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Banned
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This will be a "quiet" thread, just as the "Plame Leak" topic, and the "Wilkes Foggo indictments" topic, and the topic of replacing close to a dozen US attorneys, including Carol Lam, heading the Cunningham, Wilkes, Wade, Foggo investiagtion, are "quiet" topics....but, be that as it may, here is more on the topic of this thread's OP:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...501325_pf.html
Back on Capitol Hill, Bremer Is Facing a Cooler Reception
Republicans to Join Democrats in Criticizing Decisions in Iraq
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 6, 2007; A09
The last time L. Paul Bremer testified before Congress, he was lauded as an American hero. Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.) congratulated Bremer, who was leading the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, for a "tremendous success." Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) commended his "energy and focus." Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) praised his "brilliant analysis."
When Bremer returns to Capitol Hill today to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he will receive a far less effusive reception than he did in September 2003. The now-ruling Democrats plan to pounce on him for disbanding Iraq's army, firing many members of the Baath Party, hiring GOP loyalists and not fully accounting for the spending of billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenue.
Fellow Republicans have pointed questions for the first time in public as well.
"Had Bremer made better decisions, we would be in a very different place today," said Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.).
"Some of the key mistakes in Iraq occurred on his watch," said Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.). "I think there will be a tendency among Republicans to look very carefully and say, 'Who is this man . . . who made decisions that we're still paying for today?' "
Two and a half years after he left Baghdad, the steel-haired viceroy who wore combat boots with his navy-blue suits has emerged as an embodiment of reconstruction policy gone awry. The Senate began debate yesterday on a resolution condemning President Bush's troop buildup, and House members will have their sights on Bremer this week as they seek to assign blame for U.S. mistakes in rebuilding Iraq.
While deep divisions remain about Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq, there is near-unanimity among Democrats and Republicans that the United States needs to roll back key political and economic decisions that Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority made.....
<h4>........For Democrats, Bremer is a particularly juicy target because he, along with retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks and former CIA director George J. Tenet, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bush, who would shower Bremer with praise on his visits to Washington.</h4>
For many Republicans, who believe they must acknowledge mistakes if they want to increase public support for continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq, defending Bremer may be too much to ask. Even senior Bush administration officials who were once effusive in their descriptions of Bremer privately point to some of his decisions as key errors.........
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Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/...eut/index.html
Lawmaker: U.S. sent giant pallets of cash into Iraq
POSTED: 12:52 a.m. EST, February 7, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said Tuesday.
The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.
Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (Watch Democrats put the former top U.S. official in Iraq on the spot Video)
<b>"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did,"</b> the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.
On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail cited by committee members.
It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 30.
Bremer: Cash requested by Iraqis
L. Paul Bremer, who as the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority ran Iraq after initial combat operations ended, said the enormous shipments were done at the request of the Iraqi minister of finance.
"He said, 'I am concerned that I will not have the money to support the Iraqi government expenses for the first couple of months after we are sovereign. We won't have the mechanisms in place, I won't know how to get the money here,"' Bremer said.
"So these shipments were made at the explicit request of the Iraqi minister of finance to forward fund government expenses, a perfectly, seems to me, legitimate use of his money," Bremer told lawmakers.
Democrats led by Waxman also questioned whether the lack of oversight of $12 billion in Iraqi money that was disbursed by Bremer and the CPA somehow enabled insurgents to get their hands on the funds, possibly through falsifying names on the government payroll.
"I have no knowledge of monies being diverted. I would certainly be concerned if I thought they were," Bremer said. He pointed out that the problem of fake names on the payroll existed before the U.S.-led invasion. (Watch Waxman outline questions and Bremer respond Video)
The special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said in a January 2005 report that $8.8 billion was unaccounted for after being given to the Iraqi ministries.
<b>"We were in the middle of a war, working in very difficult conditions, and we had to move quickly to get this Iraqi money working for the Iraqi people," Bremer told lawmakers.</b> He said there was no banking system and it would have been impossible to apply modern accounting standards in the midst of a war.
Republicans argued that Bremer and the CPA staff did the best they could under the circumstances and accused Democrats of trying to score political points over the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.
<b>"We are in a war against terrorists, to have a blame meeting isn't, in my opinion, constructive," said Rep. Dan Burton</b>, an Indiana Republican......
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