Congress seeks missing billions in Iraq

Congress seeks missing billions in Iraq
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 22 2007 18:16 | Last updated: May 22 2007 18:16


Members of Congress dem anded on Tuesday that the Bush administration explain how billions of dollars of US taxpayers’ money had gone missing in Iraq in what they called a disastrous effort to rebuild the country.

Responding to the latest report by Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, members of the House foreign relations committee also directed much of their criticism at the Iraqi coalition government, venting their frustration with corruption.

“It is simply outrageous that we are mired in the same mud of incompetence that we got stuck in last year and the year before that. But knowing the administration’s abysmal track record on Iraq reconstruction planning, this is no surprise,” Tom Lantos, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said.

Iraq was losing perhaps $5bn (€3.7bn, £2.5bn) a year through corruption, he said.

“The revelation in Mr Bowen’s latest quarterly report that new facilities are crumbling is equally as troubling as the data on incomplete projects. Some of the supposedly completed ventures are actually houses of cards, ready to collapse.”

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the senior Republican on the committee, focused on training Iraq’s security forces, including high rates of absenteeism, “inadequate vetting mechanisms to prevent sectarian and militia influences from infiltrating Iraqi security forces, inadequate systems to account for personnel, and inexperienced staff with limited budgeting and technology skills”.

Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat, cited figures from the US government accountability office that reported between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels of Iraqi oil were unaccounted for each day – representing $5m to $15m daily at an average price of $50 a barrel.

Mr Bowen, just returned from his 16th visit to Iraq, replied that the reconstruction effort was a mix of success and failure, seriously challenged by the dangerous security environment. He also blamed poor US inter-agency planning and co-ordination but asserted the situation was “much better”.

“This is not the Marshall plan. This is a reconstruction programme conducted virtually under fire,” he said. The Iraqi government was financing the bulk of its reconstruction, he said, but had failed to fund the oil industry adequately or spend its budget on other infrastructure projects.