Former Coalition Provisional Authority Flunks Audit

As a new National Assembly gets picked in Iraq, the Los Angeles Times (via the registrationless Duluth News-Tribune) reports on the former Iraqi Coaliton Provisional Authority's money-management troubles:

The U.S.-led provisional government in charge of Iraq until last summer was unable to properly account for nearly $9 billion in Iraqi money it was charged with safeguarding, according to a scathing new audit report.

The Coalition Provisional Authority may have paid salaries for thousands of nonexistent "ghost employees" in Iraqi ministries, issued unauthorized multimillion-dollar contracts, and provided little oversight of spending in possibly corrupt ministries, according to the report by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

"While acknowledging the extraordinarily challenging threat environment that confronted the CPA throughout its existence and the number of actions taken by CPA to improve the (interim Iraqi government's) budgeting and financial management, we believe the CPA management of Iraq's national budget process and oversight of Iraqi funds was burdened by severe inefficiencies and poor management," concludes the report, which is scheduled for release today.

But Paul Bremer, who used to run that show, thinks the criticisms are bunk:

The "auditors presume that the coalition could achieve a standard of budgetary transparency and execution which even peaceful Western nations would have trouble meeting within a year, especially in the midst of war," Bremer wrote. "Given the situation the CPA found in Iraq at liberation, this is an unrealistic standard."

Comments

[chthus]

French and UN officials have been saying good things about the elctions, and may even be sending help.

I think we might be seeing the beginnings of Oil-for-Food, Part Deux.

[Mr. X]

chthus is right, and this isn't the least bit surprising. Fiscal responsibility wasn't why Bush invaded Iraq.

[thoreau]

I'm shocked--shocked!--that a multibillion dollar government project with shifting rationales might not be run in a fiscally sound manner!

[gaius marius]

The U.S.-led provisional government in charge of Iraq until last summer was unable to properly account for nearly $9 billion in Iraqi money it was charged with safeguarding, according to a scathing new audit report.

how much went missing in ten years of the un's oil-for-food? less than half that amount? and it took the cpa how long to misappropriate that money?

lol -- i know it won't, but this really should shut down the more vociferous complaints about oil-for-food. the pentagon loses in the couch on a daily basis what the un has been (rightfully) vilified for.

carrying on about how the un is sooper-corrupted because of oil-for-food ignores the massive level of corruption in our own government (and puppet governments) as a baseline. if anything, the un is probably cleaner than washington.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Brian, are you surprised? The US government hasn't been able to get through an audit since the mid 1920's, and you're surprised that a provisional government established not long ago can't either?

Tell you what - when Senators can explain gifts, when the SSA can explain expense reports, when representatives stop killing interns, when the Pentagon comes clean about line item spending in weapons development, THEN, and only THEN, will I expect the provisional government to pass an audit.

[chthus]

"when representatives stop killing interns"

Watch it now, Gary's gonna sue.

[Mr. X]

I agree that there were probably several billion dollars worth of waste. This shouldn't end criticism of the oil for food scandal. Yes, there was a double standard. If W. had been running the Oil for Food program, the Republican pundits wouldn't be spreading the message. But 2 wrongs still don't make a right.

[cdunlea]

If W. had been running the Oil for Food program, the Republican pundits wouldn't be spreading the message"

If GWB had been running Oil for Food, the Iraqi oil futures would have been sold to Halliburton through the year 2050 for a handful of beads a la Manhattan Island.