That $6.6 Billion In Cash ‘Lost’ In Iraq? Turns Out It Was In The Bank

by Nando Di Fino | 10:46 am, October 27th, 2011

» 28 comments

Back in 2004, in an effort to rebuild Iraq, the United States flew at least 20 planes full of money — tightly-wrapped stacks of $100 bills — into the country. In total, $12 billion was airlifted to Iraq, all in cash. This June, when the books were closing on Development Fund for Iraq, which was under the rule of the Coalitional Provisional Authority (which dissolved in 2004), it was reported that $6.6 billion of the cash was missing. The cash wasn’t America’s; it was money from seized Iraqi assets, oil sales, and surpluses. We were just, essentially, returning it to them. Still, it’s a hefty sum to misplace (or, as some believed, to have stolen). Paul Richter, of the Los Angeles Times, wrote:

The White House decided to use the money in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq, which was created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to hold money amassed during the years when Hussein’s regime was under crippling economic and trade sanctions.

Richter added that House Government Reform Committee investigators charged in 2005 that U.S. officials, “used virtually no financial controls to account for these enormous cash withdrawals once they arrived in Iraq, and there is evidence of substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and disbursement of the Iraqi funds.” Since the U.S. was responsible for the safe-keeping of the cash, Iraq was threatening to sue for the $6.6 billion that we had let slip through our fingers.

This week, however, a report based on a Pentagon audit revealed that the money was never stolen — it was transferred to the Central Bank of Iraq. “That money is not missing,” Inspector General Stuart Bowen told Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio and David Lerman. CNN’s Charley Keyes points out that the Inspector General’s report concludes, “sufficient evidence exists showing that almost all of the remaining $6.6 billion was transferred to actual and legal CBI (Central Bank of Iraq) control.”

So all’s well that ends well, right? Maybe not. The report says that sufficient evidence exists that the deposit was made. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the location of the $6.6 billion is actually known, or that it can be accounted for. The money might still be missing — we just know, and have evidence of, where we put it last. It’s now in the hands of Iraq to figure out what happened to it.

And this just paves the way for a new mess. Now that the location of the $6.6 billion has been figured out, to a degree, Bowen expressed concern that many more millions are still unaccounted for, including $217 million in cash that was stored in the basement of the Republican Palace. “I know just from talking to Iraqis and just my travels to Iraq—I’ve been there 30 times. What I’ve learned,” Bowen told CNBC’s Eamon Javers, “is that hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of development fund for Iraq money was stolen by senior Iraqi officials for their own personal gain.”

$6.6 Billion, Iraq, Money

Anonymous

Cue conservatrolls saying we should keep the money for “liberating” Iraq. Like there aren’t a hundred thousand dead Iraqis and millions upon millions displaced/disfigured as the result of our little pointless adventure over there.
Anonymous

That was put into the Central Bank of Iraq to take advantage of their Free Checking Account deal .

That picture was actually taken in Tiger Woods’s den .
Anonymous

Come on,all that in cash?Really?

That’s some effort to control what happens to our “gifts” to a foreign country.All that’s missing is guys wearing trench coats and carrying it in brief cases.

No wonder the world is awash in US hundred dollar notes.
Pablo

It isn’t our money. RTFA.
Anonymous

Good example for those that want to reduce waste and fraud in the government should fund and increase the agency Inspector Generals offices. These folks are given true independence and audit thoroughly. That’s all they do, and when they go to an office, they are feared because they will be through and impartial I have a friend in an IG’s office, they are all CPA’s with high security clearances and are professional civil servants who are thorough and impartial.
Anonymous

Thanks to the incompetence of George ‘freaking’ Bush and his cronies.
Anonymous

The typically intolerant ignorant Left is out in force today it seems.

(Conservatrolls, Publius? Really? Because anyone who disagrees with the Left MUST be a troll. Typical leftist groupthink.)

