12 Army Captains - Falsehood About Corruption
The twelve Army Captains who wrote today's op-ed on The Real Iraq We Knew will certainly be lauded by the 'liberal' press and left-leaning blogsphere. They call for retreat from Iraq (alternativly the draft) and that is fine.
Few will notice a falsehood the Captains are spreading with either willfull ignorance or out of slightly camouflaged racism.
They write:
The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq's oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq's reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult.
That's a 'blame the victim' argument if I've ever seen such. The 'inability to govern' was certainly demonstrated when the Prime Minister tried to kick out Blackwater. The U.S. just would not let him govern. But the corruption charge is even worse.
The U.S. Congress allocated some billions for reconstruction of Iraqi infrastructure. Only fair one could say as it was the U.S. that destroyed the Iraqi infrastructure in 1991, through a decade of sanctions and during its illegal war of aggression and occupation since 2002.
But of those billions of U.S. tax payer dollars most was squandered by U.S. companies with no-bid contracts which delivered little usable on the ground.
Even more money was taken from the Iraqi people, put under U.S. control and embezzled. The Development Fund for Iraq was financed with $23 billion of Iraqi oil money, held in custody by the UN and then put under control of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Subsequent audits conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction (SIGIR) have found that, of the US$23 billion of Iraqi money held in the DFI, US$8.8 billion remains unaccounted for.
Of the money that was spend a lot went indeed to Corruption, Fraud and Gross Malfeasance:
Auditors later found that of major contracts awarded with DFI monies in 2003, 74% went to US firms, 11% went to UK firms, and just 2% went to Iraqi firms. No less than 60% went to US construction firm Halliburton, under abusive no-bid contracts. Financial records were sloppy or non-existent.
While this was called 'reconstruction' money:
From the beginning, US authorities blurred the distinction between spending for the reconstruction of Iraq 's infrastructure and spending for military programs.
Certainly Iraq today is a quite corrupt country - especially in the oil business. But the seeds for this corruption were willfully sown by the U.S.:
“It's like a supermarket without a cashier,” comments Mike Morris, an oil industry expert who used to work for the State Department in Baghdad . “There is no metering [at the export terminal]. And there's no metering at the well heads either. There is no metering at any of the major pipeline junctions.” Morris estimates that “between 200,000 and 500,000 barrels a day” are unaccounted for.
The CPA could have installed metering promptly, but strangely did not. Bremer and his team were advised of the metering problem, but they repeatedly postponed action. When the IAMB pointed to the lapse, neither the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization nor US authorities could give a satisfactory explanation.
The accusation of continuing 'exploitation of U.S. tax dollars' by Iraqis is totally without basis. As the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reports (pdf):
By the end of October 2006, all of the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) had been obligated.
What the Iraqis have been spending throughout the last years and are spending today are not U.S. tax dollars, but those Iraqi funds the U.S. did not embazzle for itself. Whatever share of that goes to corruption is their, and only their problem.
The twelve captains helped to run an illegal war on a country that was in no way a threat to the U.S.. This is how it went:
From the first days, the US and its occupation partners built a wasteful, unaccountable and corrupt system in Iraq . Massive theft, fraud, bribery, and malfeasance of every kind have infected the reconstruction, procurement and governance process. There are hundreds of fraudulent, incomplete, failed or useless projects that have drained Iraq 's revenues of tens of billions of dollars. Judging from end-results, the projects have produced astoundingly little of lasting benefit to Iraqis. These corrupt acts are in clear violation of the occupiers' responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Corruption (2003) and Security Council Resolutions.
Now, as the 'fun part' is over, the Captains want to get out and they blame Iraq and Iraqis for the results or their misadventures.
Hubris? Chutzpa? Racism? I don't know. But it is outrageous to blame the Iraqis.
Posted by b on October 16, 2007 at 14:06 UTC | Permalink
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. During my time in Iraq, there were decent local-level civil Iraqi leaders. Too often these good, respectable people were dragged out of their beds at night and murdered in the streets by opposing factions. The others were frightened away. In Iraq’s current political environment, only the corrupt leaders who are protected by the militias or tribal entities manage to survive. When given money by the US for civil works projects, Iraqi political leaders were pressured to give much of it to the militias. Other leaders were already members of certain factions who actively stole money and shared it amongst their powerful friends.
In the natural progression caused by a successful insurgency, the local levels of the Iraqi government inevitably get stuck in a never-ending cycle of corruption that cannot fix itself.
