BELLACIAO - Paul Bremer and the Looting of Iraq - Collective Bellaciao
I have never met Paul Bremer. Yet like a criminal investigator I have stalked him across Iraq for the past 2-1/2 years. In Baghdad I kept my distance from the "Coalition Provisional Authority." I immediately felt this organization would be a disaster, and I was right.
Since his return to the United States last June Bremer has tried to disassociate himself from his own record. Yet there is now no doubt that Iraq was systematically looted under Bremer’s administration. Like a piano player in a frontier saloon, Bremer claims to be ignorant of what was going on in the hotel rooms above. But he cannot escape responsibility and liability so easily.
President Bush stated that we would treat Iraqi oil money as a solemn trust to be disbursed solely for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Now nine billion dollars of Iraqi funds are missing. Over forty cents ($.40) of every Iraqi dollar supervised by the United States is unaccounted for.
Every large organization maintains "petty cash" accounts. Occasionally a "bookkeeper” will embezzle funds, from a bank. MCI officials are on trial in New York for inflating their financial records by more than $10 billion. But $9 billion missing? This has to be the greatest robbery in history. And it took place under Bremer’s nose.
In a little-noticed lawsuit pending in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia a bogus operation calling itself "Custer Battles LLC" and managed by a former Republican candidate for congress was paid millions of dollars in cash. Again Bremer claims to be ignorant of this defalcation as well.
Bremer says "Western" accounting methods were impossible in Iraq because it was a war zone. When Bremer arrived in May 2003 Baghdad was quiet. President Bush had just proclaimed "Mission Accomplished," the roads were safe and violence was at a minimum.
The fact that the United States has lost forty cents of every Iraqi dollar Bremer administered is a disgrace. Why did President Bush award Bremer a "Medal of Freedom" for this mass incompetence and corruption? Where is the missing money? The magnitude of the defalcated funds staggers. Nine billion dollars? Millions of dollars paid out in cash to suspect characters?
And now the United States Government claims in a federal court it needs more than a month to explain how Bremer came to me in Iraq and who conferred authority on him. How can Attorney General Gonzales plead ignorance? Wasn’t Mr. Gonzales--who worked in the White House--watching TV or reading the newspapers? Bremer was appointed by the United States; he was Rumsfeld’s man, the neo-con "man on a wedding cake" as I characterized him in my reporting from Baghdad. How can federal attorneys now plead ignorance of our role in Iraq, and seek to shuffle the blame on Britain, Poland and maybe Tonga as well? Lawyers sometimes make their clients look like asses; this is one of those occasions.
President Bush must take decisive action to revoke Bremer’s medal, and to demand an independent counsel (special prosecutor) or he will find the United States increasingly isolated as a predatory and unscrupulous nation of thieves who looted Iraq while mouthing pious platitudes about trust and responsibility. The credibility of our nation has been undermined by Bremer; he has disgraced the United States.
Iraq has been boldly and blatantly looted. Who is responsible? Bremer, and who else? "Custer Battles" is making a "last stand" in a federal court in Virginia. What about Bremer’s last stand? He destroyed Iraq. Now he is under the gun. It is a shameful episode in our history, and it will only lead to more embarrassment and more disasters. Attorney General Gonzales, President Bush, are you listening?
