Iraquinoduto: bilhões de dólares em impostos gastos na invasão criminosa ao Iraque não têm justificação documentada ( ING )

Report: Defense Department cannot fully account for $7.8B spent in Iraq

By Dan Friedman

CongressDaily

May 22, 2008
A House panel Thursday displayed vouchers showing single U.S. Army payments of up to $11 million made without any documentation showing how the money was spent.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee used a hearing to publicize a Defense Department inspector general’s report, released Thursday, which estimates that of $8.2 billion used to buy commercial goods and services in the war, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service processed $7.8 billion in payments without adequate documentation.
For $1.4 billion of payments, the Army lacked the minimum justification required for payment, the report estimates.
“We don’t know what we paid for,” testified Mary Ugone, the Defense Department’s deputy inspector general for auditing.
The IG made estimates by extrapolating from a sample of 702 commercial payments; a methodology the Army questioned in a written response to the report.
Lawmakers highlighted some of the largest single payouts made without adequate paperwork, such as a voucher showing an $11.1 million payment in 2005 to contractor IAP Worldwide Services that “was missing both the receiving report and invoice,” the report said, and a $5.6 million payment made in 2004 to an Iraqi company without any description of how the money was used.
The report also highlights $135 million in payments made without documentation through the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which was created to give local U.S. military commandeers in Iraq the ability to back small local projects. While the program is generally used to pay Iraqis for supporting U.S. forces, the report notes large lump sum payments of up $8 million made to foreign governments with troops in Iraq. The United Kingdom got $68 million, Poland $45 million and South Korea $21 million. But the IG report says of 22 related vouchers reviewed “none contained sufficient supporting documentation to provide reasonable assurance that these funds were used for their intended purpose.”
The report says auditors could not identify any reconstruction project resulting from the funds. Ugone denied that war conditions excuse sloppy recordkeeping. She said auditors used standards significantly less rigorous than those for domestic spending to decide if payments were adequately documented.
“There are challenges, but there should be some semblance of accountability,” she said. “No documentation, from our perspective, is not acceptable.” Ugone noted that from 2003 to 2006, the audit found accounting did not improve.
House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Tom Davis, R-Va., pointed out that problems accounting for payments have long plagued the Defense Department, putting it on GAO’s high-risk list for the last 15 years. But Davis joined Democrats in faulting the Army for its response to the issue. Due to the audit, the Pentagon moved the DFAS office reconciling Iraqi payments from Kuwait to a Rome, N.Y. facility, but Ugone said she was unsure what larger fixes are underway.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the Pentagon had refused to send a witness to Thursday’s hearing even though “the department has known about this audit for more than a year and has known about this hearing for several weeks.” Members noted Pentagon officials had claimed they needed time to review the report, but had already sent extensive written comments on it to the IG.

Pentágono treina analistas para mídia

Milton Coelho da Graça (*)

Comunique-se

09/05/08
150 mil militares americanos continuam atolados no Iraque e no Afeganistão, mas o Pentágono também luta num outro front – o da mídia, especialmente rádio e tevê -, no esforço cada vez mais penoso de explicar ao povo americano e ao mundo suas razões, meios e objetivos nessa “guerra ao terrorismo”.
O New York Times, em sua edição de 20 de abril, publicou longa matéria do repórter David Barstow, contando toda a história, desde que o Pentágono, preocupado com as denúncias da Anistia Internacional e outras organizações de defesa dos direitos humanos sobre as violências cometidas contra prisioneiros, juntou um grupo de militares já reformados “para um tour a Guantánamo cuidadosamente orquestrado”.
“Para o público, esses homens são membros de uma fraternidade familiar” – disse Barstow logo no início de sua matéria – “apresentada dezenas de milhares de vezes no rádio e na televisão como ´analistas militares´, cujo longo tempo de serviço os preparou para apresentar julgamentos respeitáveis sobre as questões mais candentes do mundo pós-setembro de 2001. Escondido, entretanto, atrás da aparência de objetividade, está um aparato de informação que usa esses analistas numa campanha para gerar cobertura noticiosa favorável à performance do governo em tempo de guerra, conforme The New York Times desvendou.”
A CNN informou a Barstow que, durante quase três anos, não sabia que um de seus principais analistas militares, general Marks, estava, segundo o repórter, “profundamente envolvido no negócio de procurar contratos com o governo, incluindo contratos relacionados com o Iraque”. Ele se esforçava para obter um contrato no valor de US$ 4,7 bilhões (que pagariam milhares de tradutores no Iraque)!
A CNN encerrou a relação com o general Marks depois disso.
Mas outras redes de televisão – Fox e CBS – recusaram-se a comentar o assunto.
É muito possível que essa reportagem de Barstow venha a ganhar o Pulitzer ou outro dos vários importantes prêmios conferidos nos Estados Unidos a trabalhos jornalísticos. Mas nenhum jornal brasileiro se interessou pela publicação, embora alguns tenham contratos com o NYT. Os interessados podem acessar o sítio do jornal (www.nytimes.com.br) e fazer o necessário cadastro.
******

