After all the stories of Iraqi government corruption and wholesale heists carried out by insider criminals there, you have to wonder what's behind the news that there's been a massive fire at Iraq's central bank.
A large fire engulfed Iraq's central bank building in Baghdad on Monday, but there were no reports of casualties and the cause of the blaze was unclear, police said.Important documents gone, mysterious cause, no casualties, no photographs...hmmm
Police said the fire badly damaged the top four floors of the six-storey building, including the central bank governor's office. The blaze erupted just after midnight and took more than six hours to put out.
Iraqi lawmaker Sabah al-Saadi, head of a parliamentary integrity committee, said the blaze tore through a section containing important budget documents.
"This department was burned completely," Saadi told Reuters.
He said a large amount of money had been safely evacuated from the building but many documents were lost.
One bank employee and witnesses said flames ripped through most of the building.
"No one can tell you what happened because no one can enter. The fire spread through the whole building," the central bank employee said by telephone from the scene.
Guards at the central bank prevented cameramen and photographers taking pictures of the building, which is surrounded by concrete blast walls in central Baghdad. It is not in the heavily protected Green Zone compound, where key government ministries are located.
Meanwhile, Bush is getting ready to tip another $70 billion into the bottomless pit, having decided that just over half that is all that can be spared for the American economy. That's on top of the $440 billion spent on the quagmire-of-his-own-choosing already and is only a partial bill for next year. The usual excuses will be trotted out in the SOTUS speech, again. McCain, Romney and the rest want another ten or even 100 years of this.
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