Iraq contracts

U.S. officials in postwar Iraq paid a contractor by stuffing $2 million worth of crisp bills into his gunnysack and routinely made cash payments around Baghdad from a pickup truck, a former official with the U.S. occupation government says.
  Yahoo News article

Well, you know, there was a war going on.

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.

Well, there was a war going on.

Willis concluded that "decisions were made that shouldn't have been, contracts were made that were mistakes, and were poorly, if at all, supervised, money was spent that could have been saved, if we simply had the right numbers of people. ... I believe the 500 or so at CPA headquarters should have been 5,000."

[...]

James Mitchell, spokesman for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, told the AP that cash payments in Iraq were a problem when the occupation authority ran the country and they continue during the massive U.S.-funded reconstruction.

"There are no capabilities to electronically transfer funds," Mitchell said. "This complicates the financial management of reconstruction projects and complicates our ability to follow the money."

Well, there's a...there's a....well, it will get better when the new government is in place.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, head of the Democratic group that is holding Monday's hearing, said he arranged for Willis' testimony because majority Republicans have declined to investigate the suspected misuse of funds in Iraq.

Really?

The lawyer representing two whistleblowers who allege massive fraud by a U.S. contractor in Iraq will tell senators Monday that the Justice Department declined to sue the company because cheating the coalition government was not equal to cheating the United States.

[...]

[Alan] Grayson will relate the whistleblowers’ stories of fraud and abuse by Custer Battles, which he says include: 1) implementing a system of false billing practices designed to boost company profits; 2) confiscating Iraqi Airways forklifts, painting them, and then leasing them to the CPA; 3) setting up shell companies as intermediaries to inflate bills through cost-plus contracts; and 4) receiving a $16.5 million contract, several million dollars of which were paid up-front, to provide a full complement of TSA-like airport security for civilian flights at the Baghdad Airport when the airport was handling very few civilian flights.
  Raw Story article

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.