What this is, is the death of another of the left’s talking point. I still hear you guys throw this BS around about the lost money… like the hundreds of other Iraq talking points you’ve all carefully woven into your Iraq mythology.
Your Mama’s so fat

Karl Rove has filed a claim on the missing money which he wishes to use to instill fear in the elderly and smear any Democrat who may be running in 2012.
Anonymous

Are you saying Bush shouldn’t have sent the money there? What should he have done differently?

Mindless, partisan hatred does not help.
TruDat

Looks like Obama’s home safe.
Raven

Is there really any intelligence in the far left community? You could not tell it by the BS you find in these comments. Judging by the acrtion of the Bank of Iraq they must have a great many far left liberals in there organization, like the Obamabot they hid the money well.
Whatnowgop

Bush stocked the banks with cronies. Is Bushie far left too like every other boogieman the right dreams up?
Anonymous

This happened in 2005. (Don’t think about it too hard.)
Anonymous

“Richter added that House Government Reform Committee investigators charged in 2005 that U.S. officials, “used virtually no financial controls to account for these enormous cash withdrawals once they arrived in Iraq, and there is evidence of substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and disbursement of the Iraqi funds.”

So to your point, no one’s saying the money shouldn’t have been sent there. They’re saying that when you’re shipping 20 planes full of $100 bills to a war zone, you should have a plan to account for it.
Anonymous

Pre-Thanksgiving, 2009.
CarmanK

tHE FACTS about the incompetence in which the BUSH/CHENEY regime conducted US affairs in Iraq is so clear and evident, we don’t need mythology to fill in the blanks. They sent the same kind of inexperienced, political interns to IRAQ that they sent into New Orleans after Katrina. It just wasn’t so easy to cover up in NO. Might add, that one of the Oral Roberts grads was sent to set up the Iraq “stock exchange”, the Iraqis were smart enough to discover that he was so UNKNOWLEDGEABLE, that they sent him and his crew packing. BUSH/CHENEY ordered our military into combat for many reasons, all factual, no myths excepts those found in the BUSH/CHENEY memoirs which are going to be exiled to the FICTION SHELVES. not even good fiction at that!!
Anonymous

my heart bleeds.
The snarky one

Bullshit! The story got out that the money was missing. There still looking for it.
Anonymous

Conservatroll!
Anonymous

I heard that some of the guys used the bundles of money to play football.
Anonymous

But, we were promised by Bush/Cheney that the oil receipts would pay for the war. Do you have a short memory of that?
Anonymous

Fvck the living! We must save the UNBORN!!!!!1111
Anonymous

There are conservatives, yes, but Mediaite’s awful comment section is almost exclusively filled with conservatrolls.
http://twitter.com/Darr247 Darr Darr

Rugby, maybe… probably 95% of Iraqis have never even heard of american football, let alone seen anyone play it. And I doubt those bundles would roll worth crap if playing futball (soccer).
amerikagulag

And that bank is run by…….lemme guess….a JOO!?
Anonymous

We need to stop messing around with these guys. Any time a coalition unit is attacked, we use a tactical nuke on the area, preferably a neutron (aka enhanced radiation weapon) bomb. Scorched earth all the way. If Iran intervenes, nuke them too. Obama wants to get rid of nuclear weapons? OK, lets use them.
Roseanne

“. . . a report based on a Pentagon audit revealed that the money was never stolen . . .” The Pentagon did the audit? Who’s unaware of the lack of accountability in the Pentagon? Trillions of dollars of war/defense funds, are dedicated to Pentagon’s mismanagement of taxpayer money. Exempting the Pentagon from accountability is like writing a blank check to Bernie Madoff. A representative of the Pentagon in charge of an audit puts the mouse in charge of the cheese.
Anonymous

Yes, because the 7 Trillion people with half of them starving in this world isn’t quite enough people starving. Get a fricking life and keep your head out of the uterus’s of women.