An audit passed to congressmen on influential committee has claimed that the
Pentagon did not have adequate documentation to accounts for up to $7.8bn
dollars of equipment bought from contractors for the Iraq reconstruction effort.
A report in the Washington Post said the audit claimed that
receipts, vouchers, signatures, invoices and other paperwork were missing in
such quantities that $7.8bn worths of equipment was unaccounted for.
An earlier audit unearthed problems in accounting for $5.2bn in goods, while
a senior Democrat politician, Henry Waxman has claimed that the Defense
Department has failed to account accurately for $1.8bn of seized Iraqi assets it
spent.
The Post quoted the department’s deputy inspector general for audit saying
that finance staff were not ‘adequately trained’.