Oops! We Did it Again: $9 Billion More Missing in Iraq

Posted on January 31, 2005

The Associated Press reports that we've apparently misplaced another $9 billion or so in Iraq. A damning report by a special U.S. Inspector General says that an audit reveals that we turned over billions of dollars to various Iraqi agencies, but never asked where the money was going or how it would be accounted for. Apparently there were quite a few "ghost" employees on the payroll: people who never existed.

Furious at the implied slur, Paul Bremer, our former head guy in Iraq, issued a blistering written reply to the findings, saying the report had "many misconceptions and inaccuracies" and lacked professional judgment. Bremer also attacked the assumptions in the report, saying the report "assumes that Western-style budgeting and accounting procedures could be immediately and fully implemented in the midst of a war."

Hmmmm....Bremer did have one good point in his rebuttal. Apparently, there are more than one million Iraqi families who depend on government salaries, and stopping everyone's salary until we completely overhauled the antiquated Iraqi record-keeping methods would have incited more people to join the insurgents. Ok, fair enough. But isn't this just further evidence of the poor planning of this entire venture by Rummy and the boys? Oh well, what's a few billion between friends? It's not like we could use the money for anything else here in the U.S.