US cannot account for 8.7 billion dollars in Iraq funds

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon cannot properly account for nearly nine billion dollars in Iraqi oil

First Published 2010-07-28


Take a guess where Iraq's oil money could be

Audit: Pentagon cannot properly account for money from Iraqi oil revenues, other funds.

revenues and other funds it received for reconstruction programs after the US invasion in 2003, a US audit found Tuesday.

"The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss," the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said in a report.

The Pentagon received 9.1 billion dollars in 2004 from the fund, which was set up by the US-led occupation authority to benefit Iraqis after the invasion with Iraqi oil and gas revenues and assets seized from the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.

But the audit found that the Pentagon cannot properly account for 8.7 billion dollars of the funds because the defense agencies that received it failed to set up required Treasury accounts and no single organization was set up to manage the money's use.

The US Army Corps of Engineering and the US Central Command disputed the finding, the report said.

The Central Command said documents that could account for the missing money were "likely" deposited at a US base but retrieving it "would require significant archival retrieval efforts."

The Army Corps of Engineering said it had provided auditors with two billion dollars of the funds.