Your Tax Dollars May Be In The Hands Of Iraqi Militias

On May 12, the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee heard disturbing testimony from former State Department officials in Iraq, who testified that the State Department turns a blind eye to corruption in the Iraq government, even when that corruption involves American tax dollars and even when there is reason to believe that some of the money, arms, ammunition and equipment stolen winds up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents and militias who are killing American soldiers.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and I are now asking the U.S. Treasury Department to use its authority and resources to track these funds so that we hold those responsible accountable. From the AP report on our request:

Two Democratic senators have asked the Treasury Department to investigate allegations that Iraqi leaders have embezzled or misspent billions of U.S. tax dollars intended for the country's relief and reconstruction.

In a May 20 letter to Stuart Levey, the department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called the scope of corruption within the Iraqi government staggering.

Levey's office, they said, should examine whether any Iraqi officials have set up bank accounts outside of Iraq "that might contain ill-gotten proceeds."

Citing recent congressional testimony from Arthur Brennan, a former State Department official, the senators said the inspector general of the Iraq's ministry of health had steered as much as $1 billion in medical supplies onto the black market and then pocketed the profits.

According to Brennan, it's likely some of that money is financing insurgent groups such as the Mahdi army, the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

I talk about the issue in the video below:

Comments

[ljmck]

My dollars in the hands of Iraqi militias? That would be the ones that are not in the hands of war profiteers, I presume.

It's not as if you just arrived at the party, Senator Dorgan. Five years and counting--and congress has oversight.

And you're all ready to pass another bloated off-budget war bill so the right-wingers in your constituencies do not get irritated and fail to send you back home--to Washington, domicile of choice.

The immutable law of institutions at work.

[ljmck]

Part I
Let me elaborate. I"m bitter about: a failing economy, out-of-control fiscal policies, a threatened environment, a criminal war that is killing hundreds of thousands, growing inequities, a broken health system, a growing hunger crisis, huge debt and deficit, the nations wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and on and on and on.

I"m frustrated: by hearing after hearing that accomplishes only the briefest airing of any given problem and little else, by yet another stone-walling attorney general who was approved by congress, and that I can"t get Senators Feinstein and Boxer on the phone, although I know that anyone in my state who makes over $500,000 can, among many other issues.

So I want to know, where has congress been? Where have Democratic senators been? Rome is burning.

We were the minority party for over a decade and even now our majority is not large enough to ensure passage of people-oriented bills or to rein in a rogue president (who should be impeached), but where is the advocacy, the leadership, the creativity? You all hide out in Washington.

Why haven"t ten of you boarded a bus each time you"ve headed home for an extended stay, speaking in every town where you could draw a crowd of five, getting off the bus when you arrive in your home state, but meanwhile making the press follow you cross-country?

[ljmck]

Part II
You keep doing the same ineffective things over and over, despite advanced educations and experience--and coddling salaries, perks, and health care. You"re a day late and a dollar--naw, you"re never short of our dollars.

Occasionally, one of you appears here explicating some issue or bringing "news" you imagine we"re hearing for the first time; you seem to believe that we haven"t figured out what has been going on and what you should have addressed long ago.

Congress and the courts are not broken; senators and representatives and judges are. The structure is there; the actors are essentially absent.

Go embarrass yourself. Stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial every week and speak about difficult issues. Can you not see how truth-telling is paying off for Barack Obama? Find your courage. Stand up. Stand out. Get yourself unelected if need be. And then keep speaking out. Dare to be Quixote.

And stop the d*mn war.

[peterg76]

None of this is by accident. They can't steal the oil without the troops preventing stability, and they can't keep the troops there without the militias.

[heal57]

I am an registered Independent; always was and always will be. The Dems are spineless and they Repubs and repugnent. Stop funding the Iraq war. The best Ican do is vote for Obama if his democratic opponent doesn't have him done in.

[chappelforpres]

HuffPost's Pick

The fish stinks from the head. And even from here, the stench is overpowering. In truth, the Iraqis are only emulating their very successful American counterparts. Couple that with a traumatized culture, mired in bribery, payoffs and political favoritism.

