U.S. Embassy in Iraq loses millions worth of junk

Yesterday, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq reported about 23 million dollars worth of property — including 563 DVD players, 631 televisions, 159 vehicles, and 614 mattresses — had gone missing. Perplexing as it is that the embassy was somehow able to lose track of all that junk, it is more perplexing that it was owned ...

Yesterday, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq reported about 23 million dollars worth of property — including 563 DVD players, 631 televisions, 159 vehicles, and 614 mattresses — had gone missing. Perplexing as it is that the embassy was somehow able to lose track of all that junk, it is more perplexing that it was owned (or hoarded?) in the first place in a region ravaged by war.  

If the Embassy is this much of a mess in Baghdad, then we’d hate to see the kind of money that’s wasted in the embassy at the epicenter of the war in Afghanistan.  Someone may want to check the U.S. Embassy in Kabul for a couple hundred iPads, maybe a stockpile or two of toaster ovens… although if that embassy is anything like its counterpart in Iraq, those have probably gone "missing" by now.

Sylvie Stein is an editorial researcher at Foreign Policy.

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