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IRAQ'S CORRUPTION
العربية
Cases

Airlift of nearly $12bn in cash (Iraqi funds) from the New York Fed to Baghdad, from May 2003 to June 2004

Federal Reserve records reviewed by the House Oversight Committee (hearing of 6 February 2007) show that in 13 months nearly $12 billion in US currency, mostly $100 bills drawn from Iraqi funds held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was flown to Baghdad on pallets for CPA disbursement. The committee described 281 million bills weighing more than 363 tons, including a single June 2004 order of $2,401,600,000 shortly before the CPA handed over. The hearing examined whether the cash was adequately controlled once in Iraq.

Period
From May 2003 to June 2004
Sector
Reconstruction and donor fundsBulk cash shipments of DFI funds
Kind of case
Parliamentary inquiry
Jurisdiction
More than one jurisdiction

How the money moved, according to the sources

This account is the one given by the sources listed on this page. It is not the finding of a court.

Iraqi oil revenue deposited in the DFI account in New York was converted to physical cash and shipped to CPA vaults in Baghdad, then paid out for salaries, contracts and ministry budgets in cash, a form of payment that is hard to trace and easy to divert.

What happened

Congressional oversight only; no legal case concerning the airlift itself. Subsequent SIGIR audits (from 2010 to 2012) examined how remaining DFI funds were accounted for (see The "$6.6bn missing" question: DFI funds at CPA dissolution and DoD's undocumented spending (SIGIR from 2010 to 2012)).

Open questions

  • What share of the cash was paid out without supporting documentation?
  • Did any Iraqi or US official face charges linked to the cash stores in Baghdad (beyond the Hilla case)?

People and companies

The table lists everyone this case names, with their legal status on the date shown. A status in this case does not carry over to any other case, and an accusation is not a conviction. How to read the status.
People and companies
NameRole in the caseLegal statusDetailAs of
L. Paul Bremer III
بول بريمر
CPA Administrator (from May 2003 to June 2004)Not charged as of the date of writingHead of the authority whose controls were audited; SIGIR findings concern controls, not personal wrongdoing; Bremer defended CPA decisions before Congress (February 2007).25 September 2026

Sources

These are the documents on which this case rests. Each quote is given in the language of the document.
  1. US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (GPO)6 February 2007Parliamentary documentTier A

    The Impact of CPA Decisionmaking on Iraq Reconstruction, opening statement of Chairman Henry Waxman (Serial No. 110-10)

    the Federal Reserve Bank in New York had to pack 281 million individual bills including more than 107 hundred dollar bills onto wooden pallets
    the CPA is ordering $2,401,600,000 in currency
    The first step was to get money into the hands of the Iraqi people as quickly as possible.
    OriginalSHA-256 fe2abf4099d0

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