A Dream for a Better World

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.  Iraqi leaders are convinced that the theft or waste of huge sums of US and Iraqi government money could have happened only if senior US officials were themselves involved in the corruption. American federal investigators are now starting an inquiry into the actions of senior US officers involved in the program to rebuild Iraq.