(*) Milton Coelho da Graça, 77, jornalista desde 1959. Foi editor-chefe de O Globo e outros jornais (inclusive os clandestinos Notícias Censuradas e Resistência), das revistas Realidade, IstoÉ, 4 Rodas, Placar, Intervalo e deste Comunique-se

Subsidiária da Halliburton fornecia água podre para nossas tropas no Iraque. Nossos meninos nem podiam lavar direito o sangue no corpo!! ( Inglês )

Senator condemns Army response to unsafe water in Iraq

By Dan Friedman

CongressDaily

March 10, 2008
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., charged Monday that the Pentagon failed to stop contractor KBR Inc., from supplying unsafe water to U.S. troops in Iraq and that an Army general last year misled senators about the problem. “I would have thought the Pentagon would have been furious and have taken immediate action,” Dorgan said Monday. “Now we know that is not case.”
A March 7 report by the Defense Department inspector general, released Monday by Dorgan, says that the former subsidiary of Halliburton Co. did not follow Army standards for maintaining water at three of four bases inspected by the IG: Camp Ar Ramadi, Camp Q-West and Camp Victor. KBR used chlorinated wastewater in troop showers, according to the report. KBR corrected some problems by November 2006, the report says, but quality-control problems persisted at two sites. “Water suppliers exposed U.S. forces to unmonitored and potentially unsafe water,” the report says. The water involved was used for cleaning, not drinking. The report says there is no way to tell if contaminated water caused disease but notes some soldiers who used the unmonitored water experienced skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses.
Dorgan requested the report after whistleblowers, including KBR employees, disclosed problems with water quality and troops complained about discolored, odorous water. Allegations surfaced at a 2006 hearing held by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. Dorgan charged the Army has continued to rely on assurances from KBR that there was no problem. “All the Army had to do was talk to the troops — which is what the inspector general eventually did,” Dorgan said. “No one seemed to give a damn,” he added. Dorgan said the IG’s report states that the IG informed the Army of many of its findings on March 31. But at an April 19 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Maj. Gen. Jerome Johnson, head of the U.S. Army Sustainment Command, said in response to questions about the water at Camp Ar Ramadi that there was no issue with it and he did not know of problems elsewhere.
Dorgan said he is writing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ask why the Pentagon did not respond more aggressively to problems cited by the IG. The issue will be raised in upcoming Senate Appropriations Committee hearings on contracting in Iraq, Dorgan said. In a statement, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said if the military continues to rely on contractors, “we are going to have to do a much better job supervising their activities.”
A Pentagon spokesman said he could not comment on Johnson’s testimony and said Dorgan’s criticism of the Army and Pentagon is not supported by the IG report. “I don’t think anything that supports that is in this audit report,” he said, noting the report states corrective actions were taken. KBR said its water treatment “has met or exceeded all applicable military and contract standards,” and disagreed with many of IG’s findings, according to the Associated Press.

GovExec.