Posted by: J Bouldin | Oct 16 2007 15:59 utc | 3
In the natural progression caused by a successful insurgency, the local levels of the Iraqi government inevitably get stuck in a never-ending cycle of corruption that cannot fix itself.
Is the insurgency the problem? Or the occupation?
Of course Iraqis now have to be corrupt to survive - hardly a way around that. But what the Captains allege, "inability to govern" and graft of "US tax payer dollars" are falsehoods.
It is 'blame the victim'. "These ragheads are not worth the U.S. attention because they can not govern and wast OUR MONEY ... "
To me that is a despictable as a statement can get.
I can only assume that a major war profiteering scandal is about to surface and they need a lightning rod to divert attention from it.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 16 2007 16:38 utc | 5
i am not surprised, the racism, the ordinary racism - even of those who oppose the war is commonplace - because arabs are neither seen as a people or a culture or a civilisation
i have just been rereading robert fisk's great tôme & rereading the section on algeria & the terrible exactions there are literally unreadable - but even the worst moments are historically determined, events do not fall from the sky - no matter how horrifc
there is that famous scene in battle of algiers - where a liberation leader is asked - why do you place expolosive devices in baskets in this or that building & he replies that if you have him planes he would gladly exchange his baskets
assymetical warfare has been with us for a long time & the day to day bloodshed is terrible but it is minute compared to that wielded by u s armed forces & their minions
& the corruption is american led & american conducted - surely there local hoods who are taking advantage of the chaos to line their pockets but this is not a particularly iraqian notion - let us remember the packed pockets of a shah, of a marcos, of a dime of a suharto - & ambramoff
bu the real corruption of capital, of earth, of oil, of culture & civilisations in iraq is conceived & led by americans
the corruption of spirit & life in iraq was conceived & is being led by americans
Posted by: r'giap | Oct 16 2007 17:31 utc | 6
I think ralphieboy and rgiap has it about right, in particular, I'm working on a post/story about a major defense contractor who are hosting a website for known terrorist's. And I know the Brent wilkes/Cunningham scandal is about to brew to the top yet again, any day now.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 16 2007 18:09 utc | 7
maybe its also called moral superiority.
if the twelve former captains would think about it, they might want to ask themselves why the Iraqi's offences & perversions seem so "exceptional" in comparison & context.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 16 2007 18:26 utc | 8
You're of course right b. And it goes back to the CPA and their policies - that has doomed Iraq to its present fate. Because they destroyed the Iraqi economy and infrastructure and replaced it with one corrupted by exclusive subservience to U.S. interests. The entire OIF can be characterized as one giant mafia protection racket designed to stifle nationalism and create sectarian conflict. Under these circumstances, corruption is a structural necessity built into the system. You might expect these captains to see this as a root cause, but apparently not - they only see the symptoms, which happen to be so pervasive they cannot be denied. I will give them that much. They do seem to understand the absolute folly and futility of the current U.S. position. Something even the former generals in the field have come to reckon with. That there is literally NOTHING the U.S. can do to rectify the situation. The sooner this is understood the sooner we're out, plain and simple. Plenty of time for the blame fest later.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 16 2007 18:33 utc | 9
there are a few laudable witticisms within the tomes of tribal hooey that guide the Abrahamic traditions. among them, this one:
hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
noting "the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers," an apparent fact of life in Iraq (not a "lie," my friend), these captains look right past the far more glaring and venal corruption -- on an order or two of magnitude greater -- consummated by U.S. officials, U.S. contractors, and U.S. military officers.
pallets of shrink-wrapped cash
there is more to the letter of these disconsolate warriors than this dig at "the abuse of entrusted power for private gain." but to address the rampant corruption going on in Iraq, in the context of the greater crimes going down there, only to note the Iraqi versions of Duke Cunningham?
unelected, judicially-appointed, rogue maladministration commits mighiest military ever to illegally invade and occupy oil-rich land -- first stage of planned several-nation tour -- an "aggressive" war: "the supreme international crime" -- looting domestic treasury and remnants of of "oil for food" funds -- expropriating a trillion dollars and counting -- in one of the greatest "crony capitalism" schemes of all time.
thus far, upwards of one million human beings are killed and maimed; torture shops crank out broken souls and dead bodies; and a diaspora of several million refugees flee there homes.
country severely war-ravaged -- "a shambles."
oh, and some local Iraqi officials have taken to stashing cash in their freezers (no point in puttin' food in there 'cause the 'lectricity don't work).
as that august senator of idaho, larry craig, would say: "naughty, naughty boys!"
