I applaud the Wall Street Journal for picking up the rotten scent of cronyism at a time when most had left it for dead following the 2004 Presedential election. In an article on Tuesday, entitled Some Iraq Rebuilding Funds Go Untraced, Scot J. Paltrow notes that since the furor over no-bid contracts and wasted taxpayer money leading up to the election, virtually nothing has been done to recover the funds.
WASHINGTON -- More than 18 months after the Pentagon disbanded the Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq, neither the Justice Department nor a special inspector general has moved to recover large sums suspected of disappearing through fraud and price gouging in reconstruction.
Earlier audits by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction -- a post Congress created in late 2004 -- found that oversight of contractors by the Authority was so lax that widespread abuse was likely. An audit in April 2005, for example, found "significant deficiencies in contract administration," which meant that "there was no assurance that fraud, waste, and abuse did not occur in the management and administration of contracts" the U.S. awarded with Iraqi oil money administered by the United Nations.
Nevertheless, there hasn't been a concerted effort to trace what happened to the money and make recipients pay back any ill-gotten gains. The inspector general's office said it doesn't plan to ask the Justice Department to file lawsuits or to conduct widespread audits of individual contracts to look for fraud.
If you've been wondering how companies like Halliburton get away with it, this is how. They simply weather the political storm, knowing it is merely temporary, and they've been through it before. After things calm down, investigations are dropped, and life returns to normal. These companies are in it for the long haul, and they know that p0litical disfavor is temporal. Sad but true.
Dan, just found the blog. interesting story about Halliburton...will pick up the book soon.
Posted by: Will | May 10, 2007 at 12:03 AM