Billions of Dollars Unaccounted for in Iraq

Billions wasted in Iraq? Now how much of this could have been used for armored vehicles, body armor and wounded veterans instead of lost to corruption and incompetence? There was no accounting system for tracking all this cash sent to Iraq.

The Pentagon set up the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to govern the country under Ambassador Paul Bremer, who began hiring private companies to secure and rebuild the country. There were no banks or wire transfers to pay them, no bean counters to keep track of the money. Just vaults and footlockers stuffed with billions of dollars in cash. "Fresh, new, crisp, unspent, just-printed $100 bills. It was the Wild West," recalls Frank Willis, who was the No. 2 man at the Coalition Provisional Authority’s Ministry of Transportation. The money was a mixture of Iraqi oil revenues, war booty and U.S. government funds earmarked for the coalition authority. Whenever cash was needed, someone went down to the vault with a wheelbarrow or gunny sacks. Asked if he has any evidence that the accounting system was a little loose, Willis says, "I would describe it as nonexistent."

Yeah, so the next time somone is apprehensive about sending more money to Iraq to "support the troops" maybe we shouldn't be so quick to call them traitors.