U.S. sent pallets of cash to Baghdad before handover

According to what lawmakers said Tuesday, the Federal Reserve sent more that $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on large pallets aboard military planes a short time before the U.S. gave governmental control back to the Iraqis.

The money, being held by the U.S., came from Saddam Hussein regime's refrozen assets, surplus funds from the U.N. backed oil-for-food program and from Iraqi oil exports.

On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq. Then came more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The Coalition Provisional Authority turned over sovereignty to Iraq on June 30.

L. Paul Bremer in charge of the CPA, which ran Iraq after initial combat operations ceased, said the Iraqi minister of finance requested the huge shipments of cash.

There is also concern that insurgents got their hands on some of the total $12 billion in Iraqi money that Bremer and the CPA disbursed for reconstruction -- by falsifying names on the government payroll.

Stewart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, noted in a January 2005 report that $8.8 billion was unaccounted for after funds had been given to the Iraqi ministries.

The Gun Toting Liberal, writes of Bremer:

The fact is, BILLIONS of tax dollars are missing in “The Desert”, and this guy was left in charge of them. When pressed on the wherabouts of those THREE HUNDRED, THIRTY-SIX TONS of tax dollars under his care, he counters by whining about how “tough” and “chaotic” it was at the time, and how it made more sense to just keep on doing whatever he FELT like at the time with those BILLIONS of dollars of our tax money. Just because the man worked for the United States Government doesn’t give him a pass, should this man ever stand trial for losing BILLIONS of dollars of other people’s money.

Brent at A Dakota Democrat calls for more oversight:

Somehow according to a report by the special Inspector General for Iraq, $8.8 Billion of reconstruction funds have been mysteriously lost. So, our government shipped pallet loads of US money into Iraq, dispersed it by stuffing it in duffel bags in the back of pickup trucks, and now is saying we don't know where it is. Boy, I am glad that there has been oversight over the money that we have sank into this war. Nothing like having over 10% of the money spent by congress on this war being missing.

Significant time on Technorati provided no defense for this act. Bloggers appear to overwhelmingly condemn sending 363 tons of cold hard cash into a war zone. Maybe they needed the money instantly and an efficient way to distribute it was in the form of greenbacks? Who knows?

-Dippold

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