U.S. auditors in Afghanistan generally have good policies in place to oversee reconstruction spending, but billions of dollars still escape proper oversight, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Tuesday afternoon.

McCaskill spoke to reporters about a recent trip to Kuwait, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where she met with U.S. and international officials. She compared contracting oversight in Afghanistan favorably to that in Iraq, where auditors eventually documented tens of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, in everything from base construction to police training.

"When I went to Iraq, in 2007, it was the Wild West [for contracting]. They didn't even know they had a problem," she said. "In Afghanistan now, they have a framework. … They have the various audit agencies that are coming together on a consistent basis to look at the various audit work that's being done."

But McCaskill identified a few concerns in Afghanistan. Much of the contracting work there is done by Afghan companies, often in rural areas that are hard for U.S. auditors to reach. The Afghan-led development programs help the Afghan economy, but they also make contracts more difficult to oversee, McCaskill said.

The senator said she is particularly concerned about the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). Military officers use the billion-dollar fund, which they call their "walking-around money," to distribute money directly to local governments and tribal elders in Afghanistan and Iraq. The money is used for urgent reconstruction and development projects. The sums are usually quite small — but they're growing in Afghanistan, McCaskill said, and she's worried about a lack of oversight. McCaskill said many of the projects funded through CERP — perhaps more than half of them — are worth $500,000 or more.

"That money has morphed; it's being spent on very large projects," McCaskill said. "We're trying to get a handle on how these CERP funds are being used and make sure they have proper accounting. … In many instances I don't think we've got a handle on it."

McCaskill said her office is also keeping an eye on the transfer of equipment out of Iraq. Some of it will move to Afghanistan; some will return to the U.S.; the rest will remain in Iraq for the Iraqi army. Some of it, like mine-resistant MRAP vehicles, was ordered outside the normal procurement process, and McCaskill said she's worried commanders still don't have a proper inventory of that equipment.

"I don't think they have a handle on it yet," she said. "There is a massive amount of equipment that has to be moved."