CNN: Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds, Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inef

An inspector general's report said the U.S.-led administration that ran Iraq until June 2004 is unable to account for the funds.

"Severe inefficiencies and poor management" by the Coalition Provisional Authority has left auditors with no guarantee the money was properly used," the report said.

"The CPA did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial and contractual controls to ensure that [Development Fund for Iraq] funds were used in a transparent manner," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., director of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

The $8.8 billion was reported to have been spent on salaries, operating and capital expenditures, and reconstruction projects between October 2003 and June 2004, Bowen's report concluded.

The money came from revenues from the United Nations' former oil-for-food program, oil sales and seized assets -- all Iraqi money. The audit did not examine the use of U.S. funds appropriated for reconstruction. (Full story)

Auditors were unable to verify that the Iraqi money was spent for its intended purpose. In one case, they raised the possibility that thousands of "ghost employees" were on an unnamed ministry's payroll.
[link to edition.cnn.com]

If you want to know where that money went then here is the answer, at least watch the first 2 minutes if you don't have the time to watch it all, i promise you'll be shocked.
[link to video.google.com]