Via Brad Delong, Stan Collender thinks the Bush administration embezzled $15 billion and nobody in the press seems to have noticed or really cared. Commenting on this report of money that can't be properly accounted for in Iraq spending, he says "it appears as if virtually every procedure and law designed to prevent just this type of malfeasance was circumvented."
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What's $15 Billion Between Friends
26 May 2008 04:26 pm
Comments (25)
How dare anyone bring up mere accounting regulations while we are fighting a war for our freedom and national security. On Memorial Day, for God's sake! Have you guys no sense of shame? You are either with us or against us. If you can whine about freakin' accounting regulations in the middle of a trillion dollar war, over a measly 15 billion —well, we know which side you are on.
George W. Bush.
PS, I don't normally respond to the insulting posts on blogs such as this one, but this one really got under my skin.
If Stan or Matt or Waxman or anyone else has, you know, actual evidence of embezzlement by the Bush administration, that'd be big news.
But evidence of sloppy record keeping by the military in Iraq in wartime isn't anything close to that.
I know that an Obama administration would be better on this; we'd have tens of thousands of new lawyers and accountants employed, making sure that nothing ever actually gets done. What a fucking joke Democrats are.
$15 billion here, $15 billion there... sooner or later it starts adding up to real money!
Thank god it hasn't, yet!
What part of "this was the whole POINT of the war" do you people not get?
I mean, seriously, this is getting laughable. The "moral majority" constantly complaining that this country is being run as a criminal enterprise.
Like, DUH, you morons!
Meanwhile, Cheney sits back and does laugh, because he knows there's not a goddamn thing none of you - and especially Obama with Manchurian Candidate Hillary on his ass and Cheney about to launch yet another war - can do about it.
Four years from now, you're going to look back at the last eight years as the "good ol' days".
Stan Collender writes about prosecuting someone. While this might have worked for the Truman Commission, today's Dems barely seem up to it.
There's ample evidence and apparently testimony that Cheney ordered the outing of Valerie Plame. But nothing from the Dems (Fitzgerald was appointed by the Dept. of Justice).
Hopefully they were just afraid of going after Cheney and will step up on this.
I know that an Obama administration would be better on this; we'd have tens of thousands of new lawyers and accountants employed, making sure that nothing ever actually gets done. What a fucking joke Democrats are.
Wow, there really is no situation too venal, too corrupt, too outright sickening, that some McCain incentivzed troll won't come and defend it.
What a fucking joke these Bush/McCain idiots are. It's almost as if they still haven't noticed that Iraq never represented even a vague threat to our national security (and don't even start that bullshit about how you clowns were bringing the savages democracy.
So yes, if you are saying that an Obama presidency will not include the unprovoked assault on a foreign nation, you are correct. And a good thing to you sick bloodthirsty fuck.
How is it that the fiscal department of the small nonprofit that I worked for wouldn't cut a check for $20 without documentation and a form signed by two of the top three people in the org, but the US government is throwing around billions on winks and nods?
"making sure that nothing ever actually gets done."
So, that would be a departure from the clock like efficiency of the Bush administration's handling of the reconstruction of Iraq?
Stupid, for a nonthreat, we sure had paid a lot of attention to them for the dozen years between the two significant wars with them. But you stupid fuck, the point is that a war isn't about accountants and lawyers. You and Barry don't know that, but most of the rest of the people in the world do. And thank god for that.
justaguy, I think the answer is right there in your question. How is it that the US military in the middle of a war doesn't follow the same procedures that a small nonprofit does? Well, let's think about some of the salient differences, shall we? If none strike you, I'm happy to pick this up again.
Geez, Matt.
I think we've kind of written Bush off already. He lied to get us into war and got away with it, he trashed the constitution and got away with it. Embezzling a few billion dollars, well... that's chump change by comparison.
"a war isn't about accountants and lawyers" therefore embezzling 15 bil is all good.
It follows straightforwardly.
Thomas, so you're really that fucking moronic?
Tell me, what was the mechanism for Saddam Hussein to attack the United States? Was it his nuclear bombs? Oh wait, even someone as monstrously stupid as you are knows that he had none. Was it perhaps his ICBMs? Oh yeah, even dumb fucks like you have to have noticed that the sanctions from the 90s ensured that he didn't have anything that could go even hundreds of miles. Perhaps he was going to use his psychic powers to control his old buddy Donald Rumsfeld into doing something incredibly stupid like invading a nation that wasn't an actual threat. Well, I guess that didn't work out for him.
But I guess you don't care where your tax dollars go, so long as you can support your team's assault on brown people far away.
Have you collected your Bush/McCain rewards points for your pathetic attempts to promote the 100 years war?
Stupid, you stupid fucker, if you want to debate the Iraq war, great, let's debate it. I'm not sure what the fuck you think that has to do with charges of embezzlement, but that's the level of thinking I see from most leftists, so I'm familiar with this sort of malady. We were at war with Iraq from 1991 to 2003. A low grade war, but a war nonetheless. Did you support or oppose that war? I need to know what your position on your team's assault on brown people so we can have a proper discussion.
