Lost Iraqi Treasure DFIs Discovery
“Ahmed” came by the office yesterday. The last time he was there, I scheduled him as the final appointment of the day so the place would have at least twelve hours to air out. That did not, however, prove effective. The next morning, “Ahmed’s” world class camel-jockey body odor still lingered at a level sufficient for my first visitor of the day, a Japanese diplomat, to notice it.
Admittedly, I have to cut old “Ahmed” some slack - if my visitor had been a French diplomat, for example, I doubt he would have detected anything unusual. But the Japanese have very sensitive noses, and the first thing out of that chap’s mouth was “Has someone left rotting Indian food in your trash, perhaps?” So this time, I didn’t take any chances - I allowed an entire weekend for the scent of “Ahmed’s” eau d’Do-Dah-Day to properly dissipate.
Now there may be those who think I exaggerate, but I assure them, that is definitely not the case. No doubt everyone has, at least once, been approached for spare change by a homeless person who obviously not only had refrained from bathing in several weeks, but also apparently slept in piles of garbage inside a Thai restuarant dumpster to keep warm. Well, let me attest, compared to “Ahmed,” that filthy, reeking panhandler who so memorably turned your stomach inside out and your complexion light green smelled like a wealthy debutante sampling designer scents at the fragrance counter in the Bloomingdale’s ladies’ department.
Gretchen took off forty-five minutes before “Ahmed’s” scheduled arrival, just in case, by some miracle, he might show up early. He was nearly an hour late instead, of course, which is decidedly much more his style. By that time, I had been wearing ME camphor under my nostrils for just over ninety minutes, having scheduled my previous appointment to end half an hour before “Ahmed’s” in order to avoid having that client, an economist from the World Bank, encounter “Ahmed” in the reception area on his way out and get violently sick all over the furniture. So, by that time, I couldn’t have smelled a decomposing donkey in a Baghdad cesspool. Nevertheless, just before I buzzed “Ahmed” in, I popped a generous hand full of Altoids mints in my left cheek and concentrated on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, just in case.
“Tom, my good friend,” he effused, “how much I have missed you!” Then, being an Arab, he leaned over my desk and kissed me on both cheeks, of course. I really don’t enjoy having this guy as a client, naturally, but last time, I requested four times my usual rate and he didn’t flinch. This time, I was getting paid six. For that kind of money, I have found, a person can tolerate an awful lot of unpleasantness. In fact, I must confess, at those rates, I’d even tolerate the presence of Newt Gingrich for an hour.
“So,” I began as he sprawled out in his rose-pink burnoose on the couch by the window, “to what do I owe the honor of his visit?”
“Your Department of Defense,” he wailed, “what is the matter with them?”
“A very extensive, if somewhat boring book,” I dryly responded, “could be written about all the things that are wrong with the United States Department of Defense. So, what, specifically, about DoD is bothering you?”
“They are calling in, how do you say - the detectives who are bookkeepers…”
“Forensic accountants?” I volunteered.
“Yes, yes,” he nodded sagely, “those are the words. First they make this… ah, udder? No… um, anus? Sounds like ‘armpit’…”
“Audit?”
“Yes, yes,” he continued, “this ‘audit’ thing, and find some money is missing. Now DoD is calling in these… forensic…. accountants; they find out who, what, where, how and why. Very bad for Ahmed. Very bad for Ahmed’s many friends, too.”
“You are, I presume,” I replied, “referring to the nine billion dollars of petroleum revenue in the Development Fund for Iraq that was entrusted to the Department of Defense between 2004 and 2007, some eight-point-seven billion of which now seems to have gone missing?”
“Yes, yes,” he vigorously affirmed, “that is the money. But so long ago! Ahmed not understand. Why do they care about money from 2007? Your Treasury, it makes many, many more billions of dollars since then, yes?”
“Trillions, actually,” I confirmed. “But still, even three to six years of interest on eight billion or so dollars amounts to several hundred million…”
“Eight billion dollars,” he sniffed, “plus interest! This is [expletive]-nuts…”
“I think you mean, ‘peanuts…’”
“Yes, yes,” he shot back, “this is what I mean - peanuts! Peanuts to your Pentagon! Peanuts to your Congress! Iraqi oil minister knows nothing about where these peanuts went! Prime Minister Al-Maliki cannot say where are these peanuts! Ahmed cares nothing for these peanuts! Why they bother me and my friends over these peanuts?”
“Perhaps,” I offered, “it’s because those funds were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq…”
“Plenty, plenty rebuilding going on in Iraq,” he protested, sitting up momentarily and jabbing his finger in my direction for emphasis. “And he who says different, I show him the soles of my shoes! Many fine houses with latest fortifications! Much rebuilding!”
“The general idea, however,” I pointed out, “was things like water and electricity…”
“What you think,” he demanded, “that we build fine house in fortified compound without water well? Without electrical generator? Of course we build water and electricity!”
“The US government,” I clarified, “was thinking in terms of, ah… municipal water and electricity.”
My guest’s eyebrows arched up in astonishment. “Municipal? What is this, municipal?”
“It means,” I explained, “that you build water and electrical facilities for everyone.”