Posted by: manonfyre | Oct 16 2007 18:42 utc | 10
and also, fwiw, I suspect there are quite a few other former US Army captains who would be able to give an accurate assessment of the scope & breadth of corruption in Iraq.
also, even if these particular 12 captains were all holed up in desert bunkers the whole time they were out in Iraq, how could they posssibly have missed all the corruption news stories surrounding Haliburton, KBR & the rest since they got back.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 16 2007 18:51 utc | 11
why wouldn't this be a preliminary step in the execution of the plan laid out by Hersh in the article recently discussed here? Surely it takes some time to get the bedwetters and other haters used to the idea that yes, we can withdraw from Iraq without having all them terrists follow us back to Richmond. You can't go directly from four legs good two legs bad to two legs good four legs bad.
kinda makes me suspect Hersh is working for the establishment in the same way (but much more clever) as Judy Miller was/is.
And yes, what a wonderful thing that Wapo can publish such a brave article. we truly do have freedom of the press in the US. /snark
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 16 2007 19:31 utc | 12
@manonfire - (not a "lie," my friend) - I settled on "falsehood" now - maybe that catches it better (english is still not my language)
In the natural progression caused by a successful insurgency, the local levels of the Iraqi government inevitably get stuck in a never-ending cycle of corruption that cannot fix itself.
that is really a damning statement. for me even more revealing that the wapo article.
please stick around J, I for one would really like to read more anecdotes from Iraq. the ones in the milblogs are either bullshit or sappy.
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 16 2007 19:57 utc | 14
Dehumanizing the other is a good game in the old USA. The Blackwater outcry is the recent news that I can't let go. Now our soldiers can be pure again in the face of such ugliness. Just as if Haditha and countless other atrocities never happened.
Posted by: christiana | Oct 16 2007 20:06 utc | 15
I'm in the midst of Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes" and inevitably that is coloring my current world-view; but it seems obvious to me that much of the missing money has disappeared into the coffers of the CIA via various fronts and this is why the Pentagon, and Congress, don't want to look too hard for it. The agency was originally funded by systematically embezzling from the Marshall Plan; and off-the-record, no-oversight funding has been a problem ever since (cf. opium in Burma, cocaine in SA, arms to Iran, etc. etc.). The rule seems to be that whatever programs you can fund independently you needn't tell the President (or even the DCI) about.
This was a golden opportunity to get some real US cash, palettes of it, stashed away for a rainy day. Nothing quite like the combination of 'fog of war' and reconstruction spending to support the agency in the manner to which it would like to become accustomed.
Posted by: PeeDee | Oct 16 2007 20:39 utc | 16
Perhaps the captains will have an epiphany upon retirement and find it easier to look at the truth in the face. The way this general did:
Countering claims by the Bush administration that progress is being made, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, a former top U.S. military commander in Iraq, described the White House strategy as a “nightmare with no end in sight.”Sanchez said that "victory was unachievable."
The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq offered the harshest critique of the Bush administration’s management of the war by any senior former military officer to date. Sanchez labeled U.S. political leaders “incompetent” and “inept,” adding they were “derelict in the performance of their duty.”
Had they been members of the U.S. military, Sanchez said they would have been court-martialed.
Addressing a group of military correspondents and editors in Arlington, Va., last week, Sanchez said, "There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight.”
He blew holes in President Bush’s “surge” strategy, the plan that called for dispatching and maintaining some 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at least until the end of the year, believing the additional troops would help quell the insurgency. While, in principle, the president’s plan makes sense -- having more troops to throw into the battle and more troops to secure neighborhoods produces positive results -- this surge comes with certain caveats.
(snip)
The numbers game does not seem to impress Sanchez, who said he did not foresee these changes would prove effective or alter anything on the ground."Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory," he said. "The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat."
(snip)
Sanchez did not limit his criticism to the occupants of the White House. He accused the administration, the Congress and particularly the Department of State, which he said “must shoulder their responsibility for this catastrophic failure, and the American people must hold them accountable.”
Source, The Baghdad follies.
Better late than never I guess...
Posted by: Alamet | Oct 16 2007 22:58 utc | 17
This, on the other hand, is a perfectly proper way of spending 'US tax dollars', I am sure:
US buying out loyalty of Iraqi tribal leaders
"Tell me what you need and I'll get it for you." The US general is opening his proverbial chequebook to leaders of Iraq's concerned citizens groups.US commanders are unashamedly buying the loyalty of Iraqi tribal leaders and junior officials, a strategy they trumpet as a major success but which critics fear will lead to hidden costs in terms of militia and sectarian strife.