Mark, what? Where's the embezzlement? Sloppy accounting and policies that were poorly followed, sure. I'm sure that's happened again and again. I'm sure there's been some malfeasance along the way. But I've never heard it argued that success in a war was closely connected to following proper accounting procedures. In fact, in many cases I'd imagine that the opposite would be the case.
Thomas can't answer the question of how Iraq was going to attack the United States. And he has the nerve to call me stupid? What a typical Bush/McCain supporter.
Then to demonstrate just how ignorant he is, he says he can't figure out how the Republican war on Iraq figures in to the Bush administration's inability to explain where it put $15 Billion of the taxpayer's money in the vast pile of waste that is Bush's war.
So, nitwit, you want to try again? Explain how Iraq was going to attack the United States.
Thomas writes: "I know that an Obama administration would be better on this; we'd have tens of thousands of new lawyers and accountants employed, making sure that nothing ever actually gets done. What a fucking joke Democrats are."
Fuck you, you weasel-lipped sucker of war criminal cock. Crawl up Cheney's ass and die.
There was less theft and corruption in all of WW2 than there has been in a single year of Dumbya's dirty war - and guess fucking what, asshole? We won that war and did it with dignity and honor, two concepts sniveling shits like you will never fucking understand because you're too busy leading cheers for incompetent clusterfuckers with evil intent.
So swallow your latest mouthful of GOP jizz and then just fuck off and die. This country and this world will be better off without you.
Notice how "Thomas" is running the same stupid right wing talking point that Powell uses all the time: "We were fighting a war from 1991 to 2002".
No mention of the 1980's when Rumsfeld was over there shaking Saddam's hand and handing over weapons to him so he can invade Iran. No mention of April Glaspie telling Saddam in 1991 that Bush didn't give a damn about Saddam's beef with Kuwait just before the invasion. In fact, no mention of the fact that Saddam wouldn't even be in Iraq had it not been for the CIA in the first place.
Just another stupid right wing troll - with less capacity to type coherently than Powell is the only difference.
Thomas provides more evidence for the adage that amateurs and dilettantes like himself are talking about strategy and tactics while people who know what they're talking about know that the war is about logistics. And yes, that does involve accountants.
Gah, of course accounting rules being broken point towards possible embezzlement / theft.
If a bank guard one time forgets to lock the safe, oops. When it becomes commonplace, you can assume the bank guard is more than just forgetful. And when the bank does get robbed, and the guard drives by in a new BMW, you start a Grand Jury.
Anybody remember the plane loads of CASH the US sent to Iraq?
How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
Money Quotes:
"In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover...
"One CPA official described an environment awash in $100 bills," the memorandum says. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack.
"They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division's vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds."
The minutes from a May 2004 CPA meeting reveal 'a single disbursement of $500m in security funding labelled merely 'TBD', meaning 'to be determined'.'"
When you do that, you're fixing on stealing it.
If I'd known those plane loads of cash existed here in the US, I'd have moved heaven and earth to steal at least one pallet.
Moe, are you talking about the war that ended when we used nuclear weapons on two cities in Japan? I'm just checking, because I wanted to make sure I understand your use of the words "dignity" and "honor". You are a dumb leftie, aren't you?
Richard, who do you think was "fixing on stealing it"? The described CPA official? Do you know anything about the Iraq war? And do you mean to criticize or credit those you say stole from us? I mean, you say you'd do the same.
Tyro, I'm certainly an amateur. But I know enough to say that accounting procedures, while important, aren't the same thing as military results.
Thomas, too stupid for words, tells us that "accounting procedures, while important, aren't the same thing as military results."
Unfortunately, seeing as he's a total moron, he can't explain what the military goals were because he can't explain how Iraq threatened the national security of the United States.
Shorter Thomas: as long as the military hasn't collapsed, what's $15 billion between friends?
I think I know why Thomas dismisses the importance of the wholesale theft and corruption the Bushpigs have been guilty of in their prosecution of this silly-assed war.
Thomas would sell his mother's ass to a Tijuana donkey show for a dollar if it had Dumbya Bush's picture on it. In Thomas's eyes the Bushpigs are the glorious warriors of some dumbass Christian Aryan future, and his mom's ass and a few billion dollars are of no importance next to that.
So grease up and bend over, Thomas's mom! Your baby boy has sold you out to a burro named Ricardo Cheneto. Grin and bear it. Tommy does!
Currently reading Armageddon. If the Nazis could manage to keep the (evil) paperwork moving during the final months of getting their asses kicked by the largest land armies in history, then we should at least be able to manage a little double entry accounting and some signed receipts.
Comments closed June 09, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Fucking hell, MY. It isn't like this was a blow job!
Ah, memories of 2000: "restore honor and dignity;" "it's YOUR money!" Thanks Librul Mediuuuh.
Posted by John McCain: More of the Same | May 26, 2008 5:05 PM