“Build water and electric for everyone?” He peered at me, obviously nonplussed. “What everyone do for the oil minister? What everyone do for Prime Minister Al-Maliki? What everyone do for Ahmed, for Ahmed’s tribe? I tell you what they do - they do nothing! Everyone do nothing for Ahmed and his friends. Now you tell - why Ahmed and his friends have to do anything for everyone?”
“Because,” I patiently persisted, “that’s the nature of modern industrial democracy.”
“So America,” he asked, “it is this ‘modern industrial democracy’ you talk about?”
“Yes,” I proudly proclaimed, “it is.”
“And the American senators and representatives, they make deal to vote some way their party likes, in return for some US government building, yes?”
“They have been known to do that,” I conceded.
“And they call this thing they do, they call it ‘poke-in-the-barrel,’ yes?”
“Actually,” I noted, “they call it ‘pork-barrel,’ but I understand what you’re getting at. You have to realize that Americans who vote for a senator or representative more or less expect that person to get the US government to spend some money in their home state or district. That’s how the game is played here in America.”
“So, also,” he declared with a grandiose wave of his arms, “that is how we play game in Iraq - if somebody is in Iraqi government, they get government money to spend on their tribe, their family, their friends…”
“That’s a somewhat different interpretation,” I protested.
“And Iraqi,” he shrugged, “is, how you say, somewhat different country from United States. Americans tell us, okay, here is truck full of hundred dollar bills, now you make Iraqi Stock Exchange - so we start trading Iraqi stocks with the money they give. So, maybe, Iraqi stocks go away; but money is still there, so we keep - so what? Then Americans tell us, okay, we want you to make contracts to build things in Iraq. So we say, okay, you give money and we hire contractors. Then we say to contractors, you give us money and we give you American contracts. Then we give contractor some money and they build water and electric…”
“For your houses in those fortified compounds,” I interjected.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he confirmed. “This is what I tell you - plenty, plenty water and electric work in Iraq.”
“Eight billion dollars worth?” I inquired.
“Maybe not all,” he acknowledged with a dismissive sigh. “Always, there is money left over. So we invest - in Dubai, Bahamas, Grand Caymans, Isle of Man, Switzerland, and in Luxembourg, just like Americans invest their spare money.”
“Those places,” I reminded him, “are just banking havens.”
“Also, we buy your Treasury bills,” he countered.
“But there’s a difference,” I tactfully observed, “between investment, which is to say, buying equity in businesses so they can expand, create jobs and produce goods; and the practice of mere monetary manipulations. What you’re describing is just playing around with money in banks.”
“But your Wall Street firms,” he gently jabbed back, “the ones that got the TARP money? What did they do? Did they loan money to businesses to make jobs? Did they loan money to factories to make more shirts and shoes and cars; or to farmers to grow more food? No! They do what we do - they take TARP money, put it in bank, and buy Treasury bills with it. Then they borrow more money from Federal Reserve at zero percent interest and loan it back to US government when they buy even more Treasury bills! How come when Americans on Wall Street do that, is okay, but when Ahmed and his friends do it, somehow then it is big, big crime?”
“Point taken,” I allowed.
“All this,” he insisted, “all that we do, this is okay with Donald Rumsfeld, this is okay with Paul Wolfowitz, this is okay with Bush 43! But now, American government is on some kind of [expletive]-hunt!”
“That’s ‘witch hunt;’” I corrected, “although, if they manage to catch Condoleezza Rice while they’re at it, then…”
“I not want them catch anybody,” he yelled, standing up and gesticulating vigorously. “I want witch-hunt to stop! Let me tell you, I no like this Obama president you have now! He is bad Moslem!”
“Well,” I added, “actually, he isn’t…”
“Don’t care,” he raged on, “whatever Obama is, he is not good for Iraq! Not good for the Iraqis who help Americans for seven long years! Why the Americans not let the government of Iraq take care of this, huh? You tell me!”
“The current government of Iraq,” I reminded him, “has met for a grand total of seventeen minutes since the latest elections were held five months ago.”
“Very busy,” my guest muttered. “People in Iraqi government so busy, no time to meet.”
“Busy doing what?” I pressed.
“Busy with…” his hands fluttered about as he searched for the words. “Busy with same thing American politicians busy with! Making the pork in the barrel! Is hard work, being politician! So now, my friend Tom, you quit asking questions. I ask questions! I ask, how to make this witch-hunting stop?”
“I doubt very much,” I confidently informed him, “that you need to worry about stopping it.”
My stinky client’s eyes widened. “How is this?”
“Because,” I explained, “the witch-hunters are never going to find anything.”
“No?”
“Not a thing.”
“Why is this?”
“Because Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz made sure there was no paper trail attached to that eight billion dollars.”
“No paper?”
“Not the least scrap,” I assured him. “And without documents, accountants, forensic or not, are about as useful as the teats on a bull.”
“But,” he objected, “how can be you sure?”
“Because,” I confided with a knowing wink, “I helped them plan how to do it.”
With that, my guest collapsed back on to the couch, heaving a huge sigh of relief. “My friend Tom, every visit I make with you, it is worth every dollar I pay.”
“True,” I agreed. “After all, who can put a price on peace of mind?”
July 31st, 2010