Audit: Spending Records on Iraq Lacking

U.S. authorities in Baghdad spent hundreds of millions of Iraqi dollars without keeping good enough records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for, government investigators said. Officials of the former Coalition Provisional Authority did not have records to justify the $24.7 million cost for replacing Iraq's currency, according to the report from the authority's inspector general. The report also said the authority paid nearly $200,000 for 15 police trucks without knowing if the trucks were delivered. The report, released in Iraq late Wednesday, is the first formal audit of contracting procedures under the authority, which oversaw billions of dollars in reconstruction spending that critics say was doled out without proper controls. [more]