By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad Published: 19 September 2005
One billion dollars has been plundered from Iraq's defence ministry in one of the largest thefts in history, The Independent can reveal, leaving the country's army to fight a savage insurgency with museum-piece weapons.
The money, intended to train and equip an Iraqi army capable of bringing security to a country shattered by the US-led invasion and prolonged rebellion, was instead siphoned abroad in cash and has disappeared.
"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi, Iraq's Finance Minister, told The Independent.
"Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal."
The carefully planned theft has so weakened the army that it cannot hold Baghdad against insurgent attack without American military support, Iraqi officials say, making it difficult for the US to withdraw its 135,000- strong army from Iraq, as Washington says it wishes to do.
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Given that building up an Iraqi army to replace American and British troops is a priority for Washington and London, the failure to notice that so much money was being siphoned off at the very least argues a high degree of negligence on the part of US officials and officers in Baghdad.
The report of the Board of Supreme Audit on the defence ministry contracts was presented to the office of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Prime Minister, in May. But the extent of the losses has become apparent only gradually. The sum missing was first reported as $300m and then $500m, but in fact it is at least twice as large. "If you compare the amount that was allegedly stolen of about $1bn compared with the budget of the ministry of defence, it is nearly 100 per cent of the ministry's [procurement] budget that has gone Awol," said Mr Allawi.
The money missing from all ministries under the interim Iraqi government appointed by the US in June 2004 may turn out to be close to $2bn. Of a military procurement budget of $1.3bn, some $200m may have been spent on usable equipment, though this is a charitable view, say officials. As a result the Iraqi army has had to rely on cast-offs from the US military, and even these have been slow in coming.
Mr Allawi says a further $500m to $600m has allegedly disappeared from the electricity, transport, interior and other ministries. This helps to explain why the supply of electricity in Baghdad has been so poor since the fall of Saddam Hussein 29 months ago despite claims by the US and subsequent Iraqi governments that they are doing everything to improve power generation.
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The fraud took place between 28 June 2004 and 28 February this year under the government of Iyad Allawi, who was interim prime minister. His ministers were appointed by the US envoy Robert Blackwell and his UN counterpart, Lakhdar Brahimi.
Among those whom the US promoted was a man who was previously a small businessman in London before the war, called Hazem Shaalan, who became Defence Minister.
According to my poor calculation, a theft of 1 billion from 1.3 billion is 76.9% of the money.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
So, the US should provide them with money and make sure they use it properly and allow them to govern themselves.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Yeah, I mean it's not like we destabilized their government and infrastructure in an ill-conceived, ill-advised, illegal war against the UNs protestations or something. You'd think they'd be grateful.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Of course, given recent events, it appears that substantial proportions of the Iraqi security (sic) services are in the pay of one or the other of the various insurgent groups. So they'll probably end up with this money eventually...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Plus, the neighboring governments are publicly stating they expect Iraq "to disintegrate into chaos".
So much for leaving Iraq to (ever) govern itself.
In related reginal news, the elections in Afghanistan only got a 35-40% voter turnout.
But we no longer speak of that country, do we? Although U.S. soldiers are still getting killed over there.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Seeing as how seven of the candidates died in the run-up to the election, I think convincing over a third of the citizens to make it to the polling places counts as a genuine success.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Somehow I cant call Afghanistan a "genuine" anything.
Every time I hear about how we're trying to "bring democracy to Iraq", I think of how we've let Al Queida quietly off the hook in Afghanistan.
The third of the populace that voted were the ones that felt safe enough to disoby they local cleric/warlord/terror cell.
That means that roughly two thrids of the country is too afraid to fucking vote.
...of course, here poor voter turnout is just symptom of apathy. Mabye Afghanistan is really becoming "American-ized" after all! Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Afghanistan is (gradually) improving though. Very gradually. Just bear in mind that it took us twelve years to end the Malayan Emergancy (not to mention around 300,000 troops). And that was with a largely sympathetic population. Regrettably 'nation building' takes time. A long time. And equally regrettably we now have electorates which think that problems can be solved almost instantly. Worse, many politicians seem to have been taken in by their own rhetoric and believe the same thing.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The issue I have is the (aparant) lack of attention to that country. It's not only that politicians here expect the country to get along fine by itself so soon, but the attitude that we have better things to do than insure their stability.
Like fuckoff in Iraq forever.
It's imporntant to remember than it was Afghanistan (not Iraq) that was the terrorist breeding ground before we invaded and that we have a responsibility to both them and us to make sure it does not revert to a Taliban-style theocracy.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
But not to Iraq?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Sure to Iraq- but not at the exclusion of Afghanistan.
Iraq has many countries involved now- both in rebuilding material concerns nad "nation building" but Afghanistan is becoming a non-new story, and once it's out of the public eye, it'll be all too easy for politicians to quietly wash their hands of all involvmemt.
Untill the next mahor terror attack reveals a connection there. The it'll be back to "an exhaustive manhunt" and lots of fingerpointing.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Becoming"? Where have you been? Afghanistan became a non-news story years ago.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Well, it's still in my newspapers- on page 25G and fading fast....
Iraq is (always) on page 22 (no one wants to see more casualty reports when Tim-motherfucking-Burton's-cute-new-movie can claim a spot on the front page).
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