What about the $15 billion The Pentagon, that paragon of waste and inefficiency, can't seem to account for? How about the administration's famous non-competitive bidding process, where vast flows of money (supposedly accounted for) find there way into vast private coffers?. Why are we not hiring competent Iraqi companies to bid for and do these job? Why aren't we forcing American firms to adhere to specific local labor / local content requirements (whenever practical) - to help save costs and reduce local unemployment? What about the many questionable earmarks, on both sides of the aisle ("I'll get funding for your useless defense related company and you (via individuals / employees) give me contributions".)? Exactly how does an elected government allow itself to get $9.5 TRILLION in debt? One reason's crystal clear:

"I guarantee you, when war becomes that profitable,... you're going to see a lot more of it."
Chalmers Johnson "Why We Fight"

Listen...the electorate's mood in the last election was clearly discernible. I don't think the Democrats inside the beltway really understood that. Either you guys clean house, or we will clean it for you.
There is no third way.

By their deeds you shall know them

[ForeignAffairs]

Special Election on Iraq War Funding
Congress" Memorial Day recess gives constituents a one-week window of opportunity to let their representatives know their thoughts on Iraq war funding (HR 2642) before the House votes again on this issue after the recess.

War Funding Recommendations for Congress:
1. Reduce Iraq war funding to HALF of the requested amount for FY2008 and continue to dial down spending in successive years. This will send a clear signal that we don"t intend to occupy Iraq indefinitely.

2. Fund only FY2008 Iraq war operations (instead of combining funding for FY2008 and FY2009) so that the people aren"t denied their chance to participate in this funding debate again in September.

3. Put war funding on a pay-as-you-go basis, so that deficit funding for the war won"t weaken the dollar, thus increasing the price of gas, etc. If the wars are important enough to ask our troops to fight and die for, we should at least be willing to bear the burden of financing them on a cash basis.

4. Congressional votes on Iraq war funding should reflect the widespread popular opposition to the war (62-68% opposed). Even if the President doesn"t listen to the people on this issue, Congress should.

It would also help if presidential candidates would endorse and help publicize this battle to cut Iraq war funding. Or, if they avoid this war funding debate, that"s a litmus test of their commitment to ending the war in Iraq.

[clevelandchick]

Mr. Dorgan,

The Democrats have had the Congress for over a year now. Do you think the American people don't know their tax dollars (12 billion a week) being spent in Iraq is being spent unscrupulously? But we can't do anything about it, that's why we put you guys in charge.

What can we do? Refuse to pay taxes? I'd love to have the portion of my tax bill that goes to this idiotic illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq either in my pocket or going towards shoring up Social Security, helping veterans, funding clean energy etc. But I'd lose my house and end up in jail if I did what I could do to stop this wholesale theft of our treasury by Halliburton and their GOP benefactors.

I know the Senate is divided equally and we've got an administration that will feed this military contractor monster all of our blood and treasure until they can't anymore. So if we elect more Democrats to Congress this year, please finally do something to stop it. And, I'd be getting together with those Super Delegates right now because this party is fractured and it's looking more like McCain will be in the White House every day.

[darker]

Cool! US TAXPAYERS are paying for Iraqi insurgents to kill our USTroops!
And our Bush-Cheney government lets them do it!
Hey, that's soooooo brilliant!
Likely, pals of Bush are stealing the billions while Dick & W laugh their asses off
in the Republican White Whore House in Washington, DC.

[CitizenLegislatorCC]

"This administration has chosen a policy for this country that values looking good over doing right. and as soon as you choose looking good over doing right you will fail miserably at both. It is what we are doing as a country right now, it is what our leadership is doing, and it is what the Democratic Party has done since it took power in 2006 when it decided that it would be more concerned with looking good than of doing right towards Iraq in order to secure an advantage for the 2008 election." - Adam Kokesh, who served with the 1st Marine regiment in Fallujah, Iraq.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=205390-1

Have you watched that hearing yet, Senator Dorgan?

Or are you content to continue to let the leadership of your political party pass the war buck to the presidency, instead of doing your INDIVIDUAL Constitutional duty as a Member of CONGRESS? Did you say word one about the future debt repayments amounting to $165 BILLION plus interest you voted to burden us all with yesterday?

"When no one challenges the Bush/Petraeus narrative after a while it almost begins to seem as if there is something actually to it. That"s what [would] make[] testimony from people like these [Iraqis and experts] so important. They puncture the manufactured reasonableness of the official story and show how divorced from reality it and its promoters are." - Hugh @ FDL