Fraud in Iraq

As this blog allows everything from the virtual to the real, I make no apology for including an off-my-usual-topic link to an article in Rolling Stone which Oclee pointed me to, about the misuse of government funds in Iraq.

It alarms me greatly that both the UK government and the US government seem to be taking powers to themselves which no open, democratic government ought to do.  Once the government has to interfere with the right working of the justice system in order to cover up fraud or incompetance, you know that things are going badly wrong.

This isn’t a pro- or anti-war in Iraq thing, either; any honest person faced with the detail of the things that people in these companies have got up to in Iraq, will be rightly appalled.  For example, the idea that companies would risk the lives of soldiers in making unnecessary journeys with empty wagons in order to make fraudulent claims for deliveries is despicable.  Whether for or against troops being in Iraq originally, the idea that companies are failing to provide the services to them that they are charging the government for, is appalling.

I hope there is some mechanism in democratic USA which will allow these people to be called to account for the money they have wasted and the things they have done — or not done.  It is the loss of the good which could have been accomplished by the money that has been lost, which must be most regretted.  The hospitals that could have been built, the people who could have been helped.