There's only one good story from the Iraq War.

It's not the targeted killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It's not the adventure of Jessica Lynch, either the first fake heroic tale of resistance, implied rape and rescue, or the revised tale about media manipulation and falsification. It's not the great dramas of elections with the purple thumbs, though, I admit, those were pretty good.

The reason I discount the elections, as dramatic and heart warming as they were, is because of what they were supposed to mean. In the words of our Commander-in-Chief, from a speech at the US Army War College on May 24, 2004:

"The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology, and give momentum to reformers across the region. This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power, and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world."

Reviewing that point by point makes it clear how shallow the show was. Instead of denying the terrorists a base, the whole country is theirs to run riot in. It has not discredited their ideology, it has, rather, been followed by Hamas' victory in Palestine, aggressiveness from Iran, the return of both the opium warlords and the Taliban to Afghanistan. Instead of being a decisive blow to terrorism, it has demonstrated the limitations of American power and decreased the amount of security in the world.

The one great story is the $19.5 billion rip-off. 

The plan that was announced was that the United States was going to rebuild Iraq. The oil would flow, business would thrive, stores would be open, goods would be imported and exported, the streets would be paved, there would be education, and sanitation, courts with real justice and police without torture, there would be clinics, hospitals, and schools.

Congress allocated $3 billion and then $18 billion for that purpose.

It was to be administered by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the CPA, which is sort of a funny set of initials, because they didn't keep any books and did not, as required by the law that funded them, hire a certified public accountant.

The CPA began to go about its business in April 2003. Then there was a scandal when Halliburton was caught overcharging for gasoline imported from Kuwait. After the first year of reconstruction, Congress, in reaction, passed regulations that required the CPA to have competitive bids and keep books. This was too much for Paul Bremer III and the CPA. They simply stopped using that money.

They turned to another source of funds.

When America won on the battlefield they took over the UN's oil-for-food program. There was money already in the bank and, as the oil flowed out, more money flowed in. No knows how much since, apparently, no accounts were kept. It's usually estimated at $9 billion. The CPA also took over Saddam's accounts in Iraq and Iraq's fund that had been frozen in the US. That brought the total into the $19 billion to $21 billion range. Those fund were supposed to be held, like an escrow account, for Iraq to be turned over when Iraq had a government.

There were no congressional restrictions on that money.

There was no Iraqi government in existence to complain.

It was very unlikely that anyone would ever come after it in a serious way. Indeed, Paul Bremer III and the CPA were specially protected by Executive Order 13303. It says:

"The threat of attachment or judicial process against the Development Fund for Iraq, Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein ... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States...any...judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void."

So the CPA took the money it was holding for Iraq and spent it. Fast. According to a July 3, 2004 Baltimore Sun article by Mark Matthews: "US officials in charge of the Development Fund for Iraq drained all but $900 million from the $20 billion fund by late last month in what a watchdog group has called an '11th-hour splurge.'"

But where? Where did the money go? Here's one perfect tidbit from an October 16, 2004 article from the Boston Globe, by Bryan Bender: "One chunk of the money—$1.4 billion—was deposited into a local bank by Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq but could be tracked no further. The auditors reported that they were shown a deposit slip but could find no additional record to explain how the money was used or to prove that it remains in the bank."