I think it's because people high-up have their sticky fingers in the pie.
when the two whistle-blowers sued Custer Battles on behalf of the U.S. government?under a U.S. law intended to punish war profiteering and fraud?the Bush administration declined to take part.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales why the government wasn't backing up the lawsuit. Because this is a "seminal" case?the first to be unsealed against an Iraq contractor?"billions of taxpayer dollars are at stake" based on the precedent it could set, the Iowa Republican said.
The administration has harshly criticized the United Nations over hundreds of millions stolen from the Oil-for-Food Program under Saddam. But the successor to Oil-for-Food created under the occupation, called the Development Fund for Iraq, could involve billions of potentially misused dollars.
Willis and other critics worry that with just $4.1 billion of the $18.7 billion spent so far, the U.S. legal stance will open the door to much more fraud in the future. "If urgent steps are not taken, Iraq ... will become the biggest corruption scandal in history," warned the anti-corruption group Transparency International in a recent report.
The Pentagon's own Defense Contract Audit Agency found that the leading U.S. contractor in Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary KBR, overcharged Iraq occupation authorities by $108 million for a task order to deliver fuel. Yet the Pentagon permitted KBR to redact?or black out?almost all negative references to the company in this Oct. 8, 2004, audit