Wasted Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed in Iraq

Now we find out that Paul Wolfowitz cares about corruption. It seems that in his new incarnation as head of the World Bank, Wolfowitz has been busy suspending loans from countries and companies suspected of misusing the bank's money.

That's rich. Because when it comes to the Bush administration--which Wolfowitz was a part of during the run up to the war in Iraq--there's no there there when it comes to cracking down on corruption in Iraq. It's not as if Wolfowitz can distance himself from contracting in Iraq. As I note in Blood Money, my book on the reconstruction of Iraq, Wolfowitz personally signed a memo in December 2003 banning non-coalition countries from receiving prime contracts.

Consider this fact: More than 30,000 contractors have spent the past three-and-a-half years running around Iraq with sackfuls of cash. In that time, there have been exactly two criminal cases arising from Iraq contracting. That record of good behavior is not believable on its face. The accountability administration has let the war profiteers run amok, the record suggests.

Here's another astonishing fact: for the past three years, the U.S. military has been spending $1 billion a week in Iraq. Since pulling out its investigators in November 2004, the Pentagon's Inspector General, the largest, most important watchdog in the U.S. government, has had exactly zero inspectors stationed on the ground in Iraq. How's that for watching over your taxpayer dollars?

The lack of oversight has encouraged fraud, waste and abuse. It has threatened our soldiers and Iraqis. And it has turned Iraq into a Wild West, a place without law, a judge or even a traffic cop.

I acknowledge that many, if not most, contractors and government officials in Iraq were good people doing a nearly impossible job. Iraq was a difficult place to police. The laws were unclear, the working conditions were hazardous, and people had a job to do that required considerably more creativity than working in the United States.

That said, Iraq did not have to be a free-fraud zone. There could have been more control. There could have been more order. There could have been the rule of law.

If someone had wanted it.