Iraq agency 'run like Wild West' - Wasting Millions of Dollars

The Coalition Provisional Authority, the US-led agency that ran Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, has been accused of wasting millions of dollars.  Speaking to a Senate panel, former CPA official Franklin Willis said the processes for handling contractors were as chaotic as the Wild West.  Almost two years after the war, 80% of the $18bn set aside by the US Congress for rebuilding Iraq remains unspent.  A Pentagon spokesman said the CPA had worked under very difficult conditions. Democratic senators called the hearing into the management of the reconstruction funds, saying the Republicans who run Congress have declined to investigate fraud in Iraq.  What they heard did not please them. Mr Willis told the US Senate Democratic Policy Committee there was widespread abuse and waste of money at the authority. He showed pictures of himself and other US officials holding up plastic-wrapped bundles of $100 notes, worth $2m. They were used to pay a security contractor.  Mr Willis said a combination of inexperienced officials, fear of decision-making, lack of communications, minimal security, no banks and lots of money to spend led to a Wild West type of chaos.  These allegations of incompetence come just weeks after an audit of the CPA's handling of more than $20bn of Iraq's own money found that a lack of oversight had left the funds open to corruption.  A Pentagon spokesman said the CPA had striven for sound management and transparency under extremely difficult conditions. [more]