Fraud in Defense Contracts

Not that it comes as any surprise, but the dollar amount of fraud in the Iraq War is nearing $800 billion. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a report putting the figure at $792 billion. A BBC article lays out some of the most egregious characters involved. Of course every penny spent in Iraq could be included in the overall estimate, since the war itself was a fraud perpetrated against the American taxpayer and the Iraqi people. Stiglitz estimates the overall cost of the Iraq War at about $2 trillion (yes, trillion). This estimate includes some costs that don't make it into the Bush Administrations official figures (like the cost to rehabilitate soldiers suffering from PTSD). It's a far cry from the Administration's original estimate for the cost of the war: $50 billion. Just for perspective that's about 1/16 of the total that's been fraudulently spent in Iraq.