ch: Do This!

Have You Seen This Money?

Sometime after our country invaded Iraq, the United States lost 8.8 billion dollars for Iraqi reconstruction. Not miscalculated or carried over to another fiscal year, but lost. No one knows where it went.

To explain how the money was lost is to explore familiar themes in the Bush administration’s handling of post-war Iraq. Last year, Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen released a report detailing how the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under the leadership of U.S. Ambassador Paul Bremer woefully mismanaged contracts and reconstruction money for Iraq totaling more than 8.8 billion in cash. According to Bowen, the CPA’s distribution process was riddled with “severe inefficiencies” and “poor management.” Furthermore, CPA did not implement adequate managerial controls, financial controls, and contracting actions.

Ironically, other government agencies warned the CPA about problems with the process and said its approach involving Iraqi ministries was open to “fraud, kickbacks, and misappropriation of funds.” The Iraqi officials were largely inexperienced and subject to often subject to corruption. Three ministries “did not did not have personnel assigned to financial and/or budget positions.” The Iraqi Ministry of Finance “had not developed financial reports for DFI funds spent in 2003, and told CPA officials that financial data for November and December was lost.”

In one case, the CPA distributed $1.5 billion in cash to Iraqi banks, yet financial reports from Iraqi ministries accounted for $498 million.

Compounding the inexperience and corruption of Iraqi officials was incompetence on the part of Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Paul Bremer and the CPA, which failed to provide competition for Iraqi contracts, and in some cases failed to acquire contract authority or documentation.

It also hired inexperienced consultants to watch over funds. In order to conduct government mandated accounting, the CPA hired NorthStar Consultants. Guess what? They weren’t certified public accounts. Unsurprisingly, NorthStar “did not perform a review of internal controls as required.”

Last Sunday, 60 Minutes thankfully aired a piece that shed more light on the missing money (their conclusion? “Nobody really knows exactly where that $8.8 billion went”). But aside from the CBS news program, and several political commentators (including one Minnesotan), there’s been little priority in the media and government on retrieving the vanished money.

Last summer, Al asked Senator George Allen and several national reporters why there’s been so little action. All responded they had never heard of the case.

Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise little has happened since Democrats and the Inspector General raised a fuss about the missing money early last year. When asked about whether the government is doing anything to get the money back, 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft replied that “so far we have not been able to find a single case of any government agency filing suit to try and recover money lost to fraud or waste.”

Here’s where you can help.

Using our handy MVP tool, sign our petition demanding a Congressional investigation of the missing 8.8 billion dollars in Iraq. Your support will pressure Congress to take action on this important problem, and gain attention to the administration’s bungling of the Iraqi reconstruction.