Washington – House Democrats on Tuesday grilled the former U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, demanding that he account for billions of dollars distributed in Iraq that no one seems able to trace.
Much of the questioning focused on $12 billion – mostly in $100 bills packed in huge bundles, 363 tons of cash in all – from Iraqi oil sales and frozen assets of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The U.S. shipped the money to Iraq for Bremer’s organization to disburse to Iraqi ministries.
A government audit in 2005 found that $8.8 billion was turned over to the ministries without assurance that it would be properly used and accounted for. A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform staff document issued Tuesday says that much of the money appears to have been lost to corruption and waste.
Oversight committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said that with no clear standards, it was possible that some of the money ended up in enemy hands.
Bremer acknowledged making mistakes but said that overall – given the violence and the sorry state of Iraq’s economy – he did the best he could. He said he used the money to pay government workers their salaries and pensions.
Bremer said the Iraqi ministries didn’t have good payroll records but that he had to turn over the money they requested quickly because he didn’t want government employees to go without pay.