(snip)
"Right now I've got 34 concerned citizen groups under contract and that is costing me 7.5 million dollars every 60-90 days," Lynch tells AFP, adding that 25 groups are Sunni, nine Shiite.
(snip)
Posted by: Alamet | Oct 16 2007 23:44 utc | 18
BuzzFlash interview with Naomi Klein
(snip)
Naomi Klein: I neither attribute it to a conspiracy nor to incompetence. I think it's the logical expression of the ideology at the core of their campaign. The goal, certainly once Paul Bremer arrived, was to build this brand-new model, a privatized state. Groups of people were brought in explicitly to do this -- to remake Iraq's health care system along privatized lines, for example. This was all explored very well in Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City. The person who was put in charge of rebuilding Iraq's universities talked about how, when he saw the Education Ministry and the universities being looted, he just figured that this was giving him a head start, because he never imagined his job as rebuilding anything. It was always about starting from scratch. It was an extraordinary imperial hubris.All of these assumptions, I think, have to also be seen as racist assumptions -- that anything American was so vastly superior, and anything Iraqi should just be swept out of the way because it was just getting in the way. That's why there was that "stuff happens" shrug in the face of the looting.
I don't see it as a conspiracy. I don't think they brought their heads together and said we're going to create the context for this looting. But they certainly didn't care. I don't think they could have expressed that more directly than they did, both with their refusal to act to stop the looting, and, with Donald Rumsfeld's famous shrug.
The dream of building a model state in someone else's land is a deeply dangerous and racist dream, and a violent dream. Sometimes this is expressed as the idealistic side of the invasion, right? We're supposed to give credit to Paul Wolfowitz for really wanting to build this model state in Iraq. But if you want to engage in what Thomas Friedman described gleefully at the time as not country building but country creating, you have to ask the question of what's supposed to happen to the country that was? It was atrocious on the part of the architects of the war that they were at war with Iraq's history and deep civilization -- so much older, you know, than our own. If the goal was, as they said, building this model state that was to be a beacon for the region, or creating a country from scratch, obviously Iraq's history, Iraq's culture, traditions, sense of self, were all an obstacle to that.
How can we not speculate on motive when the military side of the invasion was this "shock and awe" attack on the country? These are people with a tremendous ease with destruction. They expressed that already in the first Gulf War and with the sanctions. Do we suddenly think they really care?
(snip)
Highly recommended. She is describing piracy on a global scale. This is what the corruption-disapproving captains were soldiering for.
Posted by: Alamet | Oct 16 2007 23:52 utc | 19
R'gaip #6: I agree, racism. The whole thing stinks of racism.
And speaking of corruption, one of the biggest thefts by the U.S. and its corporate cronies (Haliburton and others who manage the oil wells/distribution) may be all that oil that went unmetered. My guess is that a large part of the oil being pumped is probably still unmetered. Iraqis have to stand in line to get gas. Gee, I wonder if Helliburton employees have to wait in line for gas.
Some tin-foil hat theories say Saudi is a big benefactor with this missing oil and that the reason the 911 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia is that this was all part of the Cheney/Saudi plan. Pretty far out but nothing would surprise me anymore.
Posted by: Rick | Oct 17 2007 0:41 utc | 20
Naomi Klein's thesis has been dead on. Whats curious is that she seems to be more or less alone, at least in the more mainstream dialogue, in this perspective. One reason for this might be is that it encompasses the full breath of American exceptionalism as the central presupposition - necessary to produce the behavior, that she outlines. And when you criticize American exceptionalism you run the risk of falling into the dirty hippie "hating America" gang. Which not only explains why so few pick up on her analysis, but more importantly, why the U.S. government is enabled to continue on with the same incoherent behavior. Even, in the face its own self created monumental cascading failures.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 17 2007 1:25 utc | 21
It seems pretty obvious. We have a Puritan/Calvinist inspired religious nut as president who in his sanctimony thinks the American ideal is red neck exceptional(ist) and that the world yearns for it, and if not, it will be driven down their throats any way. Some days it seems as simple as that.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 17 2007 1:43 utc | 22
Christiana @ #15 mentioned a parallel with Blackwater being spun to make our troops look better, if not pure (something Ted Rall caught early on). Here, I think perhaps we are seeing the beginning of an argument to withdraw that even Republicans can understand -- MONEY!!!
b., I remember your thesis that the only thing than could really get americans to really reject the war would be mounting casualties (american of course -- Iraqis don't matter).
