US should justify 2 billion dollars of funds spent after invasion

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: An American government observatory has announced that the US Defense Department has failed to justify the spending of 2 billion (b) US dollars of Iraqi funds during the years that followed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to a report by the London-based Al-Hayat Newspaper on Wednesday.

The report had quoted the Special Inspector for the Rehabilitation of Iraq as saying “the US State Department could not justify the spending of about one-third of about 3 billion (b) dollars from Iraq’s Development Funds.”

It said that “the Iraqi government had laid the said funds under the auspices of the US Defense Department, to pay for contracts to cover costs of contracts it had concluded with the the Provisional Alliance Commission, that ruled Iraq from 2003 to 2004, before it was canceled,” pointing out that “the largest part of the funds, estimated at 2.8 billion (b) dollars were credited in a bank account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and another 217.7 million dollars in the Treasury of the Presidential Palace in Baghdad”.

“It was proven that the documents presented by the said Bank had included 2.7 billion (b) dollars that were withdrawn by the Defense Department, but there does not exist any explanation for the payments of financial documents to justify that,” the newspaper reported.

The report pointed out that “a written approval by the Iraqi government only had been necessary to implement such payments, whilst the US Defense Department could not justify the spending of more than 1 billion (b) dollars only, and had also failed to justify the spending of 119.4 millions out of 193.3 million dollars, that were kept in cash during the cancellation of the said Provisional Alliance Commission, adding that the Inspector’s office had confirmed that 24.4 million dollars were paid back to the Iraqi government in March, 2008.