Iraq accounting is still a muddle

By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

A newly formed consulting firm hired to account for more than $7.3 billion in Iraqi reconstruction money did not deliver a database that could help investigators track waste and fraud, a recent report found.

The result: Two years after uncovering one major fraud case, auditors still haven’t determined whether there was more graft in the spending of Iraqi oil proceeds.

In April 2005, Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, recommended creating a database to help review U.S. spending throughout Iraq. The recommendation followed the discovery of an $8.6 million bid-rigging scheme in south-central Iraq. Five months later, a U.S. contracting office in Baghdad hired Reviewer Management International (RMI) of New York to create a database that could link contracts with the officials who authorized them.

RMI, however, wasn’t given adequate instructions until near the end of its $1.5 million contract and, as a result, didn’t deliver a usable database, the inspector general’s office found in a follow-up report released Jan. 29.

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