Conservatives/Repubs were silent over Bush’s misuse of taxpayer money for years. Now they are enraged with Obama: why? Politics.

It has amazed me for a long time how Conservatives/Repubs so upset over domestic spending have recurrently turned a blind eye to the massive miss-spending in the Iraq War. Tax money that goes to rebuild America’s infrastructure, save the auto industry or create jobs is branded as pork. Yet billions of tax dollars lost, stolen or squandered in Iraq generate nary a word from the righties. Early in the war cash was dispersed with little or no accountability. This trend continues to one degree or another today. According to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

Lapses in Multiple Funds, all sorts of interesting examples were offered by the representative from the Inspector General’s office that made earlier disclosures as to misspent funds in Iraq seem benign. The words used to describe the hearing are technical terms for which an explanation is needed. “

Accountability Lapses.” Monies belonging to the Iraqi government known as “Seized and Vested Assets” were also victims of these lapses. The audit found that $1.8 billion in Iraqi assets over which the United States had disbursal authority was paid out in cash with no record of who the recipients were.

Ms. Ugone told the committee that the Department of Defense had been appropriated $492 billion to support Operation Iraqi Freedom and that $2.8 billion of Seized and Vested Assets were to be returned to Iraq to “help rebuild its infrastructure and economy.” Ms. Ugone said that $1.4 billion in contract and vendor payments and $6.3 billion in commercial payments lacked minimum supporting documentation and information for proper payment.

Richard Walker openly asks:

Will Obama go after Bush for the $12 billion missing in Iraq? Should Bush be charged criminally for missing money in Iraq?

America is in a financial meltdown, a lot having to do with the Bush administration. We now are arguing over whether to bailout the auto-industry, but let’s not forget the mountains (billions) of cash lost and unaccounted for in Iraq

While most of the American Right has been deafeningly silent about the rampant Iraq related corruption and massive misuse of American tax payer money The American Conservative Magazine did tackle the issue in 2005 by saying:

The (Bush’s) American-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority could well prove to be the most corrupt administration in history, almost certainly surpassing the widespread fraud of the much-maligned UN Oil for Food Program.

As the right moans and groans about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, they have mostly been quiet about the extensive misuse of taxpayer money by the Bush Administration (with a few notable exceptions). Clearly, the lack of criticism of Bush’s abuse of US taxpayer monies limits considerably the credibility of the American Right’s criticism against the Obama Administration.

READ MORE ON THIS ISSUE:

• So, Mr Bremer, where did all the money go? At the end of the Iraq war, vast sums of money were made available to the US-led provisional authorities, headed by Paul Bremer, to spend on rebuilding the country. By the time Bremer left the post eight months later, $8.8bn of that money had disappeared.

• Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds

• Inquiry on Graft in Iraq Focuses on U.S. Officers