$13 Billion in Iraq Aid Wasted or Stolen, Ex-Investigator Says
http://www.truthout.org/article/13-billion-iraq-aid-wasted-or-stolen-ex-investigator-says
A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion
meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through
elaborate fraud schemes.
Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq's Commission on
Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, an arm
of the Democratic caucus, that an Iraqi auditing bureau "could not
properly account for" the money.
While many of the projects audited "were not needed - and many
were never built," he said, "this very real fact remains: billions of
American dollars that paid for these projects are now gone."
He said the report, which went to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki and other top Iraqi officials, was never published because
"nobody cares" about investigating such cases. Many investigators, he
said, feared for their safety because 32 of his co-workers have been
murdered.
Adhoob said he reported the abuses to the U.S. Special Inspector
General for Iraq Reconstruction - an agency charged by Congress with
helping to root out cases of waste, fraud and abuse in the nearly $50
billion U.S. reconstruction effort. SIGIR spokeswoman Kristine Belisle
said her agency continues to "actively follow-up" on Adhoob's
information, but she would not discuss ongoing investigations.
Adhoob was one of three Iraqi officials who testified before the
Democratic panel yesterday. Another former Iraqi official - Abbas S.
Mehdi, who held a Cabinet-level post - told of widespread corruption.
An Iraqi-American, who for the last five years has served as a senior
adviser for Defense Department and State Department officials in Iraq,
Mehdi said he feared for his safety and testified in silhouette by
video from an undisclosed location. In a modified voice, he said Iraqi
government officials worked with al-Qaeda terrorists at the Baiji
refinery to steal oil to sell on the black market.
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who chairs the committee, said that
"taxpayers have been bled dry with massive misuse of public dollars.
"It is all pretty sobering," he added later. "Our country cannot
continue to be blind or oblivious to what is happening."
Adhoob, who worked for three years at the Iraqi agency and oversaw
200 investigators and other employees, said he had a "firsthand, up
close look at corruption" and eventually had to flee the country
because of death threats. He said his agency - the Commission on
Public Integrity, which U.S. government officials say is the
equivalent of the FBI - estimates that another $9 billion in U.S.
funds were lost because of corruption and waste. Because the $13
billion figure and the $9 billion figure are estimates from different
agencies, Dorgan's staff members said there could be some overlap.
However, Adhoob's agency has been accused of pursuing
investigations against political rivals.
In one elaborate scheme, he said, Iraqi Defense Ministry officials
helped set up two front companies that were to buy airplanes, armored
vehicles, guns and other equipment with $1.7 billion in U.S. funds.
The companies were paid, but in some cases delivered only "a small
percentage" of the equipment that had been ordered and in one case
delivered bulletproof vests that were defective and could not be used.
The companies also overcharged for military helicopters and tried
to deliver aircraft that were more than 25 years old, he said. Instead
of demanding the money back, Adhoob said, the Defense Ministry
renegotiated with the companies for "a series of mobile toilets and
kitchens - which have never been delivered."
Adhoob said some of the investigations conducted by his agency and
others uncovered "ghost projects" that never existed or other
instances where Iraqi and U.S. contractors did poor-quality work. In
one case, $24.4 million was spent on an electricity project in Nineveh
province but an oversight agency found that it "existed only on
paper."
Investigations by Iraqi oversight agencies also found that some of
the money sent to the Defense Ministry was diverted to al-Qaeda in
Iraq, Adhoob said, and deposited into banks in Jordan and elsewhere.
He said al-Maliki stymied some of his investigations.
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