Turn turn turn

I am on the road again and might not post for a while, so it seems apt and timely to recap a major issue I have been prodding since I began this blog in September 05 and before that on the www.galleonpoint.com site.

The new Democrat majority is finally getting a handle on the $ billions missing from the earliest stages of the CPA occupation in Iraq.

Stories began surfacing almost immediately, about the apparent waste occurring in Iraq, but were largely ignored. .

In December 2005 I posted Where is that Nine Billion Dollars? On this blog, and the question is still relevant, though the amount appears to have blown out.

My frequent comments on the Oil for Food scandal, particularly in relation to Australia’s wheat cheats, the AWB, raised more questions about squandered cash.

Two former executives where levered into key positions in the Coalition Reconstruction Authority, by the Australian government, and against strong US opposition.

Trevor Flugge, (above) had been Chairman of the newly privatised AWB, the country’s monopoly what exporter. He proved to be a bit of a cowboy in Baghdad, looking after his own interests as well as assuring further wheat sales to the country.

As early as 2003 questions were being asked - Iraq: the missing billions /23.10.03

“A staggering US$4 billion in oil revenues and other Iraqi funds earmarked for the reconstruction of the country has disappeared into opaque bank accounts administered by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the US-controlled body that rules Iraq. By the end of the year, if nothing changes in the way this cash is accounted for, that figure will double.”

But it was Flugge’s colleague, Michael Long, who jangled the alarm bells with pictures of him distributing boxes of cash (right).

His first trip to Iraq was 1997 and he took over the Middle East desk in 2001. In January 2002 Mr Long was appointed as the first Australian representative to the peak international grain body, Grain and Feed Trade Association.

Well versed in the ways of Iraq, Long was entrusted with distributing cash which has never really been accounted for.

It has been a long and frustrating story, and It is great to see some serious effort to investigate it now. I doubt the cash will be recovered or the real story known, but other uncomfortable aspects will certainly be canvassed.

Chief among them should be the real reason Iraq was invaded in the first place.