Middle East Focus: How Iraq and Bush Taught America the Ways of Middle East Oligarchies…………

Arabia Deserta

How Iraq and Bush Taught America the Ways of Middle East Oligarchies…………

“Chaos, weak oversight and wide use of cash payments in the Iraq reconstruction program allowed Americans who took bribes to get off scot-free. Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions — involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery — made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program. Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewelry, or to pay off enormous casino debts. Some suspects also tried to conceal foreign bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, the investigators said, while in other cases, cash was simply found stacked in home safes……..”

The Iraq War, all the dealings with Arab plutocrat businesses, and a few years of Bush-Cheney have nearly turned the USA a little bit closer to a Middle East oligarchy in some ways. This is not to say that there has not been major local business corruption: the crimes that led to the financial collapse and deep economic recession were homegrown.
After all, Bernard Kerik, former head of NYPD, the Bush and Giuliani nominee for Homeland Security Secretary, is going to prison.
Cheers
mhg

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