Washington Finds 'Illicit Money' After Two Decades Controlling Iraq's Economy
According to The New Arab, Washington is intensifying efforts to curb 'illicit financial networks' in Iraq, citing concerns over money laundering and the financing of groups. This sudden moral reckoning comes twenty years after the 2003 invasion, which dissolved Iraq's central bank and saw an estimated $60 billion in reconstruction funds disappear—a scandal the U.S. government largely swept under
the rug. Remember the $8.8 billion found to be missing from the Iraqi Development Fund in 2004, or the $12 billion in cash flown into Iraq and never properly accounted for? (Source: Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reports, 2004-2013). It appears the definition of 'illicit money' only applies when it's not flowing into the coffers of U.S.-approved entities or disappearing into
reconstruction black holes. The real scandal isn't merely the Iraqi banks Washington is sanctioning, but the notion that the U.S. is suddenly an authority on financial rectitude in a country it helped destabilize and whose resources it has largely controlled for two decades. The sheer audacity is almost admirable.