How many times will these types of reports surface, and when will the Iraqi's see the F*CKING MONEY. THEY NEED IT YOU, excellent politicians you!

here's the article, don't want to cause trouble so I'll just let you read :)
its from the new york times and can be viewed here-
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/05/international/middleeast/05cash.html?oref=login

it requires free registration - or just use this
login: mediajunkie
password: mediajunkie

:) mmmm bloggers tricks are great =-)


[short article] -

American officials rushing to start small building projects in a large swath of Iraq in 2003 and 2004 did not keep required records on the spending of $89.4 million in cash and cannot account at all for another $7.2 million, a federal watchdog reported yesterday.
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Most of the poorly documented spending appeared to involve incompetence or haste, but in some cases the auditors said they suspected theft. "We found indications of fraud," said the report by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. Some cases were referred to a criminal investigations unit of the inspector general's office.

The report did not name the people suspected of crimes or say how much money may have been involved in possible fraud.

The report described instances in which district and field officers in the small-scale construction program did not provide adequate receipts for money they had reported as having been spent, or left Iraq without accounting for all the cash they had received. It said the chief money manager in Baghdad "did not maintain full control and accountability."

The district and field workers included military officers and American civilians under contract.

The auditors reviewed the disbursement of $120 million in cash in south-central Iraq. Starting in spring 2004, with the repair of Iraq's major infrastructure stalled and the insurgency intensifying, American officials rushed to spread jobs and money through small projects.

They also rushed, critics charge, to spend Iraqi money entrusted to the Americans before June 28, 2004, when the new Iraq government took charge of it. The evidence of sloppy controls is of international concern because the Americans were using the Iraqi funds under authority from the United Nations that required strict accounting. United Nations monitors have said the United States has not fully documented how billions of dollars in Iraqi money, from the Development Fund for Iraq, was spent in 2003 and 2004. The new report noted that a division agent got $58.8 million in cash from the American office in Baghdad that dispensed Iraqi funds in January 2004, but that later documents said he got $1 million less, a discrepancy that has not been explained.

The report also noted that two field agents finished their contracts and left Iraq with apparent cash surpluses of $777,000 and $715,000. The money has not been located.

In one of those cases, the report said, the manager closed the agent's account with a paper transfer of $777,000 to a different office without ascertaining where the money went. "This appears to be an attempt to remove outstanding balances by simply washing accounts," it said.

The Pentagon, which administered the Iraqi money, said it agreed with the report's main conclusions and had acted to improve controls. Responding to a draft of the report, Col. Thomas S. Stefanko, commander of Joint Area Support Group-Central in Baghdad wrote that his office had taken "extensive corrective action" and was reviewing expenditures. He also said high turnover, a shortage of monitors, the urgency of the building effort and the dangers of travel had contributed to the shortcomings.