| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Chalabi and a US oil-for-reconstruction audit |
| 2004-05-25 |
| EFL as usual The raid on Ahmad Chalabiâs house and offices came as the Iraqi National Congress leader was preparing a potentially devastating audit of how Iraqâs oil resources and seized assets were being disbursed by the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer. The audit of the Development Fund of Iraq was scheduled to be finished in October by the firm of KPMG, the same company the Iraqi Governing Council hired to review Saddam Husseinâs management of the U.N. oil-for-food program. Did we hire the same UN clowns to pay this stuff out too? The DFI, worth approximately $6 billion, is kept in the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Its checks are signed exclusively by Mr. Bremer and it includes Iraqâs oil revenues, the remainder of unspent funds from the U.N. oil-for-food program, and any assets seized by coalition forces after the liberation. An American draft U.N. resolution released yesterday would place the DFI under the control of the new caretaker government scheduled to take power on July 1, but an international auditing committee would remain to conduct oversight of the spending of the program. That committee never got off the ground during the American-led occupation of Iraq. âThere was no oversight,â a former CPA official who had direct knowledge of spending from the DFI told the Sun. This source said that many of the Iraqi ministries were replete with inflated employee rolls, or ghost employees, meaning that when salaries were paid out of the fund for the reconstruction of Iraq, they would often go straight to the pockets of politically connected Iraqis. And now for something completely different. In an interview yesterday, retired CIA spymaster Duane Clarridge said he did not think Mr. Chalabi gave secrets to Iran. âIâve known they have been dealing with the Iranians forever,â said Mr. Clarridge, who advised the INC in the late 1990s on an insurgency plan. âWhen Chalabi and [his spy chief] Arras Habib Karem were running the operations up north for the CIA, the only way they could get in there was through Iran.â Mr. Clarridge said he believed the raid only strengthened Mr. Chalabiâs popularity with Iraqis and undermined the CIAâs goal of undermining him. âThey have been overdosing on dumb pills in Washington. No amount of money can buy what the U.S. government gave Chalabi for gratis by vandalizing his home,â he said. Unless, of course, that was the idea. |
| Posted by:someone |