Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. official in charge of investigating fraud in Iraq said Monday he is carrying out a third audit to see if it might determine what happened to $6.7 billion in cash that was flown into Iraq eight years ago and is now missing. "It has not been properly accounted for," said Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The money -- which belonged to Iraq -- was part of a sum of $20 billion that was shipped into war-torn Baghdad in bricks of hundred-dollar bills. They were shrink-wrapped and stored in the Central Bank of Iraq to pay for reconstruction.
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Stuart Bowen's job is to try to find out what happened to $6.7 billion in missing funds
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The money belonged to Iraq, but U.S. taxpayers might be on the hook
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"The system was too loose and unregulated in 2003 and 2004," Bowen says
The Iraqi Embassy in @placeholder did not respond to suggestions that Iraqi officials may have stolen some of the money, but a high-ranking Iraqi official said the inspector general's report has shown that "the United States failed to put in place accountable and transparent financial controls to safeguard Iraqi funds."