Anyone been reading about these idiots who dropped 12 billion dollars in cash into a war zone? Most of it is now unaccounted for.

And the accounting controls? The biggest joke I've ever heard.

According to Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, the $8.8bn funds to Iraqi ministries were disbursed "without assurance the monies were properly used or accounted for". But, according to the memorandum, "he now believes that the lack of accountability and transparency extended to the entire $20bn expended by the CPA".

To oversee the expenditure the CPA was supposed to appoint an independent certified public accounting firm. "Instead the CPA hired an obscure consulting firm called North Star Consultants Inc. The firm was so small that it reportedly operates out of a private home in San Diego." Mr Bowen found that the company "did not perform a review of internal controls as required by the contract".

That's about half the budget of the NIH, just wasted away on who-knows-what, and overseen by some guy in California who probably works in his underwear.

Considering we're getting grants cut to maintain paylines, this is pretty damn depressing.

Labels: idiots, incompetence