How Iraq’s money was frittered away
The Guardian on how $23billion of money entrusted by the UN for the redevelopment of Iraq was lost to waste, theft and fraud:
Because the Iraqi banking system was in tatters, the funds were placed in an account with the Federal Reserve in New York. From there, most of the money was flown in cash to Baghdad. Over the first 14 months of the occupation, 363 tonnes of new $100 bills were shipped in – $12bn, in cash. And that is where it all began to go wrong.
"Iraq was awash in cash – in dollar bills. Piles and piles of money," says Frank Willis, a former senior official with the governing Coalition Provisional Authority. "We played football with some of the bricks of $100 bills before delivery. It was a wild-west crazy atmosphere, the likes of which none of us had ever experienced."
The environment created by the coalition positively encouraged corruption. "American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq basically became a free fraud zone," says Alan Grayson, a Florida-based attorney who represents whistleblowers now trying to expose the corruption. "In a free fire zone you can shoot at anybody you want. In a free fraud zone you can steal anything you like. And that was what they did."
Dispatches: Iraq's Missing Billions produced by GuardianFilms is broadcast tonight on Channel 4 at 8pm.
