You can't make this stuff up.
The Iraqi government has had control of their own revenues from oil and other sources since 2004, when Democrat Senator John Kerry made it an issue in his campaign to replace George W. Bush. He made it a big enough issue that Bush caved, and turned over responsibility for the country back to newly elected Iraq government officials. That means they, not the Americans or the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) had control of Iraqi revenues and cash and could spend it as they wanted. (I was there in Baghdad at the time and even remember seeing Kerry on a visit when he walked through the rotunda of the US Embassy.)
So, since then, they have been siphoning off funds using different corruption techniques for years. If Kerry had not made an election issue of Iraq control, and / Bush had not caved, the Coalition may have been there for several years and would have greatly improved control over Iraq's revenues in what is a cash society (no residents had credit cards or checking accounts - all financial transactions were in cash).
In this case, here is a LONG article describing how a former Iraqi official living in Canada researched the background of the Canadian Company that was about to get a $1.2-billion electricity power plant contract from the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, and found the company was a front. He also got another former Iraqi official living in Germany to research another sham company that was about to get a $650-million contract.
He wrote a letter with all the details to Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki and Maliki fired the head of the Electrical Ministry who was apparently deeply involved in the corruption attempt.
READ the article - it is very clear, including evidence doucments, and also illustrates that even though the facts are now out in the open, the corrupt Minister still might get to keep his job.
Typical Iraq. And we still keep giving them foreign aid and military protection paid for by the US taxpayer.
vj
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5564.htm
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