> The English-language Al-Jazeera website reports that:
>
> "Of the $18.4bn Washington provided last year for
> rebuilding Iraq, only $366m - about two per cent - has
> been used, a White House report admitted on 28 June."
>
> Has anybody heard anything like this elsewhere?
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(From the Financial Times, July 6, 2004):
"The White House further stoked the controversy at the weekend when it admitted that, of the $18.4bn appropriated by the US Congress to rebuild Iraq, just $366m had been spent by the handover. By contrast, the US committed nearly $20bn of Iraqi money to projects ($12bn has been spent)."
Investigators crawl over Iraq's oil billions By Thomas Catan Financial Times July 06, 2004
Who has wasted, misman-aged or outright stolen more of Iraq's precious oil money? Is it: a) the United Nations, or b) the United States?
In one form or another, at least 10 separate investigations are seeking to answer that question, and their outcome is being closely watched. For, in the 18-month war of words between the US, UN and the European states that opposed the war, the stewardship of Iraqi oil revenues has emerged as a crucial battleground.
No fewer than nine separate investigations are looking into allegations that the UN mismanaged $65bn (€53bn, £35bn) in Iraqi oil sales under the "oil-for-food" programme, which it ran between 1996 and 2003.
Now another inquiry, carried out under the auspices of the UN, is looking into whether the US-led occupation authority itself wasted Iraqi oil revenues when it took over their management.
The people conducting the investigations themselves are, for the most part, respected and independent. But the duelling inquiries have contributed to a raging debate on the role of the UN and the US in the international arena. While the results will not be known for some time, proponents of both camps are already seizing on every allegation and interim finding to justify their world view.
In one corner are those who see the UN as the only legitimate body to deal with complicated international crises, such as that posed by Mr Hussein's recalcitrance in complying with its resolutions and his subsequent removal from power by US force.
In the other are the UN's vociferous critics - mainly conservative US commentators and politicians - who deride it as a sclerotic and graft-riddled relic whose only purpose is to hinder the US from fulfilling its mission around the globe.
William Safire, the influential conservative columnist, has at times appeared to wage a one-man war on the UN from his column in the New York Times. "Never has there been a financial rip-off of the magnitude of the UN oil-for-food scandal," he intoned several months ago.
Congressman Henry Hyde has called the UN-run sanctions programme "an outrage". And Colin Powell, US secretary of state, expressed his concern that under the UN programme, Iraqi oil money intended for food, healthcare or clean water was in fact squandered on "palaces and debauchery".
The UN's defenders say its American critics are motivated by an ideological aversion to multilateralism and a desire to punish those who opposed the war. Mr Safire and others have accused French businessmen and politicians of improperly profiting from the UN programme.
"It is a campaign, make no mistake, to discredit the United Nations and France," Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to Washington, said in March. "Why? Because some don't want to see the United Nations as a key actor in Iraq."
The first investigation was launched by the now disbanded Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), at the urging of Ahmad Chalabi, director of its finance committee. In February, the IGC picked the accounting firm KPMG to conduct the probe, and auditors began sifting through piles of documents from Iraq's ministries.
But relations had soured between Mr Chalabi and the former US administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer. Mr Bremer refused to release the funds to pay KPMG and instead launched a rival investigation, to be conducted by Ernst & Young on behalf of the Iraqi Supreme Audit Board.
A mysterious assassination last week signalled just how close this investigation might be getting to its targets. Ehsan Karim, head of the Supreme Audit Board, was killed by a bomb blast as he was heading for work.
Meanwhile, with the CPA disbanded and Mr Bremer back at home, supporters of the original IGC investigation are lobbying the Iraqi government for a new lease of life. Read McCaffrey, a partner at Patton Boggs Washington law firm, which has also been enlisted to help in that investigation, says they have already made an "overture" to the new prime minister, Iyad Allawi.
If Mr Allawi agrees, this investigation would join an increasingly crowded field. The US Treasury and customs service are conducting their own investigations into whether US citizens participated in the alleged sanctions-busting scheme. Separately, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York has served subpoenas on several international energy companies for information on their purchases of Iraqi oil.
Three other investigations are working their way through Congress. Republican Congressman Norm Coleman and Democrat Carl Levin have sought documents from the State Department and the CPA. Two Republican congressmen, Christopher Shays and Henry Hyde, are also running their own, separate investigations in the House of Representatives.
And the UN, after some initial foot-dragging, has appointed the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, to conduct its own investigation.
The rival investigations have already sparred over access to documents and officials in Iraq. The Chalabi camp warns that incriminating documents have not been properly secured and could go missing.
For his part, Mr Volcker has ordered the UN not to make its staff available to rival inquiries or release any documents, saying there should not be "too many cooks" in the investigative kitchen. "We'd like to think that our investigation is the investigation," Mr Volcker said in June.
Angered by the UN stance, two US senators introduced a bill in May demanding that it co-operate with congressional investigations or have its US funding cut off.
But even as investigators trip over one another to discover whether the UN's programme was indeed riddled with corruption, others are asking what the US occupation authority itself did with Iraq's oil money.
"For the entire year that it has been in power in Iraq, it has been impossible to tell with any accuracy what the CPA has done with some $20bn of Iraq's own money," the UK charity Christian Aid said in a report last week. "This lack of accountability creates an environment ripe for corruption and theft at every level."
Indeed, a preliminary audit mandated by the UN identified serious weaknesses in the CPA's management of Iraqi oil funds and warned of opportunities for fraud. The internal report was the first produced by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, a body set up by the UN to oversee spending by occupation authorities.
However, it took nearly a year before, as required by UN resolutions, the CPA agreed on an external auditor to review its spending (ironically, it chose KPMG, giving the firm work on both sides of the debate).
On Tuesday, the audit arm of the US Congress, the General Accounting Office, said the delay meant that "transactions worth billions of dollars in Iraqi funds have not been independently reviewed or the results reported".
The KPMG auditors also said they had faced resistance to their work from CPA staff.
A CPA official defended the delay in setting up the external auditors, noting that negotiations had involved "five parties spread out over three continents". He also insisted the CPA had taken "extraordinary steps" to ensure that Iraqi funds were properly accounted for.
The White House further stoked the controversy at the weekend when it admitted that, of the $18.4bn appropriated by the US Congress to rebuild Iraq, just $366m had been spent by the handover. By contrast, the US committed nearly $20bn of Iraqi money to projects ($12bn has been spent).
Should any of the investigations find that either the UN or US misspent Iraqi revenues, will the new Iraqi government get a refund?
Unlikely. The UN's watchdog will continue to audit, but otherwise has no teeth. The US has already begun to play down the investigations into the UN now that it is seeking its help in Iraq.
But the issue is providing Mr Chalabi with a new weapon in his battle against his erstwhile US patrons. His British adviser recently hired Patton Boggs because of its experience in recovering assets for the government of Qatar. The firm's partner, Mr McCaffrey, said Iraq could potentially recover up to $15bn in funds alleged to have been lost by the country under the UN sanctions programme.
Mr Chalabi is also turning his guns on the US. A day after the handover of sovereignty, he told the Washington Post that the new Iraqi government should demand a full accounting of how Mr Bremer spent Iraqi oil funds.
But Mr Chalabi could have worries of his own. Some on Capitol Hill are already wondering whether tens of millions of dollars in US funds received by his organisation should not be thoroughly investigated as well.