Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

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> Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras.

Another one, maybe the biggest known one, is when the US sent 12 bn to 14 bn in the form of 100 bills (yup, in bills) using a military plane to Iraq and these bills mostly all mysteriously vanished.

12 to 14... billions.

At least 1.4 bn was found to have been stolen and stored in a bunker in... Lebanon (I don't remember if it was just located or seized). Overall an estimated 9 bn are unaccounted for I think.

(trying to insert the wikipedia and NY Times link to the story/stories but I get a "we have trouble processing your request, sorry" from HN)

There were wire transfer to the tune of billions too. But the 100 bills shrink-wrapped and flew in a military plane: you cannot make that up.

Shady stuff if any...

EDIT: like Iran-Contra, I'm pretty sure in the future movies are going to be made about these $100 bills.

> (trying to insert the wikipedia and NY Times link to the story/stories but I get a "we have trouble processing your request, sorry" from HN)

Try base64 encoding them and pasting the results?

To think that this money didn't end up financing insurgency is to be naive.

In fairness, it's likely that not much of that money went to financing insurgency. Some? Yes. Most? No way.

Way too many piglets. Way too few tits.

> However, evidence before the committee suggests that senior American officials were unconcerned about the situation because the billions were not US taxpayers' money. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA, reminded the committee that "the subject of today's hearing is the CPA's use and accounting for funds belonging to the Iraqi people held in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq. These are not appropriated American funds. They are Iraqi funds. I believe the CPA discharged its responsibilities to manage these Iraqi funds on behalf of the Iraqi people."

You left out something pretty damn important, it was Iraqi money to begin with. Maybe they requested large pallets of cash, it shouldn’t matter since it’s their (Iraq’s) money!

I don’t doubt the government has had a hand in shady stuff (US history from 1946-now in particular proves this), but this isn’t what it seems. We didn’t just break off $12B of US treasury money and send it off to Iraq with no oversight.

> EDIT: like Iran-Contra, I'm pretty sure in the future movies are going to be made about these $100 bills.

I highly doubt it, unless it is what Iraq did with its own money after they received it from the Fed, what would the movie be about even? Iraq requests it’s money and receives it is a pretty boring plot

It was Iraqi money, but the people spending it were Americans or American controlled. At the point Iraq was under direct occupation control. The fact we saw it as play money because we seized it from the Iraqi government "on behalf of the Iraqi people" and then splashed it around for fun is disgusting.

Please don't bring us into this. The American State is not representative of its subjects.

> Please don't bring us into this. The American State is not representative of its subjects.

It is representive because it is a democracy. This sort of thinking you described is what leads to people skirting on their responsibilities.

This comment begs for some sources and citations.

Edit: I have a recollection of this incident but certainly not as mysteriously inexplicable and shady as you make it out. There was some context I've forgotten. Your story rings false.

googling "US plane 100 dollar bills iraq" returns a plethora of news sources that corroborate https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

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