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February 14, 2005
A billion here, a billion there
Remember how the Coalition Provisional Authority could not quite account for $9 billion, meant for much needed improvements in Iraq to restore things like clean water and electricity? Well, the shortages are still nationwide, but details are starting to emerge about what exactly happened to the missing billions:
WASHINGTON - A former U.S. occupation official in Iraq (news - web sites) thought he was in the Wild West in 2003 as he watched colleagues pull $2 million in fresh bills from a vault and stuff them in a contractor's gunnysack.Cash payments that weren't stuffed in sacks were made from a pickup truck that bore the name of Iraq's grounded airline. American authorities thought the vehicle would "meld into the environment," the ex-official, Frank Willis, said.
Willis, who was a senior adviser in aviation and telecommunications, planned to describe his experience Monday to a panel of Democratic senators. The hearing is to spotlight the waste of money in Iraq by the former occupation agency, the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Because Iraq had no functioning banking system in 2003, money was kept in a basement vault in CPA headquarters, a former palace of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Officials from the CPA, which ruled Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, would count the money when it left the vault, but nobody kept track of the cash after that, Willis said.
"In sum: inexperienced officials, fear of decision-making, lack of communications, minimal security, no banks and lots of money to spread around. This chaos I have referred to as a 'Wild West,'" Willis said in testimony submitted to the Democratic Policy Committee.
"This isn't penny ante. Millions, perhaps billions of dollars have been wasted and pilfered," said the chairman of the Democratic panel, Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record) of North Dakota. He said the hearing was arranged because the Republicans who run Congress have declined to investigate fraud, waste and abuse in Iraq.
Posted by Mike at February 14, 2005 08:10 AM
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