Retired United States Army Lieutenant General Jay Garner was appointed as the Director of ORHA, along with three deputies, including British Major-General Tim Cross, in 2003.

In an interview with the BBC program Newsnight Garner publicly stated that his preference was to put the Iraqi people in charge as soon as possible and to do it with some form of elections.

The Council membership consisted largely of Iraqi expatriates who had previously fled the country during the rule of Saddam Hussein and also with many outspoken dissidents who had been persecuted by the former Ba'athist regime.

The CPA under Bremer then went on to privatise and sell off publicly owned assets and companies to multinational companies, whilst setting about issuing unilaterally developed decrees such as Order 37 and Order 39, which reduced Iraq's corporation tax from 40% to 15%[13] and allowed foreign entities to enjoy 100% ownership of Iraqi assets.

[13] Though still subordinate to the CPA, the Iraqi Governing Council had several key responsibilities of its own: appointing representatives to the United Nations, appointing interim ministers to Iraq's vacant cabinet positions, and drafting a temporary constitution known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which would be used to govern Iraq until a permanent constitution could be written and approved by the general electorate.

In the late afternoon of 14 December 2003, the CPA held a press conference at the Iraqi Forum convention center within Baghdad's Green Zone to announce that former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein had been taken into custody the previous night from a foxhole in a town near Saddam's home town of Tikrit, Iraq.

In order to defeat possible insurgent planning and under pressure from the Bush White House which wanted the occupation to end by the 2004 presidential election, the CPA transferred power to the newly appointed Iraqi Interim Government at 10:26 AM local time on 28 June 2004.

The United States hoped that Iraq could be reconstructed and democratized in much the same way as Japan and Germany were after the Second World War, using them as "examples or even models of successful military occupations.

The Notes on Internal Control from KPMG's audit of DFI expenditures was particularly critical of PRB record-keeping's failing to fulfill the CPA's transparency obligation.

Critics assert that the CPA drastically altered Iraq's economy, allowing virtually unlimited and unrestricted foreign investment and placing no limitations on the expatriation of profit.

"[18] According to critics, this order was designed to create as favorable an environment for foreign investors as possible, thereby allowing American and multinational corporations to dominate Iraq's economy.

[25] CPA Order 57 provided for the appointment of "Inspectors General" to operate within each Iraqi government ministry, for the purposes of rooting out corruption.

These Inspectors General were to be "appointed to a 5-year term by the Administrator [Paul Bremer]," and were given sweeping powers "to conduct investigations, audits, evaluations, inspections, and other reviews...."[26] Critics contend this is a mechanism for ensuring continuing American influence in Iraqi governance even after the transfer of all sovereignty to the country.

"[32] Proponents of this position state Resolution 1483 necessarily requires radical economic restructuring, so it allowed an exception to international law regarding occupation.

The $18.4 billion authorized by the U.S. congress was intended to finance large reconstruction projects such as power and sewage plants, not to provide the day-to-day operating expenses of the Iraqi government.

What has been troubling to auditors and inspectors general is that large amounts of DFI funding is as yet unaccounted for and was expended in reconstruction projects that failed to provide a return on investment for the Iraqi people.

It is also pertinent that expenditures under IRRF were also not administered strictly according to USFARS thereby causing severe waste, fraud and abuse as documented by SIGIR and other auditing agencies.

[38] On 20 June 2005 the staff of the Committee on Government Reform prepared a report for Congressman Henry Waxman on the CPA's expenditures from the DFI that raised additional causes for concern.

[36] The cash deliveries were described in a memo prepared for the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which concluded that "Many of the funds appear to have been lost to corruption and waste....

Some of the funds could have enriched both criminals and insurgents...." Henry Waxman, the chair of the House committee commented, "Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?"

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen said that "Any doubts about how the money was handled after it left U.S. control is an Iraqi -- not U.S. government -- question".

This insurgent activity significantly slowed reconstruction and required adjustment of project goals due to funds consumed by providing necessary security in excess of that originally planned.