That was a good documentary. As you mentioned it is extra sad that the money belonged to the Iraqis.

>Last night there was a documentary here, done by a British outfit, outlining how financing was handled post-war in Iraq.
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>The most incredible part had to do with 20 BILLION dollars of Iraq's OWN MONEY. Immediately after the war, apparently, Iraqi assets were located around the world, liquidated for cash when necessary and all the money was placed into a 'trust account' to be administered by Emperor Brenner until governance was handed to an Iraqi government. The money was to be used strictly for reconstruction for the benefit of Iraqis.
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>All money was cash in $100 bills in 'bricks' of $100,000. (I think) each. In all many many TONS of $100 bills were sent to Iraq for disbursement for reconstruction and related projects. I conjured an image of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his pool of $$$.
>The documentary showed hospitals that were re-furbished by American "contractors" that were sad examples of shoddy construction and inadequate work (drains not working, drains leaking, ants coming out from under tiles in operating rooms, etc. The lack of BASIC (and simple and cheap) supplies like needles, drugs, tubing, etc was discussed in some detail.
>Then there were the drainage and water supply project for towns, billed in the hundreds of millions of $$$ each, that accomplished virtually nothing.
>And there were "services" billed to the emperor at grossly inflated prices, often using equipment that was local commandeered by suppliers at no cost and "leased" for huge prices.
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>At the time that Emperor Brenner handed over control to the Iraqis there was 3.5 billion dollars transferred to Iraq out of its original 20 billion dollars, with virtually nothing to show for it.
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>People may think the "oil for food" skullduggery was bad, but this makes that look like a small prank by comparison. I wonder what's holding up publicity on the matter.
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>Sad!