Faith-based News for Extra-TerrestrialsAUDITORS STILL HAVEN'T FOUND IRAQI BILLIONS
An Iraqi and his money are soon parted. Especially if an American is around to help him prove that money is the root of all evil. LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS:
On 12 April 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority in Erbil in northern Iraq handed over $1.5 billion in cash to a local courier. The money, fresh $100 bills shrink-wrapped on pallets, which filled three Blackhawk helicopters, came from oil sales under the UN’s Oil for Food Programme. The CPA didn’t properly check out the courier before handing over the cash...... in the few weeks before Bremer left Iraq, the CPA handed out more than $3 billion in new contracts to be paid for with Iraqi funds and managed by the US embassy in Baghdad. The CPA inspector general, now called the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, has just released an audit report on the way the embassy has dealt with that responsibility. The auditors reviewed the files of 225 contracts totalling $327 million to see if the embassy 'could identify the current value of paid and unpaid contract obligations'. It couldn't. 'Our review showed that financial records . . . understated payments made by $108,255,875' and 'overstated unpaid obligations by $119,361,286'. The auditors also reviewed the paperwork for a further 300 contracts worth $332.9 million. 'For 198 of 300 contracts, documentation was not available ....
Clearly the Americans see no need to account for spending the Iraqis' national income now any more than they did when Bremer was in charge.... [*]