It has been presumed that the food for oil palaces deals had a 10 per cent standard rake off that filled Saddam's war chest. However, it is now revealed that in many cases the markup was higher, sometimes as high as 100 per cent.
In one of the many deals funded by UN-supervised oil exports from Iraq, a delivery of cameras and audiovisual equipment for the culture ministry - sent as "humanitarian" items, under a loophole - was valued at 100 per cent above its true cost.
According to new documents recovered in Baghdad, multi-million pound deals with the public works ministry for sanitation and water filtration equipment were often marked up by as much as 30 per cent. [...]
Now, its latest discovery means that the total lost to kickbacks and surcharges could far exceed the American Congressional estimate of £2.6 billion. Oil smuggling is believed to have lined the coffers of Saddam's regime with a further £3.4 billion.
And the UN bureocrats who turned a blind eye to this massive fraud? Well, with so much money flowing through the corrupt UN system, it's not a surprise that many people were willing to look the other way for a little kickback of their own.
CPA staff believe that some border inspectors working for the Swiss company Cotecna at Iraqi frontier posts were bribed to turn a blind eye to discrepancies between goods that were contracted and what was delivered.
Does the name Cotecna ring a bell? But of course. Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son, worked as a partner in a private consulting firm doing work for Cotecna.
So what's the story about Major General Jassem Mohamed Saleh and the newly formed Fallujah Protection Army? Puzzling. I thought the whole idea was to have a single Iraqi army, de-politicised and de-baathised. Of course, I realise that practically everyone with serious security experience were Baath members, so some compromises have to be reached. Not onlike Germany after WWII.
And what about the Thulfiqar Army, a shadowy militia that has taken on Muqtada al-Sadr'suntil recently feared Mahdi militia in Najaf?
In a deadly expression of feelings that until now were kept quiet, a group representing local residents is said to have killed at least five militiamen in the last four days.
The murders are the first sign of organised Iraqi opposition to Sadr’s presence and come amid simmering discontent at the havoc their lawless presence has wreaked.
The group calls itself the Thulfiqar Army, after a twin-bladed sword said to be used by the Shiite martyr Imam Ali, to whom Najaf’s vast central mosque is dedicated.
Residents say leaflets bearing that name have been circulated in the city in the last week, urging Sadr’s al-Mahdi army to leave immediately or face imminent death.
"I haven’t seen the leaflets myself, but I heard about it when I was down there two days ago," said Ahmed Abbas, a carpenter from Najaf who visited Baghdad yesterday.
"It has got some of the Mahdi guys quite worried, I tell you. They are banding together more, when normally you would see them happily walking on the streets alone. I think their commanders have ordered them to do that."
As is the case with most fledgling resistance groups, further details are sketchy. Nobody knows yet who is really behind the group, if the deaths of Mahdi men are its handiwork or, indeed, if it really exists.
Questioned about it at a Baghdad press conference on Tuesday, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt would say only: "I am not aware of its existence, although we have had some reports of that nature from the city."
Interesting.
Both of these developments actually look like the way the British used to run their dirty third world brushwars a few decades back. It would not at all surprise me...
