Where’s The Money? Pallets of Cash Disappear in Iraq

According to a recent Reuters story the Feds sent 363 tons of fresh wrapped 100$ bills to Iraq on pallets. It was about 12 billion dollars. Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was wondering what happened to all that money and held some hearings on it. Waxman asked, ‘Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that’s exactly what our government did.” Paul Bremer, who as the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq after initial combat operations ended, had some answers. Bremer said that the Iraqi finance minister needed the money to help get the newly formed Iraqi government up on it’s feet. So the shipments where made, three in all. The problem is, according to Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, about 8.8 billion of it can not be accounted for. Bremer said he was working under stressful conditions, and if he had hindsight he would have done things a bit different. Republicans claim that the Democrats are just trying to score political points. I mean, whats 8.8 billion dollars compared to the trillion this war is going to everntually cost us? Ed Harriman has a good article on this a more waste of billions in Iraq right here.
Alan Cosgrove