Some Iraq Rebuilding Funds Go Untraced

Some Iraq Rebuilding Funds Go Untraced

Investigators Have Yet to Pursue U.S. Contracting Money That May Be Missing
By SCOT J. PALTROW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


Some did they say some, Hhhmmmmm I wonder how many billions went missing? that the American Tax Payer will be paying for decades to come.

January 17, 2006; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- More than 18 months after the Pentagon disbanded the Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq, neither the Justice Department nor a special inspector general has moved to recover large sums suspected of disappearing through fraud and price gouging in reconstruction.

Earlier audits by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction -- a post Congress created in late 2004 -- found that oversight of contractors by the Authority was so lax that widespread abuse was likely. An audit in April 2005, for example, found "significant deficiencies in contract administration," which meant that "there was no assurance that fraud, waste, and abuse did not occur in the management and administration of contracts" the U.S. awarded with Iraqi oil money administered by the United Nations.

Nevertheless, there hasn't been a concerted effort to trace what happened to the money and make recipients pay back any ill-gotten gains. The inspector general's office said it doesn't plan to ask the Justice Department to file lawsuits or to conduct widespread audits of individual contracts to look for fraud. Instead, it says, it is using its limited resources to pursue higher priorities, including investigating charges of bribery to win some Iraqi work and auditing current controls on the spending of redevelopment aid.

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Write to Scot J. Paltrow at scot.paltrow@wsj.com

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