Mission Accomplished

How many more reports need to be published before Congress gets serious about investigating where the money is going in Iraq?

Investigator says millions of dollars of US money missing in Iraq

A special investigator tracking billions of dollars spent by the United States on reconstruction in Iraq said he has found millions of dollars worth of fraud by US officials and companies.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said the US Justice Department was looking into fraud that he had uncovered.

But giving details of his latest report, which is to be released on Saturday, Bowen told National Public Radio (NPR) that US-backed reconstruction projects in Iraq are speeding ahead.

"The reconstruction for Iraq is peaking, 1,000 projects are completed and 1,000 more are ongoing," he said.

The United States has allocated 23 billion dollars for new infratructure and Bowen's previous reports have already highlighted huge sums of missing money.

He said his latest report looks at four water projects and "the results are all over the map".

Bowen also told how seven million dollars intended for the troubled Hilla region south of Baghdad had disappeared. The money came from the Development Fund for Iraq, money from oil sales that the US-run former Coalition Provisional Authority used for development projects.

"There was no accountability, no records," Bowen said. "Unfortunately there were possible fraudulent activities occurring."

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