WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Iraq's Oil Ministry spent $558 million on capital projects in 2007 to improve its struggling oil sector. Or $500 million. Or only $270,000.

A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office isn't sure. Its attempt to measure the Iraqi government's ability to put its capital budget into motion was frustrated by "widely disparate" numbers from the U.S. State and Treasury departments and the Iraq Ministry of Finance.

The State Department said Iraq's central government spent 24 percent of its capital budget through July 15, 2007. The Treasury Department pegs it at 4.4 percent through August.

"The disparity between the different sets of data calls into question their reliability and whether they can be used to draw firm conclusions about the extent to which the Iraqi government has increased its spending on capital projects in 2007, compared with 2006."

The Treasury Department told GAO delays due to violence and sectarianism and increases in the cost of executing the capital budget turns off prospective contractors. And there are fewer available workers because the war has created a massive refugee crisis; those who worked under the Saddam Hussein regime were blacklisted. And, the GAO is told by U.S. and foreign officials, Iraq's institutional capacity to execute the budget is weak.