What would you do if 100 Million of your dollars were missing?

I found this via Yahoo and the AP and then went to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

The official report concludes that "the PCO (Project and Contacting Office) did not fully comply with the requirements described in the memorandum for the Iraqi Interim Governement Minster of Finance...lacked the necessary controls and adequate documentation to effectivley perform its responsibitlites to monitor and administer contracts funded by the DFI (Development Fund for Iraq).

...The audit identified material managment control weaknesses in the accounting for DFI contract libablities and significant deficiencies in contract administration. Consequently, there was no assurance that fraud, waste, and abuse did not occur in the management and administration of contracts funded by the DFI, that DFI funds were used in a transparent manner, of that DFI funds were used for hte purposes mandated by Resolution 1483."

Now, I would have to look for Res 1483, but this whole situation is rather spurious. Because the report is a PDF document, I was not able to cut the chart to this post, but suffice it to stiputlate the totals here in:

Gross Obligations - Validated: $ 327,329,217
GO - Amount Overstated - $ 11,135, 411

Payments - Validated: $ 206,611,818
Payments - (understated): ($ 108,255,875)

Unpaid Obligations - Validated: $ 120,717,398
Unpaid Obligations - Overstated: $ 119,361,286

Here's where folks are going to get lost in the numbers. Look at the one in parentheses. It is actually more than 100 million dollars. Now, I am not an accountant, but both overstated and understated numbers of that size are rather unsettling. Are the republicans up in arms about this? As the conservative party for America, shouldn't they be?


Here's a slice from the AP article:

U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq cannot properly account for nearly $100 million that was supposed to have been spent on reconstruction projects in south-central Iraq, government investigators said Wednesday.

There are indications of fraud in the use of the $96.6 million, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. A separate investigation of possible wrongdoing continues.

More than $7 million of the total is unaccounted for, the report said. An additional $89.4 million in payments do not have the required supporting documents.

The report accused civilian contract managers of "simply washing accounts" to try to make the books balance. Staffing shortages and the quick turnover of those responsible for the cash contributed to the problems, the report said.

Col. Thomas Stefanko, the official now in charge of the program, wrote the investigators that he agreed with their conclusions. Stefanko said his office had corrected or was in the process of fixing or investigating the problems identified in the report.

A congressional critic of U.S. reconstruction spending in Iraq said Wednesday the findings showed "disorganized, sloppy management."

"The U.S. risks fostering a culture of corruption in Iraq," said Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis.

...Several of these agents "were under the impression that it was more important to quickly distribute the money to the region than to obtain all necessary documentation," the report said.

"Securing the required documentation should not have been overlooked by those officials specifically charged with safeguarding Iraqi funds," investigators said.

Controls over the cash were so lax that two of the agents hired to distribute the money were allowed to leave Iraq before they had accounted for all of it, the report said. Between them, those two had been given more than $1.4 million in cash which remains unaccounted for, the report said.

A different agent failed to provide proper documentation for more than $12.4 million in spending but had his accounts cleared by his supervisors, the report said.

Yet another agent kept distributing money for three weeks after his authority to handle the funds was revoked, the report said. That agent, told that $1,878,870 was missing from his account, delivered precisely that amount to his supervisors three days later, the report said.

That suggests, the report said, that the agent had a reserve of cash and only turned in enough to make his account balance.

End Slice:

I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the missing cash was used to buy weapons that in turn were trained on US Troops and Iraqi civilians working to do the very reconstruction that was the original aim of the dollar. Tragically Ironic.