Army Corps Faked Budget Entries

By T. Christian Miller
The Los Angeles Times

Saturday 23 September 2006

Funds for Iraq work, set to expire, were stashed. It's called improper, but not criminal.

Washington - The Army Corps of Engineers improperly created fake entries in government ledgers to maintain control over hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for the reconstruction of Iraq, according to a federal audit released Friday.

Corps officials listed $362 million in potential contracts for a nonexistent contractor labeled "Dummy Vendor" in a government database, an accounting trick to preserve funds due to expire at the end of this fiscal year, the audit said.

"They took this money and parked it to use later," said one senior U.S. official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to elaborate on the audit.