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[casi-analysis] A question for the experts at CASI



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Hello, all. I am currently reading Richard Perle and David Frum's book, "An
End to Evil," planning to review it (Frum is the guy who put the "axis of
evil" line in Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech).

It's a very dishonest book, as you might expect. I'm trying to wade through
the lies, and there's one little datum I find confusing:

On p. 21, they say that on the day Iraq was "liberated," $13 billion in OFF
funds sat unexpended in the program's bank account. So I look at the
March15-21 and April 5-11 Weekly Updates of the OIP (because I'm not sure
if they're talking about the beginning of the "liberation" or its
consummation). The closest thing I can find to this claim is in the April
5-11 update, where it says that $3.2 billion in funds remain uncommitted,
$10.3 billion worth of goods are in the production and delivery pipeline.
They also say $6 billion worth of contracts are approved but unfunded. In
the March 15-21 update, it said that many contracts were approved but
unfunded because of a cumulative revenue shortfall for phases VIII through XII.

So here are my questions:

1. I assume they simply lied by lumping in uncommitted funds and goods in
the pipeline, where, as we know, the primary dilatory factor was the United
States -- adding them together you get $13.5 billion. Is this right? Or is
there some other way to construe their number? Is there some place one can
check how much was in the escrow account at any given time. Related to
this: the OIP no longer does these updates -- is there some place to find
the information they used to put out? You can't find anything useful on the
CPA's "OFF transition page."

2. How did this allocation of funds work? How is it that $3.2 billion
remained uncommitted while simultaneously $6 billion of contracts were
approved but unfunded?

If any of the OFF experts on the list can help me out, it would be much
appreciated.

In solidarity,

Rahul Mahajan



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