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Head of the Iraqi Parliament's Integrity Committee Bahaa al-Araji

In
a letter to the UN, Iraqi lawmakers accuse the US institutions of
having stolen around 17 billion dollars of Iraq's oil fund following the
2003 invasion of the country.

In an official letter to the UN office in Baghdad last month, the
Iraqi Parliament's Integrity Committee solicited the body's help to
recover the missing fortune, which was taken from the Development Fund
of Iraq (DFI) in the bedlam following the 2003 US-led invasion of the
oil-rich country.

"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," the letter was reported by Reuters as reading.

Earlier in June, US auditors warned as much as 6.6 billion dollars
in Iraqi reconstruction funds may have been stolen in "the largest theft
of funds in national history." The audit, by Special Inspector General
for Iraqi Reconstruction Stuart Bowen, blamed the Pentagon for not
keeping track of the funds, antiwar.com reported on June 14.

The alleged theft of money has been described by the parliamentary
committee as a “financial crime” as the finger of suspicion falls on the
US.

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