No problemo! Don't sweat it guys. Just send the bill to the US taxpayer, but please, don't bother the rich ones with this. I trust there was no corruption involved. To even question it, would be un-American and might hurt the troops' morale. We must think of the troops!
"What struck us was the incredible control, supervision and everything in this country, and then it gets to Iraq, and all controls, all supervision disappears. I mean, large chunks of it went into the palace in Baghdad. Some of it went into other palaces, all Saddam Hussein palaces around the country. And then it was distributed about, and a lot of the money went to American contractors, it went to Iraqi contractors. It was all a, basically, as-much-as-you-can-carry basis. And people stuffed it into their own pockets, basically, in a lot of cases. Now, some -- "
AMY GOODMAN: One month after the invasion of Iraq, the United States began airlifting planeloads of cash to Baghdad, literally. Stacks of $100 bills were packed into bricks, assembled into large pallets and loaded onto cargo planes bound for the Iraqi capital. Beginning in April 2003, continuing for little more than a year, a total of $12 billion of US currency was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Iraq. The US military delivered the bank notes to the Coalition Provisional Authority, where it was to be dispensed for Iraqi reconstruction.
What happened to it? To date, at least $9 billion cannot be accounted for. In a startling new expose, Vanity Fair contributing editors Donald Barlett and James Steele follow the money trail from the Fed to Iraq. Barlett and Steele are two of the nation’s top investigative journalists. Together they have won two Pulitzer Prizes, two national magazine awards. Don Barlett and Jim Steele join us now in our firehouse studio, up from Philadelphia. Thanks so much for joining us.
JAMES STEELE: Great to be with you.
DONALD BARLETT: Good to be with you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Jim, let's start with where this money was in this country before it was sent off.
JAMES STEELE: The money that went to Iraq was basically impounded funds: Iraqi assets dating back to the original Gulf War, oil money that had been under the control of the United Nations. And this money was basically under the care of the US government, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
And when they wanted to make this shipment, what we were so fascinated by was just how it get there, where did it come from. And what we found out, there’s a warehouse ten miles west of Manhattan, about a mile west of Giants Stadium, that nobody knows is there. It’s a huge facility, larger than your biggest Wal-Mart, and this thing is packed with cash. It’s the largest currency vault, apparently, in the world, certainly the largest repository of American cash. And when they wanted this money, they had to ship it out of this facility. They loaded it into eighteen --
AMY GOODMAN: This is in East Rutherford, New Jersey?
JAMES STEELE: East Rutherford, New Jersey, about a mile west of Giants Stadium, ten miles west of Manhattan. Thousands of commuters go by this place every day. Nobody even knows it’s there. I mean, everybody knows where the Federal Reserve Bank is in Lower Manhattan, this august institution, but nobody knows this warehouse over there. You don't think of a warehouse for money. But anyway, that's what we were tracing. This is where it began. And they have it stored there on basically pallets, like it’s some sort of household goods, and it’s all run on a very computerized system. If somebody needs money, it comes out of that.
And the money for Iraq went into eighteen-wheeler trucks, unmarked trucks, and then these trucks quietly slipped under the New Jersey Turnpike, went down to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. Seals were broken on the money, and the money was shipped out overnight to Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Where are highway spills when you need them?
JAMES STEELE: Exactly. In fact, one of the most amusing things that happened to some of the people loading this money was that one day they opened the back of one of these trucks, and the money flowed out just like it was beans or coffee or sugar or whatever it was, creating all kinds of mayhem as people scrambled around trying to get the money back onto these pallets.
But the whole process, at least in this country by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and the Treasury Department, there were standards. I mean, there were rigid standards to watch this money and make sure that the proper amount was shipped over there. But once it got to Iraq, a totally different thing happened.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/12/1410243
"What struck us was the incredible control, supervision and everything in this country, and then it gets to Iraq, and all controls, all supervision disappears. I mean, large chunks of it went into the palace in Baghdad. Some of it went into other palaces, all Saddam Hussein palaces around the country. And then it was distributed about, and a lot of the money went to American contractors, it went to Iraqi contractors. It was all a, basically, as-much-as-you-can-carry basis. And people stuffed it into their own pockets, basically, in a lot of cases. Now, some -- "
AMY GOODMAN: One month after the invasion of Iraq, the United States began airlifting planeloads of cash to Baghdad, literally. Stacks of $100 bills were packed into bricks, assembled into large pallets and loaded onto cargo planes bound for the Iraqi capital. Beginning in April 2003, continuing for little more than a year, a total of $12 billion of US currency was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Iraq. The US military delivered the bank notes to the Coalition Provisional Authority, where it was to be dispensed for Iraqi reconstruction.
What happened to it? To date, at least $9 billion cannot be accounted for. In a startling new expose, Vanity Fair contributing editors Donald Barlett and James Steele follow the money trail from the Fed to Iraq. Barlett and Steele are two of the nation’s top investigative journalists. Together they have won two Pulitzer Prizes, two national magazine awards. Don Barlett and Jim Steele join us now in our firehouse studio, up from Philadelphia. Thanks so much for joining us.
JAMES STEELE: Great to be with you.
DONALD BARLETT: Good to be with you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Jim, let's start with where this money was in this country before it was sent off.
JAMES STEELE: The money that went to Iraq was basically impounded funds: Iraqi assets dating back to the original Gulf War, oil money that had been under the control of the United Nations. And this money was basically under the care of the US government, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
And when they wanted to make this shipment, what we were so fascinated by was just how it get there, where did it come from. And what we found out, there’s a warehouse ten miles west of Manhattan, about a mile west of Giants Stadium, that nobody knows is there. It’s a huge facility, larger than your biggest Wal-Mart, and this thing is packed with cash. It’s the largest currency vault, apparently, in the world, certainly the largest repository of American cash. And when they wanted this money, they had to ship it out of this facility. They loaded it into eighteen --
AMY GOODMAN: This is in East Rutherford, New Jersey?
JAMES STEELE: East Rutherford, New Jersey, about a mile west of Giants Stadium, ten miles west of Manhattan. Thousands of commuters go by this place every day. Nobody even knows it’s there. I mean, everybody knows where the Federal Reserve Bank is in Lower Manhattan, this august institution, but nobody knows this warehouse over there. You don't think of a warehouse for money. But anyway, that's what we were tracing. This is where it began. And they have it stored there on basically pallets, like it’s some sort of household goods, and it’s all run on a very computerized system. If somebody needs money, it comes out of that.
And the money for Iraq went into eighteen-wheeler trucks, unmarked trucks, and then these trucks quietly slipped under the New Jersey Turnpike, went down to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. Seals were broken on the money, and the money was shipped out overnight to Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Where are highway spills when you need them?
JAMES STEELE: Exactly. In fact, one of the most amusing things that happened to some of the people loading this money was that one day they opened the back of one of these trucks, and the money flowed out just like it was beans or coffee or sugar or whatever it was, creating all kinds of mayhem as people scrambled around trying to get the money back onto these pallets.
But the whole process, at least in this country by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and the Treasury Department, there were standards. I mean, there were rigid standards to watch this money and make sure that the proper amount was shipped over there. But once it got to Iraq, a totally different thing happened.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/12/1410243
