Wednesday, July 28, 2010
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Washington took ownership of a special fund sanctioned by the United Nations that held Iraqi oil sales revenues for the purposes of buying humanitarian aid. American officials with the Coalition Provisional Authority first took possession of the $8.7 billion Development Fund for Iraq, then turned it over to the Department of Defense for safekeeping.
Today, the Pentagon can’t explain how $2.6 billion of the money was spent, thanks to terrible recordkeeping and failure to follow U.S. government accounting procedures.
Defense officials also are still holding onto more than $34 million of the fund, even though it was required to turn it over to the Iraqi government in December 2007.
Iraqi officials are considering suing the U.S. government for not taking better care of the funds meant to pay for reconstruction projects.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Pentagon Can't Account for How It Spent $2.6 Billion in Iraqi Funds, Audit Finds (by Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post)
Pentagon Can't Account for $8.7 Billion in Iraqi Funds (by Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times)
Billions Wasted In Iraq? (by Daniel Schorn, 60 Minutes)
U.S. Won't Turn Over Data for Iraq Audits (by Colum Lynch, Washington Post)
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