Where's the money?

THE United States’ occupation authority in Iraq lost track of nearly £5 billion it transferred to government ministries which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, it emerged today.

American officials relied on Iraqi audit agencies to account for the funds, but those offices were not even functioning when the funds were transferred between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an investigation by a US inspector general.

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The audit report was released by Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. Bowen issued several reports on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the US occupation government that ruled Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004.

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Some of the transferred funds may have paid "ghost" employees, the inspector general found.

CPA staff learned that 8206 guards were on the payroll at one ministry, but only 602 could be accounted for, the report said. At another ministry, US officials found 1417 guards on the payroll, but could only confirm 642.

[...]

The inspector general said the occupying agency disbursed the money to Iraqi ministries "without assurance the monies were properly accounted for".

US officials, the report said, "did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial and contractual controls".

There was no way to verify that the money was used for its intended purposes of financing humanitarian needs, economic reconstruction, repair of facilities, disarmament and civil administration.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the authority was hamstrung by "extraordinary conditions" under which it worked throughout its mission.

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[T]he official who led the CPA, Paul Bremer, made a blistering, written reply to the findings, saying the report had "many misconceptions and inaccuracies" and lacked professional judgement.

Bremer complained the report "assumes that Western-style budgeting and accounting procedures could be immediately and fully implemented in the midst of a war".
  Scotsman article

Yeah, but where's the money?

US Treasury Missing $ Trillions

From Department of Defense (DoD)...
"We reported that DoD processed $1.1 trillion in unsupported accounting entries to DoD Component financial data used to prepare departmental reports and DoD financial statements for FY 2000."

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How fast does $1.1 trillion disappear in a year? [Click here.]

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From Housing & Urban Development (HUD)...
"At the time we discontinued our audit work... An additional 242 adjustments totaling about $59.6 billion, were made to adjust fiscal year 1999 activity."

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Trillions of dollars in "unsupported adjustments" means trillions of dollars unaccounted for. [...] How much more has gone missing? Is this happening in the other government agencies too? What would happen if a corporation failed to pass an audit like this? Or a taxpayer? Who is responsible for this? Who can we trust to fix it?

Where is that money?