Follow The Money

As if there wasn’t enough trouble already, Sean-Paul has an interesting item this morning about the shaky state of Iraq’s finances:

Ahead of a deadline for the transfer of power, the Coalition Provisional Authority’s reporting of Iraqi finances falls short of international standards of accounting and transparency, said a report by the Open Society Institute’s Iraq Revenue Watch project. The report, Opening the Books: Transparent Budgeting for Iraq, urges the CPA and the Iraqi Governing Council to make further improvements in accordance with these standards before a new Iraqi government is elected in 2005.

[…]

Iraq’s 2004 budget, produced by the CPA and Iraq’s Ministries of Finance and Planning, is the country’s first full-year financial plan since Saddam Hussein’s removal. However, it lacks key information about state-owned enterprises, financing for sub-national governments, and contingencies that pose significant risks to Iraq’s public purse. There is no contingency planning for what Iraq will do if oil prices fall or exports are disrupted, if hostilities resume, or foreign aid fails to materialize

Well, convicted felon Ahmad Chalabi’s crony Kamil Mubdir al-Kaylani is the minister of finance and his nephew, Ali’Alawi, is the Minister of Trade, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

However, since Ken Lay was unavailable, the CPA installed right wing nut and GOP hack David M. Nummy as the senior advisor to the treasury so it can be asumed that all of the safeguards and transparency we have come to expect from the Bush administration are being employed in the new Iraqi economy. There’s nothing to worry about.