Iraq Billions Poof
Illustration by John Blackford. By Peter van Agtmael/Polaris (desert), Konstantin Inozemtsev/Alamy (money).

Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency—much of it belonging to the Iraqi people—was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam’s palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.”

The New York Federal Reserve Bank made 21 shipments of currency to Iraq totaling $11,981,531,000. All told, the Fed would ship 281 million individual banknotes, in bricks weighing a total of 363 tons.”

This article blew my mind.

[Full Article by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steel | Q&A with the authors]


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One response to “Billions over Baghdad”

  1. Orrin Avatar
    Orrin

    Hey Duncan. Been a reader of your blog for some time now and I just wanted to express a little opinion here. In no way is the whole Iraq thing a good use of United States money, resources, or lives. But I don’t see how people can throw stones at my government as if they were citizens that paid that money in taxes to begin with. If I lived in the U.K. I would be throwing stones at my government in the U.K. for following the U.S. to Iraq, not spreading U.S. hate by belittling a country I am not a part of.

    Again. This is all just my opinion. I will continue to read your site and I love your photos and even your opinion. It is nice to have people in this world who see things differently then I do. :-) Thank you.