By Pratap Chatterjee, AlterNet
Posted on August 23, 2004

Missing: One giant generator owned by the United States military. Estimated cost: $734,863

Last seen: Somewhere in Iraq.

While much of the media is focused on the pitched battle over the control of the holy shrine in Najaf, a bigger scandal is brewing in Iraq that may well have an equally important effect on the future of the U.S. occupation.

A team of auditors was dispatched to Iraq in late January this year after a string of internal reports showed that the military was wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money. They have issued eleven reports since June 25, almost all of which have pointed to the misuse of the money allocated for reconstruction, be it Iraqi or Congress-appropriated funds.

According to two of these reports issued in late July by Stuart Bowen, the auditor-inspector general of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), not only have a full one-third of the items purchased by the Pentagon gone MIA (including the pricey generator), but a whopping. $1.9 billion or more of Iraqi oil revenue has also mysteriously disappeared.

Embarrassed military authorities did eventually track down the missing generator and much of the money, both of which seemed to have ended up with none other than Halliburton. As it turns out they weren’t missing after all; it’s just that Dick Cheney’s former employer had misplaced or conveniently forgotten to turn in the receipts to the correct people.

But the Pentagon was not able to explain just how Halliburton gained possession of Iraqi funds when neither the United States Congress nor the Iraqi government authorized their transfer to Halliburton in the first place. Worse yet, the man who authorized the allocation � CPA chief Paul Bremer � had already quietly left Iraq just as the reports were being released.

Yet days after the much-touted “transfer of sovereignty,” the White House revealed an even more startling detail about the reconstruction effort: In over a year, the CPA had managed to spend just 2 percent of the $18.4 billion earmarked for the immediate reconstruction of Iraq. And not a penny was spent on the two areas where the Iraqi people were suffering the most: healthcare or water and sanitation.

So what is really going on? Is the United States spending too much or too little money in Iraq?

By Richard Muhammad, AlterNet

Michael Hoffman, who lives outside of Philadelphia, was three days away from leaving the Marine Corps when the order came down: he was being sent to Iraq. There was no advance notice, no extra money and, of course, no guarantee that he would come back alive.

Hoffman, like thousands of others who volunteered to serve their country, are being forced to stay long after they’d planned on leaving, because of the “stop loss” orders authorized by statute. The orders – which have been called “back-door drafts” – allow the military to suspend all laws and regulations and force all personnel to continue serving. The orders apply to those whose tours of duty expire and to those who are eligible for retirement.

“I just thought you leave the military and you can get called back if they need you,” says Hoffman. “With the ’stop loss’ orders, you never leave. They extend your contract, which is something nobody really understands when they first sign-up.”

The emotional turmoil aside, Hoffman feels fortunate his extension was only a few months and he left the Marines about a year ago, without having lost much. Hoffman’s friend lost a good job with benefits and was forced to take his wife and child to live with family members after departure from military service was delayed.

Now comes a lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in San Francisco, challenging the military’s controversial policy on behalf of “John Doe,” a decorated veteran and married reservist in the California Army National Guard, asking his “stop loss” order overturned. The lawsuit argues that the policy, based on an executive order issued after Sept. 11, 2001, doesn’t apply to enlisted personnel. It further argues that the order is only valid after war is legally declared by Congress. Among the named defendats are Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Army Secretary Les Brownlee and John Doe’s company commander.