As astonishing as this may sound, some of the hard-borrowed cash that we are shipping to Iraq seems to be going missing from time to time. Who would have thought that shipping large amounts of cash to a war-torn country would be a bad idea? But as two former employees have now told Senate Democrats, their work in Iraq was largely a misguided attempt to monitor the funds sent into Iraq. Arthur Brennan and James Mattil both worked in Iraq in what was comically named The Office of Accountability and Transparency, and their job was essentially to look the other way. Well, not officially, officially they were, at least in theory, to keep an eye on the massive amounts of money being sent in to help the Iraqis rebuild their country. And this is no easy task, as years of severe neglect from Hussein, their war with Iran, coupled with an invasion has reduced the country to a shadow of it’s former self. And of course the current civil war is not really helping things along, but we are told repeatedly that this is just temporary, which is indeed the case in the same way that mountains are temporary, you just have to wait for many thousands of years. Indeed, we are being told that things are improving, and some days in the green zone hardly any rockets explode there.
The former officials from The Office of Accountability and Transparency actually noted that their warnings of corruption at the highest levels of the Iraqi government went unheeded, but as to why these officials would be surprised by this is anyone’s guess. Our own administration even went so far as to hide the evidence of corruption, so as to not embarrassour new found friends. But it would seem to go even further, as congressional aides were actually in Iraq, and asked to speak to personnel from within the department. They were told that the personnel in the accountability office were simply too busy, and the fun part is that they were not busy at all, their duties having been severely restricted by the Maliki government. Many of them were in fact simply watching movies in their hotel rooms at the time the congressional aides asked to see them.
So, Prime Minister Al-Maliki and our very own State Department seemed to work very hard to stop any real work being done with regards to anti-corruption. Of course the State Department said that any allegations that everything possible was not being done to stem the tide of corruption was untrue, and if they reacted in what could in any way be considered a timely fashion their statement might hold water. But considering that Al-Maliki actually had The Office of Accountability and Transparency dismantled after a draft report showing how Maliki stopped investigations into anything that involved Shiite controlled agencies, it is difficult to hear the words of the State Department and not laugh.
Senator Dorgan from North Dakota mentioned that it would be a “cruel irony” if some of the missing funds were actually used to harm our own soldiers. I am not sure the Senator understands things, because even if the funds are not used to buy weapons that hurt our soldiers, the mere fact that these funds have been stolen increases the risk to both soldiers and civilians alike, as despair drives people to ever more drastic acts within Iraq. Unless I am mistaken, that was the whole point of sending the money. To re-establish some semblance of normalcy within the Iraqi society.
But this task seems so far fetched, as the Shia battle the Sunni for control of a broken nation. And we have over a hundred thousand soldiers (not counting mercenaries, of course) within the borders of a country that no longer wants us there, and indeed a country we should never have invaded in the first place.
