Anyone seen £5 billion?
Comments: 11
As the old economists’ joke has it, a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
US ‘lost track of £5bn aid to Iraq ministries’
News.scotsman.comTHE 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.
I don’t know about freedom being on the march, but it sounds like an awful lot of money is.
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Posted to General Rants • 2005.01.31 (Mon) • 22:28
Comments
Posted by Gabriel Mihalache 2005.01.31, 23:05
Iran-Contra reruns?
Posted by jh 2005.01.31, 23:09
Where's the Army Corps of Certified Public Accountants when you need them?
Posted by Wiseguy? 2005.02.01, 01:03
Damn it !! Those elusive WMD's been at it again. We'd better call Tony & George fast to sort this mess out.
Or could it possibly be them behind it all ??
Posted by seriocomic 2005.02.01, 06:02
Thats at least one Apple Mini for evey new Iraqi voter. Oh, the humanity!
(sorry to steal the catch-phrase)
Posted by eliot 2005.02.01, 12:30
I wonder if they were using Excel?
Posted by MJ 2005.02.01, 13:24
Did they check under the matress?
Posted by Colecago 2005.02.01, 22:39
best part is, if we lost it, it could get into the wrong hands and be used against us. Money is a major player in terrorist activities, we spend all that time freezing their assets and then we go and lose 5bil? Thats classy.
Posted by Blake 2005.02.02, 06:15
Christ. Freedom shmeedom…can Bush screw anything else up???
Posted by Martin 2005.02.02, 09:19
Although I'm sure in a place like postwar Iraq some money was stolen, scanning the inspector general's report and Paul Bremmer's response, the money was not "lost track of" so much as it was just not tracked according to GAAP procedures. Anyone who has been through an internal audit at a large Japanese company knows it's impossible to avoid getting flagged on any number of innocent things.
For instance, if the same person issues a purchase order and later on the invoice, that would be a vioation of GAAP, when in 99% of the cases there is nothing fishy going on. In a chaotic environment like Iraq at the time, I'd think they had better things to do than implementing accounting systems that would satisfy a U.S. CPA.
Posted by Gothic industrial music 2005.02.04, 10:05
Somehow…I'm not surprised
Posted by Fullback 2005.02.08, 01:04
Everett Dirkson was not an economist. He was a U.S. Senator and the source of the quote.
I had the pleasure to speak with him several times (At the time, I was young and he was old, but he tolerated my questions with graceful patience) and he was an extraordinary getleman, before being a gentleman was passe in politics.
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