AlJazeera: UN hands Iraqi funds to occupying forces

[GRClarkesq]

Friday 02 January 2004, 8:09 Makka Time, 5:09 GMT

The United Nations has effectively handed over control of Iraqi funds it administered to the US-led occupation force.

The world body has transferred $2.6 billion to the Fund for the Development of Iraq, which is managed by the US-led occupation that spearheaded the war on Iraq last year and today occupies the country, an official UN source said on Thursday.

The fund is an evolution of the seven-year-old UN oil-for-food program, whose functions were transferred to the US-led occupation forces by a UN Security Council resolution last 22 May. The $2.6 billion transfer, done in the closing hours of 2003, was the fourth and largest to the fund. One billion was transferred on May 24, a second billion in October and a third in November.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6B750C48-0045-4A56-920D-A69BBEBC7469.htm