Who'd a Thunk It?

The lack of forethought to the Iraq occupation is staggering. So is the theft from government agencies and public resources apparently, according to a New York Times article. It isn’t like no one expected this – excepting the Bush Administration of course, but the level of theft has progressed to such an extent that it has reached epidemic proportions. Everything from water to pain killing cancer drugs are stolen and offered on the black market.

The Iraqi government is, to all intents and purposes bankrupt, except for the payrolling from the United States coffers. So the result is….yes, you guessed it:

Some American officials estimate that as much as a third of what they spend on Iraqi contracts and grants ends up unaccounted for or stolen, with a portion going to Shiite or Sunni militias.

Iraq now ranks as the world’s third most corrupt country and even as violence is abating, officials are watching the country slip into an unparalleled level of lawlessness. When looting broke out after the initial fall of Baghdad, Donald Rumsfeld, in his eternal wisdom, God bless his soul, said “that is what free people do.” It didn’t occur to the IQ bereft Defense Minister that this was a sign of how things could develop.

Corruption is everywhere – not least in the very administration that brought us the Iraq catastrophe. But that a country overtaken by a power vacuum, steeped in poverty and flooded with money and weapons available only to a select few would not degenerate into the world’s most lawless place never occurred to anyone in the White House.