Iraq hunting $17 billion missing after US invasion

The Iraqi parliament is chasing about $17 billion of Iraqi oil money it says was stolen after the US-led invasion in 2003, and has asked the United Nations for help to track it down. The missing money was shipped to Iraq from the United States to help with reconstruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. In a letter to the UN office in Baghdad last month, the Parliament's Integrity Committee asked for help to find and recover the oil money taken from the Development Fund of Iraq (DFI) in 2004 and lost in the chaos that followed the invasion. "All indications are that the institutions of the United States of America committed financial corruption by stealing the money of the Iraqi people, which was allocated to develop Iraq, (and) that it was about $17 billion," said the letter sent to the UN with a 50-page report. The committee called the disappearance of the money a "financial crime" but said UN Security Council resolutions prevent Iraq from making a claim against the United States. The DFI was established in 2003 at the request of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the US body headed by Paul Bremer that governed Iraq after the invasion. The fund was to be used to pay the salaries and pensions of Iraqi government workers and for reconstruction projects. In 2004, the administration of former US President George W. Bush flew billions of dollars in cash into Iraq. The money came from the sale of Iraqi oil, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food program and seized Iraqi assets. Last July, an audit report from the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said the US Department of Defense was unable to account properly for $8.7 billion of Iraqi oil and gas money after the 2003 invasion.