This could be a parallel, the meme is: "The Iraqis are wasting our MONEY, our holy Ameican TAXPAYER $$$$$$$$!!!! -- therefore they are not worth our SACRIFICE of AMERICAN blood -- therefore we are going home in a hissy fit!"
Just now this morning I hear on the Danish radio that the US Congress passed, by a big majority, a resolution critisizing the State Dept for hiding the extent of corruption in Iraq...
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Oct 17 2007 5:45 utc | 23
Iraqi corruption: US buys 'concerned citizens' in Iraq, but at what price?
"Tell me what you need and I'll get it for you." The US general is opening his proverbial chequebook to leaders of Iraq's concerned citizens groups."Tell me how I can help you," asks Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US-led forces in central Iraq.
US commanders are unashamedly buying the loyalty of Iraqi tribal leaders and junior officials, a strategy they trumpet as a major success but which critics fear will lead to hidden costs in terms of militia and sectarian strife.
...
"Right now I've got 34 concerned citizen groups under contract and that is costing me 7.5 million dollars every 60-90 days," Lynch tells AFP, adding that 25 groups are Sunni, nine Shiite.Maliki threatened earlier this month to rein in such activity and bring it under the control of the Iraqi army amid accusations one Sunni group was involved in kidnapping, killing and blackmailing in Baghdad.
Badger goes out on a limb regarding the shaky base for American optimism in Iraq, and gives what amounts to counterpoint for b's link in 24.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Oct 17 2007 9:44 utc | 25
@Alamet #18
One of the greatest criticisms the British, soviets and currently the Americans have grumbled over regarding Afghanistan is that tribal leaders there won't "stay bought". I see no reason to suppose that Iraqi tribal leaders should behave any differently... on the contrary, in light of the Economist story b recently linked to in the "oxymoron" thread (punchline: Q: "Would you like to kill me?" A: "Yes, but not today."), I see outright bribery as being a futile act borne from a psychology of desperation. Directly setting 7.5 million US dollars on fire every 60-90 days would achieve the same end while cutting out the middleman.
Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 17 2007 13:16 utc | 26
One might consider here, rather than groaning over incompetence, that chaos was and is the true objective of this "war." That and killing, wounding, genocide, and maybe gaining a couple of new oil-rich colonies in the process.
The very nature of that concept, killing as a state sport, may be abhorrent to many, but that is what we do. Is there a (rational) purpose behind this killing game which has gone on for over a hundred years, or thousands if you take the long view? Yes there is but only for that PTB crowd that so far has been unidentifiable.
Here is the part that may push you to flip on to the next thread and rest your head on more mundane current issues. These PTB require, and gain power from, violent death & destruction. That is the nugget; of course it is surrounded by a lot more interesting and largely unknown detail, but if one can simply look at the historical & current evidence and come to terms with this simple fact, then our psychopathic policies, public and not, become clear and understandable.
Look at it this way; Cheney and Bush et al could not and would not be in charge of the govt if it were in fact intended to do what it was supposedly set up to do, take care of the people, or at least, if one sits on the tip of the right wing, protect them.
Govt has now become a means to provide nourishment to this mysterious PTB, and only that, to the extent PTB can get away with subversion and still control the people.
My point is, govt is now an enemy of the people and must be treated as such. You may include accomplices before, during and after the fact, like Halliburton in this enemy group too if you want. Many will agree that once a person overcomes at least a part of the generations long brainwashing we have all experienced it becomes clear as day that we are cattle, not citizens, and are expected to go obediently to the barn at night after grazing all day.
I don't propose any specific solution to this scam; perhaps it is true that there isn't one. But it is important to face it (the scam) for what it is and stop discussing PTB behavior as if it is an aberration, self-correcting as is a blister on the finger. Just a lil ointment and a bandaid y'know. Nope, a lot more serious than that I'm afraid.
Posted by: rapt | Oct 17 2007 17:16 utc | 27
The comments to this entry are closed.
Of course their ridiculous comments blaming the victim, parroting the US narrative, is to be expected. Nevertheless, 12 lowly Captains signing their name publicly to a document so critical of the administration is remarkable. Apres ils, le deluge?
Posted by: Malooga | Oct 16 2007 15:07 utc | 1