weeks after the invasion, and then had developed a new Iraqi currency that was introduced that October. They say the new currency ended the need for further cash infusions from the United States. “We did not know that Bremer was flying in all that cash,” said Ged Smith, who was the head of the Treasury Department team that worked on Iraq’s financial reconstruction after the invasion. “I can’t see a reason for it.”

This from that LA Times link (from their July 2010 reporting: Reporting from Baghdad — The Defense Department is unable to properly account for $8.7 billion out of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil revenue entrusted to it between 2004 and 2007, according to a newly released audit that underscores a pattern of poor record-keeping during the war.

This remains a great mystery and I suppose for the obvious reasons: Seems a lot of people perhaps lined their pockets with a lot cash and still have it safely tucked under their mattresses or stored in their basements somewhere. Yet, who knows for sure and that is the point: Who knows and BTW who really cares? Really.