Iconic Image

If an editorial cartoonist wanted to create an image that would quickly convey the massive, pointless expenditure of US funds on the misadventures in Iraq, one possible image is that of the open rear of a military cargo plane, dropping pallets loaded with crisp US currency, soon to be scattered who knows where across the Iraqi countryside.

But Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority beat us to it:

Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.

On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail cited by committee members.

It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 30. ...

Democrats led by Waxman also questioned whether the lack of oversight of $12 billion in Iraqi money that was disbursed by Bremer and the CPA somehow enabled insurgents to get their hands on the funds, possibly through falsifying names on the government payroll.

"I have no knowledge of monies being diverted. I would certainly be concerned if I thought they were," Bremer said. He pointed out that the problem of fake names on the payroll existed before the U.S.-led invasion.

The special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said in a January 2005 report that $8.8 billion was unaccounted for after being given to the Iraqi ministries.

"We were in the middle of a war, working in very difficult conditions, and we had to move quickly to get this Iraqi money working for the Iraqi people," Bremer told lawmakers. He said there was no banking system and it would have been impossible to apply modern accounting standards in the midst of a war.

It may come as some surprise to Mr. Bremer, but many of the oldest examples of written language from cultures around the world turn out to be tally sheets. Humans have been accounting for things in the vicinity of Baghdad for 5000 years or so. I'm sure they could have found, if not 'modern' techniques, something at least post-Sumerian.

The complaint that "We were in the middle of a war" doesn't get very far with me either. This was a war that didn't take us by surprise, and during the era of the CPA, we were the dominant power and conditions were far less chaotic than they are now.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City, has already told us of the efforts the CPA put into creating a flat tax, completely restructuring the Iraqi stock exchange, instituting a drug formulary for the hospital system, and rewriting the traffic laws. Are we really supposed to believe they were too busy dodging bullets to follow basic procedures for tracking where 363 TONS OF CASH went, yet they had time to worry about drug formularies and traffic laws?

It seems to me that, before you start worrying about tax rates and advanced sytems for processing stock transactions, having a system for applying 'modern' accounting standards is, well, fundamental.

Otherwise, how will you know whether someone is actually paying their flat tax on that third pallet of cash?

Still, doesn't it feel reassuring to know that Paul Bremer would be "concerned" if he thought the money were being diverted to fund the insurgents? He "has no knowledge" of that, of course, since he didn't use any system by which such knowledge could be obtained, a simple accounting of what happened to the GIANT PALLETS OF CASH.

Heckuva job, Bremmie. No wonder you got the Medal of Freedom.