"The Emblem of Suffering and Shame" PDF Print E-mail
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Written by Chris Floyd   
Thursday, 26 January 2006 01:16
The New York Times has printed a good, if woefully incomplete, story on the massive, death-dealing corruption of Bush's crony conquistadors in Iraq (Audit Describes Misuse of Funds in Iraq Projects). One of the anecdotes of avarice related in the just-released audit of the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction could well stand as an emblem of the entire murderous, misbegotten enterprise: it's grubby, it's petty, it's driven by raw, bestial greed, and it resulted in the cruel, unnecessary death of innocent people.

Although the episode is mentioned in the lead – and full marks to reporter James Glanz for this radical departure from standard Big Media practice – you had to wade through the entire story until you came upon the details, buried full fathom five in the last two paragraphs of the story. But here it is, the very form and pressure of the Bushist age:

Excerpt: Sometimes the consequences of such loose controls were deadly. A contract for $662,800 in civil, electrical, and mechanical work to rehabilitate the Hilla General Hospital was paid in full by an American official in June 2004 even though the work was not finished, the report says. But instead of replacing a central elevator bank, as called for in the scope of work, the contractor tinkered with an unsuccessful rehabilitation.

The report continues, narrating the observation of the inspector general's agents who visited the hospital on Sept. 18, 2004: "The hospital administrator immediately escorted us to the site of the elevators. The administrator said that just a couple days prior to our arrival the elevator crashed and killed three people."
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