Nearly 90% of Iraq Reconstruction Money Being Lost To Corruption

Public Radio Marketplace Four Part Series - As Marketplace reporters have discovered, not all of the $22 billion being spent to rebuild Iraq is going where it should.

Who's watching the money as it streams through Baghdad? Just about no one, and bribes and black marketeering are rampant, witnesses say. A leading anti-corruption group claims as much as 90 percent of U.S. money spent in Iraq is being lost to corruption. From Halliburton subsidiaries charging double for gas, Iraqi officials and Arabic translators unrestrained from pocketing millions of dollars, or even members of the interim governing Council accusing each other of taking tens of millions in bribes. Trouble is, the root of the problem can't be found anywhere near the Green Zone. Try the White House, and Capitol Hill, where oversight of Iraqi construction crews and U.S. contractors like Halliburton has only just begun to be assigned… more than a year after the war began.

There is a lot of anger in Iraq right now towards the US occupation of the country. Some of the bitterness comes from frustration over the slow pace of fundamental change in the country. And central to change was snuffing out corruption.. Many had pinned their hopes on the Americans to take care of things. But in three months of investigating the story, Marketplace found that the problem is as deeply embedded in Washington as it is in Baghdad.