Gee, and this was part of the funds that were going to rebuild Iraq. Didn't anybody notice the bars were suspiciously light? I mean, not that brass is particularly light, but gold is a lot heavier. About twice as heavy as an equivalent volume of brass.

TheStar.com - $600M gold cache really brass: "Gold-coloured bars seized by U.S. forces in Iraq appear to be melted-down shell casings made of brass, the White House said in a report obtained yesterday.
The U.S. military announced the discovery of truckloads of gold bars in May.
One haul was estimated to be worth as much as $500 million. Another was estimated at $100 million, though the driver of the truck said the bars were actually copper. (Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.)
In a report to Congress detailing U.S. reconstruction efforts, the White House budget office said 1,100 gold-coloured bars were recovered in Iraq and that samples were taken to Kuwait for testing.
'Analysis of the initial sampling of ingots revealed they were comprised of approximately 64 per cent copper and 34 per cent zinc. Consultation with metallurgists indicates the bars analyzed to date are most likely melted-down shell casings,' the report said."