Who Killed Iraq?
By Paul
BBC reports on the missing billions from Iraq;
"In hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington, Democratic congressman Henry Waxman has emerged as the most vocal critic of the US' record on reconstruction.In particular, Mr Waxman says proper accounting procedures were ignored when large sums of Iraqi cash were handed over by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) - the US-led body that ran Iraq immediately after the war - to get Iraqi ministries functioning again.
"I think we're looking at a huge scandal. The CPA handed over $8.8bn in cash to the Iraqi government even though that new government had no security or accounting system.
"No one can account for it. We don't know who got that money," Mr Waxman said.
Stuart Bowen is the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. His task is to follow the paper trail - and after more than 100 investigations his work paints a grim picture of waste and mismanagement.
Mr Bowen said billions of dollars were shrink-wrapped in plastic and flown out of the US to Baghdad.
"It was $2bn a flight, and I know of at least six flights," he said.
Mr Bowen said some of the cash went to pay the salaries of thousands of "ghost employees", or Iraqi civil servants who did not actually exist.