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发帖数: 676 | 1 美国人真认为把现钞做成砖头就可以帮助重建啊
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missing-bil
Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say
U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent
by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the
start of the war.
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
June 13, 2011
Reporting from Washington—
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush
administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for
reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of
measurement was born.
Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane
could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent
an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by
May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest
international cash airlift of all time.
This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the
books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of
audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what
happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified
School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other
things.
For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the
cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart
Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created
by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be "the largest theft of
funds in national history."
The mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, and an irritant to
Washington's relations with Baghdad. Iraqi officials are threatening to go
to court to reclaim the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, seized Iraqi
assets and surplus funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.
It's fair to say that Congress, which has already shelled out $61 billion of
U.S. taxpayer money for similar reconstruction and development projects in
Iraq, is none too thrilled either.
"Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to
make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't
seem to find," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), who presided
over hearings on waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq six years ago when he headed
the House Government Reform Committee.
Theft of such a staggering sum might seem unlikely, but U.S. officials aren'
t ruling it out. Some U.S. contractors were accused of siphoning off tens of
millions in kickbacks and graft during the post-invasion period, especially
in its chaotic early days. But Iraqi officials were viewed as prime
offenders.
The U.S. cash airlift was a desperation measure, organized when the Bush
administration was eager to restore government services and a shattered
economy to give Iraqis confidence that the new order would be a drastic
improvement on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The White House decided to use the money in the so-called Development Fund
for Iraq, which was created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to hold
money amassed during the years when Hussein's regime was under crippling
economic and trade sanctions.
The cash was carried by tractor-trailer trucks from the fortress-like
Federal Reserve currency repository in East Rutherford, N.J., to Andrews Air
Force Base in Maryland, then flown to Baghdad. U.S. officials there stored
the hoard in a basement vault at one of Hussein's former palaces, and at U.S
. military bases, and eventually distributed the money to Iraqi ministries
and contractors.
But U.S. officials often didn't have time or staff to keep strict financial
controls. Millions of dollars were stuffed in gunnysacks and hauled on
pickups to Iraqi agencies or contractors, officials have testified.
House Government Reform Committee investigators charged in 2005 that U.S.
officials "used virtually no financial controls to account for these
enormous cash withdrawals once they arrived in Iraq, and there is evidence
of substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and
disbursement of the Iraqi funds."
Pentagon officials have contended for the last six years that they could
account for the money if given enough time to track down the records. But
repeated attempts to find the documentation, or better yet the cash, were
fruitless.
Iraqi officials argue that the U.S. government was supposed to safeguard the
stash under a 2004 legal agreement it signed with Iraq. That makes
Washington responsible, they say.
Abdul Basit Turki Saeed, Iraq's chief auditor and president of the Iraqi
Board of Supreme Audit, has warned U.S. officials that his government will
go to court if necessary to recoup the missing money.
"Clearly Iraq has an interest in looking after its assets and protecting
them," said Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United States.
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