Iraq authority 'mismanaged $9bn'

By Adam Brookes
BBC News, Pentagon

The CPA failed to document a number of payments to security workers

An official US report has criticised the US occupation authority in Iraq for mismanagement of funds worth nearly $9bn (£4.7bn).

It says the provisional authority which governed Iraq until mid-2004 failed to properly oversee its budget.

However, the report acknowledges that it was working in difficult conditions.

The report was written by the Special Inspector-General for Iraqi Reconstruction, which was charged with auditing spending in post-war Iraq.

Following the rout of Saddam Hussein's army in 2003, the United States set up an occupation government in Iraq.

This was the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which was charged with running the country and to begin the expensive, difficult job of reconstructing roads, schools and bridges - the entire infrastructure.

Salaries

The report is highly critical of the way the CPA went about handling Iraq's finances, particularly the way it disbursed $8.8bn to Iraqi ministries for salaries and reconstruction projects.

For example, the report says in February 2004, $17m were paid out in salaries for Iraqi civil defence workers, but the CPA had no documents relating to those payments.

Salaries were paid to 8,000 guards at one ministry when the existence of only 600 guards could actually be confirmed.

The then-head of the CPA, Paul Bremer, strongly disagreed with the report's findings, but this document will do nothing to rehabilitate the image of the CPA.

The body's already been widely blamed for mismanaging those vital days following the fall of Saddam Hussein.