$8.7 Billion More Disappears in Iraq

Posted on Jul 27, 2010

U.S. Army / Spc. Christopher Wellner

An Army private provides security at the construction site of a new prison in Basra, Iraq.

The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction says the Pentagon cannot account for $8.7 billion of Iraq’s money. The Department of Defense was supposed to spend the funds, which came from the sale of oil and other assets, on reconstruction, and it may have—it just doesn’t know for sure.

BBC:

The money was in a special fund administered by the US Department of Defense, the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), and was earmarked for reconstruction projects.

But the report says that a lack of proper accounting and poor oversight makes it impossible to say exactly what happened to most of it.

According to the report, the Pentagon is unable to fully account for $8.7bn of funds it withdrew between 2004 and 2007, and of that amount it “could not provide documentation to substantiate how it spent $2.6bn”.

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