If You Can't Keep Track of Your $8.8 billion Dollars, You Won't Be Allowed to Play With It.

Okay... Remember last August when Reuters reported that an audit had revealed that $8.8 billion earmarked for Iraqi reparation and reconstruction had been "misplaced" by the Coalition Provisional Authority (headed by our very own L. Paul Bremer)? There they were at the Coalition Provisional Authority, patting their pockets, looking confused. "$8.8 billion? Gosh, I don't know... it was here a minute ago." Then we didn't hear about it for months and months.

Well, in hunting through Google News, I landed on this Reuters report from May 4, 2005, which says, in effect, that after a thorough audit of the CPA (and don't think the irony of those initials has escaped me), Stuart Bowen, a specially appointed inspector general, concluded in his report (published January 31, 2005) that the money could not be accounted for and would never be accounted for. Never. Ever. The report further concluded that possible fraud might even be involved.

Fraud? Shut up!

Bremer was pissed about Bowen's report, too. He said it was unreasonable, amidst the chaos of war and insurgency, to hold the CPA to standards that "even peaceful Western nations would have trouble meeting within a year."

Uh.... Paul? That's $8.8 billion. EIGHT-POINT-FUCKING-EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS!! Mister, you are going have to do a whole lot better than "Accounting's, like, really hard and stuff."

The part of all this that disturbs me most is that nobody's screaming bloody murder about this (well, if you don't count me, that is). Why is that? Why was Bowen's report not shouted from the highest rooftops to the townsfolk below? (Psst... townsfolk... that's you guys!!! Look alive, for pity's sake!) Stuart Bowen was appointed by President Bush himself -- in fact, used to be one of Bush's personal attorneys (bet that was a full-time job, huh). So, the fact that he's actually indicated that the US definitely handled the money recklessly, and quite possibly handled the money fraudulently, is pretty significant.

So, why is no one really talking about it? Is it because the money was earmarked for Iraqi reconstruction? I have to wonder. I mean, really... this whole war thing is really all the Iraqis' fault anyway. Damn them and their weapons of mass destruc... oh... wait.... Well, curses upon them for the active nuclear weapons progr... oh... no.... wait.... wrong again..... Well, if by some off-chance (though I'm sure I'm just being cynical here) we just don't care because the money was supposed to help rebuild Iraq, and we weren't going to see a penny, let me remind everyone that every day that goes by that water and utilities aren't restored to Iraqi homes, that Iraqi children are going hungry and without medical attention, that Iraqi families are left homeless because of US bombings, that day bolsters the insurgency. See, unlike the United States, the insurgents aren't having a recruitment problem. They have no trouble getting soldiers to volunteer for active duty. Those people that drive explosives into US checkpoints come from homeless families, families who've buried children due to untreated illness and injury, families who are fed up living with no power and no clean drinking water. They're highly motivated.

If Newsweek's misinformation about abuse of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay cost lives in Iraq, how many lives do you suppose will be lost because $8.8 billion dollars that was supposed to help rebuild a country has lined the pockets of already-wealthy Iraqis and Americans? And how many of those lives will be US soldiers killed by suicide bombers, road bombs and ambushes? I shudder to think.

The upside (because there always has to be one) is that I don't feel half so badly that I overdrew my checking account by $59 dollars last month. Because, to paraphrase that distinguished statesman, L. Paul Bremer, "Accounting's, like, really hard and stuff."

~C~