Iraq ; Report cites abuses of $Billions in Iraq rebuilding
Tuesday, November 2, 2004 at 02:41AM
TheSpook
U.S. investigators
this year opened more than 100 cases involving alleged abuse of some of
the billions of dollars in U.S. and Iraqi funds to rebuild Iraq, an
auditors' report says. The report on Monday said most allegations
involved fraud, waste and abuse of funds while 40 percent were linked
to reprisals, theft and other issues. It said 75 cases had been either
closed or referred to other U.S. agencies and 38 remained open. The
report was prepared for the U.S. Congress by the inspector general's
office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupying power
dissolved in June and now renamed the Special Inspector General for
Iraq Reconstruction. In addition to the CPA investigations, the
FBI had at least five open and pending cases involving Iraq, with two
recent ones focusing on public corruption and government fraud, the
report said. It gave no details. Last week, the Army Corps of Engineers
top contracting official said she was being interviewed by the FBI
after she complained about deals given to Halliburton, the Texas
company run by Vice President Dick Cheney before he joined the race for
the White House in 2000. [more]
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