Iraq’s parliament speaker tells Al Jazeera unaccounted reconstruction money is three times the reported $6.6bn.
Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi parliament speaker, has told Al Jazeera that the amount of Iraqi money unaccounted for by the US is $18.7bn – three times more than the reported $6.6bn.
Just before departing for a visit to the US, al-Nujaifi said that he has received a report this week based on information from US and Iraqi auditors that the amount of money withdrawn from a fund from Iraqi oil proceeds, but unaccounted for, is much more than the $6.6bn reported missing last week.
“There is a lot of money missing during the first American administration of Iraqi money in the first year of occupation.
“Iraq’s development fund has lost around $18bn of Iraqi money in these operations – their location is unknown. Also missing are the documents of expenditure.
“I think it will be discussed soon. There should be an answer to where has Iraqi money gone.”
The Bush administration flew in a total of $20bn in cash into the country in 2004. This was money that had come from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.
Officials in Iraq were supposed to give out the money to Iraqi ministries and US contractors, intended for the reconstruction of the country.
Note: As this was Iraqi money it seems nobody really cared ….
Categories: Asia, Iraq, United States
This is the actual cash missing and does not account for the wasted billions in so-called reconstruction funds paid to American contractors, who did not really bother to complete the projects properly, claiming ‘security concern’ for taking the money without delivering …
A small example of how generous the Americans were with their Iraqi cash in the early days of the occupation: The first mobile telephone network was established by MCI, a company that was under bankruptcy in the USA at that time. Free phones were handed out to all US troops to call home, unlimited. The early arrivals of the UN, International organizations, NGOs also received a free phone (myself included). I must admit that I also benefited from this theft of Iraqi funds. In my office at the time the phones only worked on the roof. I had to tell my wives that ‘sorry, although this phone call is free, I cannot talk too long, because the temperature on the roof of my office is around 50 degrees C. (122 Fahrenheit)…
American constitution does not allow America to act as world police man. America must remove its forces from other countries ASAP and withdraw all the aid to their dictators to spent it on its own citizens.