CPA ATTEMPTS TRANSPARENCY - SO WHERE IS ALL THE MONEY GOING?

Billions of dollars of oil money from Iraq, which were transferred to the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), disappeared into a 'financial black hole'; according to a report issued by Christian Aid in October. Out of the $5 billion dollars collected (from pre and post war oil revenues and invested assets) the humanitarian agency worked out that only around $1 billion dollars could be accounted for. 'For all the talk of freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people - before, during and after the war which toppled Saddam Hussein - there is no way of knowing how the vast majority of this money has been spent' the report concluded.

After the publication of the report, the CPA did finally issue some figures - recognising, say Christian Aid, the need for transparency, while not actually clearing up the issue. The account on the coalition website is well worth looking at (www.cpa-iraq.org), as indeed is the website itself. “You, the good people of Iraq, are too Many and you know too Much to let the Evil-Doers Win” says an apparently unironic statement from Ambassador Paul Bremer at the top of the home page.

As for the figures, the four billion dollars which Christian Aid pinpointed as being unaccounted for have now miraculously turned up. Most of it is apparently sitting in the Federal Reserve Bank in the States. Approximately $1 billion is listed, having been spent on, for example 'Wheat Purchases' ($125,400,000.00 ) and 'Electricity Infrastructure' ($6,687,800.35). There is no mention of, say, how much wheat has been bought, or what has been done with it, or which companies have benefitted from the payments. As Christian Aid point out, a personal bank statement has more and clearer information in it.

The situation has been in direct violation of the UN resolution which allowed Iraqi assets to be transferred to the CPA in the first place, and which stipulated that an International Advisory and Monitoring Board must be set up to account for the money. Last month, it was finally announced that the Board had been set up, six months too late. Christian Aid says it is now waiting to see if the Board, which is meant to be independent, and which includes representatives from the World Bank and the IMF, will have the power it is meant to have. Already it seems that money and bullion seized from Saddam Hussein's accounts has been used directly by the CPA and given to troops to use on “local projects” instead of going through the proper procedures.

By the end of the year, Christian Aid estimated, Iraqi revenues will exceed $9 billion. With the humanitarian situation there still critical, Christian Aid is calling on the government to take urgent action - firstly to make the CPA account properly for the money and secondly to ensure that the revenues are directed to the aid of the people who need it most - and not towards unelected foreign officials and the rich and powerful.

Tony Blair has repeatedly stated there should be transparency in the handling of oil revenues.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/310iraqoil/index.htm

IRAQ 2

SCARY THINGS REALLY DO LIVE UNDER BRIDGES

Fed up missing out on those lucrative post-war business opportunities? Frustrated by your lack of taxpayer-funded contracts? Do you wish you had weighty friends within the US administration? Well, with New Bridge Strategies, you can have them all.
Stuffed with businessmen associated with President Bush, his family and his administration, New Bridge Strategies 'seeks to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of the Bush administration' They generously offer to 'show you the possibilities for reconstructing this new Nation'. That Iraqis live in a 'new Nation' will be news to many of its residents but that is beside the point.

Chairman and Director of New Bridge is Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's longtime right-hand-man and until about eight months ago his head of FEMA, the federal disaster agency. Before that he was the president's chief of staff when he was governor of Texas and campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 2000. Along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, Allbaugh, as campaign manager, acted as 'the brawn' of the president's so-called 'Iron Triangle'. 'Every one of these three people are friends,' gushed Bush during his candidacy. 'We've grown up together politically.'

President of New Bridge, John Howland, claims the company is not trying to promote its political connections. Its website suggests otherwise: 'New Bridge Strategies' principals have years of public policy experience, have held positions in the Reagan Administration and both Bush Administrations and are particularly well suited to working with international agencies in the Executive Branch, Department of Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the American rebuilding apparatus and establishing early links to Congress.' Indeed.

New Bridge was created in May and recently began full-fledged operations which also included opening an office in Iraq. A closer look at the company, however, reveals New Bridge to be little more than an outgrowth of Barbour, Griffiths and Rogers - one of the most well-established and well-connected Republican lobbying firms in the capital.
Vice President and Director of New Bridge is Ed Rogers who was at the forefront of the 1991 scandal over Bush senior's receipt of Bin-Laden family money via the Bank of Commerce and Credit International. As political director at the White House, and a man whom the Senate noted sat in on presidential meetings, Rogers was hired away from the Chief of Staff's Office to represent the main figure of Senate scrutiny, BCCI's American representative, Sheik Khamal Adham.
Together with a hitherto unknown assistant named Haley Barbour (later to become National Republican Committee Chairman and founder of Barbour Griffiths and Rogers), they received the small sum of $600,000 from the former head of Saudi intelligence. The Senate Committee concluded that it, along with the 'gifts' of cash to GW Bush, was intended to influence President Bush.

Chief Operating Officer and third wheel of Barbour Griffith & Rogers is Lanny Griffith who is also incidentally a Director at New Bridge. Griffiths was a political director in the 1988 Bush-Quayle presidential campaign, and served in the White House as Special Assistant for Intergovernmental Affairs, and as Assistant Secretary of Education.
International Director of Barbour Griffith & Rogers is none other than former US Ambassador to Germany in the Reagan administration and former assistant secretary of state, Richard Burt. Burt is also, surprisingly enough, a Director at New Bridge and claims the role of advisor to the Carlyle group, that ex-presidents' club of right-wingers - including Poppa Bush - who run the world's largest private firm. Carlyle profits from Star Wars Missiles, military consulting, and selling weapons to all sides.
If all these people working for two firms seems a little improbable, you need only to note the addresses of both happen to be on the 10th floor of 1275 Pennsylvania Avenue (two blocks away from the White House). How convenient.
'When Iraq is ready to rebuild, we will be there,' promises the New Bridge website. Or should that be 'whether or not Iraq is ready?'

New Bridge Strategies: http://www.newbridgestrategies.com
Voices in the Wilderness: http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pages/newPages/SBcorporate.html
Campaign to stop the war profiteers: http://www.southernst udies.org/