$50+ Billion GONE in Iraq? Wanna scream about bailout? What about this?

[dc dalton]

You just have to wonder how much of our money was sucked into the desert and swiss bank account from this mess:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...f-1622987.html

Remember, $50 billion is what they are giving the auto companies ... find this $50 billion and you offset the other

[addicted2freedom]

Sadly, I'm not shocked at all by this

[scotty2hotty89]

I hope that this isnt as bad as it looks from this article. If it is for real it will be all over the msm very shortly. I dont want to jump the gun on this one so I will wait to see how this pans out before I loose my cool, start pointing fingers, and and demanding answers.

[LorDiego01]

Don't forget to make your checks payable to the "IRS".

[ehidle]

The article is short on facts and plentiful with speculative and conditional language. This is typical for European "news" outlets, especially when talking about how much the US sucks. I'd wait until some actual facts are found and legal conclusions made from them through the due process of Law before passing judgment.

It's nice to know it's being investigated, but that's all that the article really reports on aside from the few token things that have been found. However, reporting that you found a pebble does not necessarily prove that there is a boulder somewhere to be found.

[RuralTom]

This is hilarious!

If Obama had been behind this one there'd be 50 posts screaming bloody murder about waste and "socialism" and stupidity...

[Dredly]

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

1. General Petrieus (sp?) has been "winning" the Iraq war for years by paying off those insurgents. The reduction in violence hasn't come due to Military efforts to stop it, its come from the US Tax payers putting the iraqi people on their payroll. I'm not making it up and he never got permission to do it... so as soon as the US (and its money) pulls out I would look forward to a massive collapse.

2. The amount of money thrown at "big" building projects is insane as well as repairing damaged infrastructure, in a huge number of cases the work isn't done, the people just pocket the money and go about their usual lives. Its basically 1 huge welfare state at this point.

3. We have fully trained their police and military from the ground up. How much do you think it costs to train an entire countries police and military as well as outfit them? Easily tens of thousands / person.

4. We have lost hundreds of thousands of weapons over there... just have NO clue where they went, now the same is happening in Afghanistan... we aren't just talking about AK's either... we are talking tanks, vehicles, heavy weaponry...

[H.E. Pennypacker]

$50b is a drop in the bucket of the overall cost of the war...one in which we should've never been involved.

[phillyd2]

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

1. General Petrieus (sp?) has been "winning" the Iraq war for years by paying off those insurgents. The reduction in violence hasn't come due to Military efforts to stop it, its come from the US Tax payers putting the iraqi people on their payroll. I'm not making it up and he never got permission to do it... so as soon as the US (and its money) pulls out I would look forward to a massive collapse.

2. The amount of money thrown at "big" building projects is insane as well as repairing damaged infrastructure, in a huge number of cases the work isn't done, the people just pocket the money and go about their usual lives. Its basically 1 huge welfare state at this point.

3. We have fully trained their police and military from the ground up. How much do you think it costs to train an entire countries police and military as well as outfit them? Easily tens of thousands / person.

4. We have lost hundreds of thousands of weapons over there... just have NO clue where they went, now the same is happening in Afghanistan... we aren't just talking about AK's either... we are talking tanks, vehicles, heavy weaponry...

All true but everything you listed should have been “accounted” for. Give some tribal leader $ 1000 – fill out the paperwork. A humvee disappears or gets blown up – fill out the paperwork.

What this article is talking about is monies that are unaccountable which would be scary if even remotely true.

Sadly, words like Millions, Billions and now even Trillions no longer have the ability to shock us.

[addicted2freedom]

All true but everything you listed should have been “accounted” for. Give some tribal leader $ 1000 – fill out the paperwork. A humvee disappears or gets blown up – fill out the paperwork.

What this article is talking about is monies that are unaccountable which would be scary if even remotely true.

Sadly, words like Millions, Billions and now even Trillions no longer have the ability to shock us.

Anyone recall, in 2001, when Rumsfeld said $2+ trillion was unaccounted for at the Pentagon? Wonder if that monies was every 'accounted for'....