Fox News and the Food for Oil Fiasco

[Stravo]

Fox news has had a series of special reports on the Food for Oil scandal. Some of them pushing the view that the UN and our allies may have American blood on their hands since there is evidence that some like the French in particular (surprise surprise) had contractors in Iraq weeks before the invasion to negogiate spare parts for their Roland missiles.

That's all well and good. But Fair and Balanced? Well...I have yet to see a single news special on the corruption in Iraq NOW. $87 Billion tax payer dollars funnellled into Iraq and only $1 billion accounted for? Growing evidence of widespread corruption and cronyism in the Iraqi government. Where are the specials on that? Where are the constant references to it in every spin show on Sunday (as Oil for Food has been getting on Fox)

You can only beat a dead horse so long before people start asking about the OTHER scandal in Iraq. The UN and Europe may have been fucking around for about 10 years for $50 billion dollars. But in the span of 1.5 years we've got no way of knowing where $87 Billion went. I know which one I'm more interested in. But if I lived in the world of Fox News I wouldn't even know about this.

[MKSheppard]

But in the span of 1.5 years we've got no way of knowing where $87 Billion went.

[Stravo]

Can you fucking READ!? I said its not properly accounted for. You can show me all the cute pictures you want you cannot prove to me that the same money is not ending up lining Bush puppets and Iraqi government oifficials, funnelled into secret accounts, etc. That's waht accounting is for. It tells us where the money went.

[MKSheppard]

That's waht accounting is for. It tells us where the money went.

Sort of like where all the money from NR-1 came from?

[Xenophobe3691]

Sort of like where all the money from NR-1 came from?

Dude, that still doesn't answer the question. Where did 86 billion dollars go? That's more in one year than the UN did for 10.

[MKSheppard]

Dude, that still doesn't answer the question.

The original budget of NR-1 was based on how much money Rickover could
steal from other programs. Something like half the US Air FOrce's budget
is black, and only the USAF knows where that goes; It's possible that $87
billion has been laundered and distributed to black projects, or other secret
operations; or is being used to fund the general Iraqi campaign, which is
expensive.

[Xenophobe3691]

The original budget of NR-1 was based on how much money Rickover could steal from other programs. Something like half the US Air FOrce's budget is black, and only the USAF knows where that goes; It's possible that $87 billion has been laundered and distributed to black projects, or other secret operations; or is being used to fund the general Iraqi campaign, which is expensive.

Yes, but it would still be earmarked for USAF, Army, Navy, Electoral proceedings. From what I gathered in Stravo's post, 86 billion has gone completely unaccounted for. Completely.

[Durandal]

Wow ... those are some expensive tires.

[Glocksman]

My understanding (and I could very well be wrong) of the $87 billion is that the Administration pled for the money from Congress, claiming it was needed right now, but has only spent about $1 billion of it to date and that the remaining $86 billion has went unused so far.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will post links.

[Wicked Pilot]

Call me lazy but could someone post a link detailing this missing money?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Breakdown in expenditures -- That was what was submitted to Congress as the proposed use of the money. There are a variety of reasons that could explain why it has not yet all been spent, especially considering that the bulk of the money is for military movements, and thus would be allocated to cover the whole operational cost over a period of time.

But we can disprove the claim that only 1 billion has been spent so far:

As we can see here, total expenditures to the end of FY 2004 are 93.7 for Iraq alone. Of these 79 billion were from before the 87.5 billion appropriation; that demands that at least 14.7 billion dollars of that appropriation have been used in Iraq to the end of FY 2004.

The claim about only a billion being spent has a source here, when Richard Armitage admitted that only 1.2 billion of the reconstruction money had been spent so far. Now, total appropriations for Afghani reconstruction in the bill only amounted to 800 billions; the bulk, around 20 billions, was for Iraq (with 400 more millions being transferred from other accounts to the Afghani reconstruction effort and not counted in the bill totals). What that means is that out of around a total of 21 billions for reconstruction money, not more than 1.6 billions have been spent.

However, for military operations, at least 13.5 billions have been spent in Iraq alone; I do not have a tally of how much of the 11 billions appropriated for operations in Afghanistan has been spent. But out of 19.8 billions for Iraqi reconstruction, up to 1.2 billions have been spent; out of 55 billions for military operations in Iraq, at least 13.5 billions have been spent, and unknown amounts of 1.2 billions for reconstruction in Afghanistan and 11 billions for military operations have been spent. However, at the same ratios of spending as in Iraq, the Afghani expenditures so far would account for around 2.5 billion for military operations and somewhere around 100 million in Afghanistan.

In conclusion, around 17.5 billions have most likely been spent to date out of the 87 billions appropriated.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Eh, can someone correct that dressing error, please?

[Ghost Rider]

Eh, can someone correct that dressing error, please?

Done and done.