While the corporate media steers clear of reporting on the spoils of the Iraq War, Democracy Now! has been following up on a current Vanity Fair article written by Pullitzer Prize winning authors James Steele and Donald Barlett (http://www.corpwatch.org/... ).
Last month, Alan Greenspan was questioned on "DN!" about the $9 billion that went missing from shipments of an unprecedented $12 billion in cash transfers from the Federal Reserve to Iraq. He was specifically grilled on one transfer of $2.4 billion in 100 bills, the single largest amount processed by the East Rutherford, New Jersey operations center of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Greenspan's carefully guarded replies started out by saying that losses have been exaggerated by miscalculations, stating the amounts in US dollars rather than the Iraqi dinar. When assured of the accuracy of the reporting, Greenspan left it by saying that he was unaware of any such transfers of the magnitude referred to by the Federal Reserve.
Yesterday, Amy Goodman, anchor of the Democracy Now! Independent News daily broadcast airing on the Pacifica Radio Network, Dish Network and DirectTV satellites, and over 450 local independent college, public access and PBS stations, as well as podcast at http://www.democracynow.org, went back to the authors of Vanity Fair article and asked if it was possible that the then head of the Federal Reserve would be unaware of the largest transfer of money ever from the Federal Reserve.
Steele and Barlett confirmed that their numbers came directly from the Fed and were dumbfounded by Greenspan's incredulous replies. They went on to explain how the Coalition Provisional Authority (C.P.A.), with oversight by the Pentagon, awarded a one-year contract to an accounting firm of questionable repute called Northstar Consultants operating out of a private home in San Diego. Northstar was entrusted to oversee how the $12 billion transferred to Iraq between April of 2003 and June of 2004 was spent. From the Vanity Fair article:
Another company operating out of 5468 Soledad is called Kota Industries, Inc., whose stated business is the "sale of furniture, home furnishings, flooring," according to California records.
What is equally incredulous in all of this is that the mainstream media has not picked up on this story and that Congress has yet to move to investigate why $12 billion was entrusted to a firm operating out of a private address in La Jolla, California that also sells furniture. Is there any wonder why I have been arguing for Congressional term limits in previous diaries? These are the kinds of things Congress should be chomping at the bit to jump on and yet they are going ignored while the Congressaurouses concentrate on their pet projects like Ted Stevens'(R-Alaska) "Bridge to Nowhere"and Charlie Rangel's (D-New York) "Charles Rangel Center for Public Service" in Harlem.