{"id":2526,"date":"2004-08-20T14:53:09","date_gmt":"2004-08-20T18:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2004\/08\/20\/get-rick-quick-in-iraq\/"},"modified":"2004-08-20T14:53:09","modified_gmt":"2004-08-20T18:53:09","slug":"get-rick-quick-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2004\/08\/20\/get-rick-quick-in-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Rick Quick in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a3686'><\/a><\/p>\n<table width=\"537\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em>And people ask us why we hate paying taxes. A<br \/>\n          recent government audit reports that $8.8 BILLION&nbsp;of the money<br \/>\n          we have been pouring into this hole in the sand is MISSING! This is<br \/>\n          from money<br \/>\n        we have allotted to the various Ministries we have set up, which are<br \/>\n          looking more and more like licence to steal us blind.<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">WASHINGTON &#8212; At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds given<br \/>\n        to Iraqi ministries by the former US-led authority there cannot be accounted<br \/>\n        for, according<br \/>\n          to a draft US audit set for release soon.<\/p>\n<p>        The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority&#8217;s inspector general<br \/>\n        blasts the authority for &quot;not providing adequate stewardship&quot; of<br \/>\n        at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq given to Iraqi<br \/>\n      ministries.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em>The exact methodologies of the thefts was inventive<br \/>\n        and varied, forming a veritable encyclopedia of third-world graft, diverted<br \/>\n        funding and government fraud.&nbsp;The specific schemes mentioned in<br \/>\n        the article involved padded payroll; often thousands of salaries would<br \/>\n        be on the books but only a few hundred workers actually existed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">Three Democratic senators &#8212; Ron Wyden of Oregon, Tom<br \/>\n        Harkin of Iowa, and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota &#8212; demanded an explanation<br \/>\n        from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over the use of the funds by<br \/>\n        the authority.<\/p>\n<p>        &quot;<br \/>\n        The CPA apparently transferred this staggering sum of money with no written<br \/>\n        rules or guidelines for ensuring adequate managerial, financial, or contractual<br \/>\n        controls over the funds,&quot; the letter from the senators said.<\/p>\n<p>      The Pentagon did not respond to questions late yesterday.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em>Who was it said, a billion here and a billion there,<br \/>\n        adds up to real money&#8230;.<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"> from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/nation\/articles\/2004\/08\/20\/88b_in_iraq_unaccounted_for\/\">Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And people ask us why we hate paying taxes. A recent government audit reports that $8.8 BILLION&nbsp;of the money we have been pouring into this hole in the sand is MISSING! This is from money we have allotted to the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2004\/08\/20\/get-rick-quick-in-iraq\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}