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All in all, the fund has received more than $19 billion and has functioned as a piggy bank for the occupation authority, which has displayed a marked reluctance to account for money spent. Last November, for example, Congress — with Halliburton in mind — banned the use of taxpayers' money for any more large noncompetitive contracts. So the CPA simply dipped into the DFI to pay Halliburton.

A Hammer Falls on Iraq's Piggy Bank in the Fading Days
By Andrew Cockburn

June 20, 2004

Now that Iraqi insurgents have discovered precisely where to aim their body blows at oil export facilities, Iraq is going to need all the money it can find. So it seems a pity that in its final days, the U.S.-dominated Coalition Provision Authority has gone on a shopping spree, gaily spending the hoard of Iraqi cash it controls.

Like everyone else in Iraq, the insurgents have long recognized that oil, almost the country's only revenue resource, is the key to power. Since the beginning of the occupation, there have been no less than 125 sabotage attacks against oil pipelines. Until recently, most were in the northern oil fields, where little production goes for export, but lately, attacks have shifted to the southern fields, whence come 85% of Iraqi exports. Such gloomy realities appear to have little effect inside the CPA, where, reportedly, an "end of school" atmosphere has taken hold. This was most vividly expressed at a meeting last month at which it was decided to hand out almost $2 billion in Iraqi assets — not American dollars but Iraqi money over which the U.S. authorities have assumed responsibility — to a host of "deserving" causes.