"Who In Their Right Mind Would Send 360 Tons of Cash Into a War Zone? But That Is Exactly What Our Government Did." *

Four years after the invasion, Iraq remains without electricity, is poor and "chaotic".

Paul Bremer being questioned and rightly so

"Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone? But that

is exactly what our government did." *

More precisely 363 Tons of Cash Was Sent to Iraq during wartime in 2003 and 2004.

I admit that I watch American PBS “The News Hour” and also the BBC World News more routinely than any other sources to get my news. Although I am American, I like to get news reports about the United States of America, with the inclusion that I can get a view about us and our government from outside the country. It gives me a more global and international perspective. For Darfur, I go to http://sudan.net/and link to “Latest News”. We in the US are way too insular, inward-looking, as a whole, and it is wise and healthy to get a more open-minded, inclusive and less self-important view that we so are likely to have. I heard this story last evening both on the American PBS “The News Hour” and the BBC of “363 tons of cash” . Then online I picked up the article included below. This story is implausible and it is unbelievable to picture this. . . Three hundred, sixty three tons (363) of CASH sent on wooden pallets to Iraq in the middle of war and lawlessness, with no means to track that the money didn’t get into the wrong hands. It is believed – hear this – let this sink in – that the insurgents that we have been struggling with got a hold of this very money and have been using it to fight us and the Iraqi people. Do you get this? It is simply mind-boggling. And STUPID! Period. No debate in my mind. This money was in part sent to pay Iraqi government employees during the turmoil when there were NO BANKS. Iraq had collapsed. The plan was to send cash on wood pallets to keep their country running. There were fake names on the government payroll. Geez . . . maybe insurgents, you think. (?)

America where is the outrage?

In my small hometown, our property taxes went up this year (and whose didn’t?) and our town charter says we can have a “tent meeting” and force the town’s approved budget to be decreased by a simple quorum vote. This happened last August. I was asked to work as a poll worker as I had worked the Primaries and November Elections, but I was in the Berkshire mountains that weekend in Massachusetts, so I was unable to attend. But the decrease in our local taxes was the result. I saved approximately $330.00. Now the elected school board and local school department is suing the town to get back the funds so that the local public schools can be adequately funded. I bring this up because the town has been outraged by this tax increase, the local newspapers were full of “letters to the editor” representing both of the “warring” sides of the issue. The local high school drama students wrote, produced, directed, acted a play based on the whole humiliation and fiasco of the “tent meeting”. My response in September 2006, was “Why don’t we get this outraged over real problems to do with where our money is spent?” Local tax dollars give us directly wonderful returns in our communities and for our students. But, this 363 tons of CASH sent to Iraq in the middle of total bedlam is bizarre, eccentric and idiotic. Are we really this stupid? Well, someone is. And he claims to be our Decider. Twice I voted for the “Other Candidate”. And remember the first time that George W Bush became the Leader of the USA, it was the United States Supreme Court that was the President-decider. Oh, . . . America, couldn’t we puhleez, get more informed before we cast a vote?

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The following article's link is

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6338341.stm

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Bremer quizzed over cash for Iraq

The former head of the US-led civilian administration in Iraq has defended his decision to send billions of dollars in cash to Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.

Paul Bremer told a Congressional committee investigating allegations of waste and fraud that he had done his best to kick-start Iraq's economy.

The funds came from Iraqi oil revenue and previously frozen assets.

Much of the money went missing and critics say there was no system to track how it was used.

* "Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone? But that is exactly what our government did," Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said during Tuesday's hearing.

He added that there was no way of knowing whether the cash - totalling $9 billion and flown in (wooden) pallets from the US - would end up in enemy hands.

Mr. Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) before sovereignty was transferred to Iraq in June 2004, responded that he was trying to make the best of a bad situation.

He acknowledged that, ideally, modern financial systems for control of the Iraq funds should have been set up.

"But as often in Iraq the ideal collided with the harsh realities on the ground," he said.

He said the CPA chose not to delay paying salaries and pensions, as this would have been "demoralising and unfair" to millions of Iraqi families.

During the hearing, Mr. Bremer said it was "difficult to give a full picture of the desperate situation in Iraq in May 2003".

The country, he told the panel, "was in chaos, socially, politically and economically".