An excellent example of our Non-Free Press

This Reuters article has been picked up in newspapers all over the English-speaking world-- BUT nearly all major US papers have apparently refused to touch it. A Google search for this particular Reuters article showed that it was posted on numerous anti-war and activist websites, and all over the foreign press. Another Google search, for newspapers covering the story but not using the Reuters article, turned up a very slanted story on Fox, but no other coverage in major news outlets.

US officials misplace $11.4bn
Reuters, AFP
February 01, 2005

WASHINGTON: The post-invasion US governing authority in Iraq lost track of $US8.8billion ($11.4billion) it transferred to government ministries in a black hole of fraud, kickbacks and misappropriation, according to an official US audit released yesterday.

The report of the US Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction was scathing in its criticism of how the Coalition Provisional Authority handled Iraqi money until it handed power to the interim Government last June.

"The CPA provided less-than-adequate controls for $US8.8 billion in DFI (Development Fund for Iraq) funds provided to Iraqi ministries through the national budget process," the report said.

<snip>

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,12111466,00.html

Why wasn't the story about the CPA mismanagement covered just as widely HERE in the US? Since lax accounting of $8.8 billion is what some might call "embarassing" to the administration and since the article hints at possible theft or fraud by friends of Cheney, I guess we don't need to read it. Nothing happening here folks. Just move along.

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The only major paper to cover the story was the Washington Post. The story came with an extra 2 paragraphs justifying the CPA's loose accounting practices, and a response to that justification drawn from the audit report.

<snip>

In addition, Bremer said the Iraqi ministries had no regular payroll systems and the "system had been corrupted beyond repair by decades of cronyism and ad hoc fixes."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman also disagreed with the audit's findings and said the CPA had instituted a series of reforms, including actions to fight corruption.

"The CPA was operating under extraordinary conditions from its inception until mission completion. Throughout, the CPA strafed earnestly for sound management, transparency, and oversight," said Whitman in E-mailed comments to Reuters.

The auditors said they understood the CPA was working in a dangerous environment but it had a responsibility to ensure Iraqi ministries had basic financial controls before they were entrusted with handling such large amounts of money.

"The fact that the Iraqi ministries ceased to or had never functioned, lacked basic tools and operated in a cash economy was precisely why the CPA should have provided oversight of the financial management of the funds."

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49395-2005Jan30.html

Yahoo News also carried the expanded Reuters article , the only major news website that I could find posting any version of the Reuters article, or any mention of the story.


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Fox didn't run the Reuters article (that I could find), but Fox did pick up a similar story-- that the International Advisory and Monitoring Board has alleged that the CPA committed fraud to the tune of $20 billion under loosely audited contracts.

But instead of talking about the serious CPA accounting problems all alone in a single story, the Fox article cloaked the story on CPA accounting problems inside a different story-- the scandals surrounding the UN Oil for Food Program. The CPA accounting story is just a "less high-profile probe" when compared to the HUGE Oil for Food Scandal.


A Tale of Two Iraq Investigations
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

WASHINGTON — While investigators zero in on what happened to billions of dollars allegedly siphoned away in the Oil-for-Food scandal, a less high-profile probe is under way into spending in Iraq.

Investigations into how the U.S-led coalition spent Iraq’s oil revenues after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 have found several problems. Last month, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (search) (IAMB) on Iraq reported serious problems with the way a $20 billion fund for Iraqi rebuilding had been handled.

Some look at the heavy focus on Oil-for-Food — the U.N. program that was supposed to have let Saddam Hussein (search) sell oil to buy humanitarian goods for Iraqis but instead was used to help line the pockets of Saddam and others — and the comparatively light touch given to reports of other fraud as being unfair. “We cannot take the moral high ground,” insists Pratap Chatterjee, author of Iraq Inc., and a war critic who has made several trips into the region. “We took the money, we spent it any way we wanted. We kept no track of the money. How are we able to judge what went on before?”

But others say there is no comparison between how American officials spent U.S. taxpayer funds or Iraqi money in postwar Iraq and how private companies and individuals — including U.N Secretary Kofi Annan’s son — allegedly profited illegally from the multibillion-dollar program during the 1990s.

Michael Rubin, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and a former political advisor to the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), said the recent IAMB report might be an attempt to draw attention from Oil-for-Food. “This reminds me of a petty thief, after being arrested, is put in a cell and tells all sorts of tales to get a lighter sentence,” he charged.


<snip>
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,145288,00.html
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Next to the Fox article (same limk as above) Fox has a sidebar that picks out some of the same individual allegations made in the Inspector General's audit:


•Auditors Can't Find Property Managed by Halliburton in Iraq•
•FBI Interviews Halliburton Whistleblower•Halliburton Kuwait Contracts Show Contradictions
•DOD Extended Halliburton Contract Despite Warning
•FBI Investigating Halliburton Contracts
•Halliburton CEO: May Not Rebid for Iraq Contracts•Iraq Oil Board: U.S. Mismanaging
•Halliburton Awarded $10B in Iraq Contracts

When any of these individual stories are selected, the reader is provided with the allegation, BUT the reader also gets a refutation of the allegation and/or gets an otherwise irrelevant point meant to color the view of the reader. For example, the article says the Inspector General's office did an audit and couldn't find property managed by Halliburton in Iraq, BUT Halliburton did its OWN "wall-to-wall audit" and thinks the US Inspector General's audit is all wrong.

Another story says that "Kerry charged that this mismanagement was going on" and that Kerry's charge was made right before the 2004 election. But the article was written after the election, and what Kerry said is irrelevant to the Inspector General's audit, in which the charges are still being made.

Jon Stewart...Randi said it was flown out with Bremmer the day he left Bagdad

some of the only real news is the "fake" news. God bless Jon Stewart (and Letterman and Randi, too).

for ssi to be bankrupt like it was fact.Only the bushies have used this date.It's wmd all over again.We have no voice,how do we get a voice?We're screaming and no one hears us.It's the most frustrating thing I've ever been through!!!!!!!!!!