Missing Millions Said Going Back to Iraq's Bank

WASHINGTON - A leading Arab newspaper is reporting today that the Central Bank of Iraq is in the process of retrieving some $200 million withdrawn earlier this month by the country's defense minister for a mysterious arms deal.

Al-Hayat quotes an official Iraqi source as saying the governor of CBI, Sinan al-Shabibi, ordered the Lebanese and Jordanians to send back cash payments last week when he learned the Defense Ministry had withdrawn at least $200 million in cash for an arms purchase without his consent.

In an interview yesterday, a spokesman for the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition made up mainly of Shiite parties that is expected to win the most seats in the January 30 elections, said he expected the new assembly that will take power next month to investigate the charges that the defense minister, Hazim Shaalan, tried to steal some $300 million from the government this month.
...
"Mr. Shaalan has ties to the former Iraqi intelligence and these ties have discredited him and discredited many others who have these ties and occupy important positions in the interim government," Mr. Qanbar added. "I would advise Mr. Shaalan to acknowledge his past and ask for an apology from the Iraqi people."

http://www.nysun.com/article/8094

at the NY Sun are now reporting non-news in an attempt to cover the gross corruption within the Iraqi Interim Government.

"in the process of retrieving"

"ordered the Lebanese and Jordanians to send back cash payments"

It's not news until the full $300 million is back in the Iraq Central Bank and it's disappearance fully accounted for..

The Sun reports asking for the return of the stolen money as "news" . :crazy:

They seem to only be interested in making *Chalabi's* case...

snip>
It is apparent now that Mr. Bush's National Security Council, CIA and State Department did not get the message. Last spring this troika selected the regime that will most likely fall on January 30. The fact that large sums of money are now going missing from Iraq's treasury before these elections is part of an intelligence failure of a higher order of magnitude than anything yet investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Did the president's best and brightest advisers choose thugs and thieves to steer Iraq from occupation to democracy? As we go down to the wire in the election, it's starting to look like Mr. Chalabi - who worked so closely with the bipartisan leadership of the Senate to get the strategic legislative foundations of this war passed with the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, and who warned against the kind of mistakes made by the interim government - has one of the cleanest records in the field.

http://www.nysun.com/article/8119

I hope the money went to the local families of Iraq so that they can defend themselves, their children and country. That's what we would do in the USA.