The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA or “the authority”) was established approximately one month after United States and coalition forces took control of Baghdad in Iraq on April 9, 2003.1 The authority’s mission was “to restore conditions of security and stability, to create conditions in which the Iraqi people can freely determine their own political future, (including by advancing efforts to restore and establish national and local institutions for representative governance) and facilitating economic recovery, sustainable reconstruction and development. This report discusses two views on how the authority was established, reviews selected characteristics of the authority, identifies statutory reporting requirements concerning the authority and the reconstruction of Iraq, and explores several policy issues.

This report presents casualty data compiled by the Department of Defense (DOD), as tallied from the agency’s press releases.

This report provides an annotated list of U.N. agencies that are involved in Iraq, key U.S. government agencies, and a sample list of major international and U.S.- based aid organizations that are providing humanitarian assistance to Iraq. Internet links to the U.N. agencies and humanitarian aid organizations are also provided.

This report discusses issues with the “oil-for-food” program (OFFP), which was the centerpiece of a long-standing U.N. Security Council effort to alleviate human suffering in Iraq while maintaining key elements of the 1991 Gulf war-related sanctions regime. The program terminated following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the assumption of sovereignty by an interim Iraqi government on June 28, 2004, and the lifting of Saddam-era U.N. sanctions. However, since the fall of the regime, there have been new allegations of mismanagement and abuse of the program, including allegations that Saddam Hussein’s regime manipulated the program to influence U.N. officials, contractors, and politicians and businessmen in numerous countries.