I am the person who pointed out the lack of accounting last year. The husband of a friend of my wife did a year or so in Iraq working for a contractor on re-construction projects. We overran a country that we had spent ten years degrading through sanctions, after Saddam had spent two decades degrading it through his thuggery and gangland "government". There was no way in hell we were going to have proper accounting for all the money spent. They didn't even have a proper banking system- no mechanism for extending credit, no stock exchange, etc.
The anecdote this guy shared with me illustrated the point perfectly. He said one day an Iraqi guy he knew who was working on a big government project showed up and said they needed a large sum of money in cash in order to purchase a small fleet of new vehicles. They gave the guy the money- in cash, no receipts- and he went and bought the vehicles. My point is that, while there is a ton of money not accounted for by standard accounting means, a lot of that money was spent as intended. Did some money go missing and end up in Jordanian bank accounts? Almost certainly. You can't have that much money floating around and not have someone be tempted to steal it. But the mere fact of poor accounting does not mean all of that money was stolen. Nevertheless, it seems that the guts of the Post story are very likely true. There are plenty of people named in the story who could be contacted, who could verify or deny the accounts given, and by now some blogger somwhere would have dug up the truth if the author was lying. It doesn't tell the whole story, but it goes a long way toward explaining some of the almost infathomable incompetence in the early occupation under Bremer. Part of the article, incidentally, talks about Bernie Kerik, who we now know from totally separate sources to be a complete and total turd. On 9/18/06, William wrote: > > > You changed subjects. > > No I didn't. The money and the loss thereof is directly related to the > subject at hand. It just looks like now we get to find out _why_ the > money was mismanaged and mishandled. > > > We discussed that last year. Didn't someone explain that at the time > > to get thing done people had to be paid cash and record keeping > > sucked. > > Okay. and your point? Record keeping should not have sucked. Whose > responsibility is it to have seen that it didn't suck? > > > Seems the biggest complaint was paying the Iraqi soldiers > > without verifications. > > Again, whose responsibility was it to see that the accounting didn't > suck? Whose? > > Seems to me that a business in the US that has large payouts of > unaccounted for cash, that seems grounds for an investigation. Not > with this administration. No sir, that's partisan BS and liberal media > running amok. I mean come on, how _dare_ the people actually ask for > an accounting of the monies spent in their name? How dare a citizen > question the authority of the administration to pick who they want, > when they want, perhaps even looking into the backgrounds of those > placed in charge of such a large amount of money? > > I mean, my GOD! The temerity! > > Now, when it comes to doling out tax-payer supplied money, remember, > that's your money as well as my own, I think there should be some > accounting. Some responsibility taken. > > Personally, I'd like to know that the guy (or girl... to be fair) in > charge of that money actually has clue one about what to do with it > and how to account for it. > > Tell me, what are your accounting practices when it comes to petty > cash, contract labor or suppliers? > > Do you have rules at your company that say you've got to account for > every last penny? > > How long do you think you'll be able to dodge the IRS if you didn't? > > If you do, do you think you'd give the job of running your accounting > to someone with no accounting experience? > > Would that be prudent? > > > During that time they felt it was more important to get them on board > > then to leave them without money while payroll systems were being set > > up. > > More important to set up an stock exchange with the latest computer > systems than to just get the thing up and running? More important to > set up clinics instead of spending some money on emergency room repair > and upgrades? > > Privatizing the Iraqi prescription drug forumlaries rather than > restructuring the existing system? > > There's more. lot's more and it is astounding, and absolutely maddening. > > > Strange how there's no mention of it since July 2005. > > Heh... yeah, odd that. Somebody makes an accusation in the press about > mismanagement of funds that gets shouted down with cries of > "partisanship" and "liberal media bias." > -- --------------- Robert Munn www.funkymojo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:215605 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
