Note from England

I was reading the Independent and came across an interesting article:

What has happened to Iraq's missing $1bn?

Interesting Bits:

The money, intended to train and equip an Iraqi army capable of bringing security to a country shattered by the US-led invasion and prolonged rebellion, was instead siphoned abroad in cash and has disappeared.

...

Most of the money was supposedly spent buying arms from Poland and Pakistan. The contracts were peculiar in four ways. According to Mr Allawi, they were awarded without bidding, and were signed with a Baghdad-based company, and not directly with the foreign supplier. The money was paid up front, and, surprisingly for Iraq, it was paid at great speed out of the ministry's account with the Central Bank. Military equipment purchased in Poland included 28-year-old Soviet-made helicopters.

...

I can start to see why it's taking so long to get a security force in order there.


Illogical Bit:

The writer makes this sort of illogical leap:
The sum missing over an eight-month period in 2004 and 2005 is the equivalent of the $1.8bn that Saddam allegedly received in kick- backs under the UN's oil-for-food programme between 1997 and 2003. The UN was pilloried for not stopping this corruption. The US military is likely to be criticised over the latest scandal because it was far better placed than the UN to monitor corruption.

Actually, the $1.8B isn't illogical (the writer justifies the total), but comparing these two things is highly illogical. The UN program was a bad apple. This is a bad orange. They are not comparable in their badness, only in some coincidental details.

Apart from that its worth a read.