Waste and corruption in Iraq

(How did you arrive at the 23 billion dollars figure?) By using US government reports and estimates from Congress and special inspector general for reconstruction. (Give us some of the most egregious examples of waste and corruption.) Two former American military men won a contract to provide security at Baghdad Airport but had no experience with larger projects. They set up shell companies in the Cayman Islands to bill the US government $10 million for projects that cost $3 million. (The two contractors, where are they now and what are they saying?) They were debarred from further military contracts but they’re not in jail. (What about some of the corporate names involved?) One of the most senior officials in charge of procurement at the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7 billion dollars which was given without competing bids to Halliburton which used to be run by Dick Cheney. She assured me that the imminent invasion justified the lack of competition. She was demoted after she made these public comments. (What else is the government saying about this?) In terms of efforts to recover the money, not one contractor is facing a court case involving embezzlement or waste and the American public knows very little about the level of waste because 70 court cases we discovered are subject to a US gag order preventing discussion. (What about Bush administration officials, what are they saying?) They all declined to comment.