"Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office

By JAMES GLANZ
NYT -- Published: November 3, 2006

Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

Mr. Bowen’s office, which began operation in January 2004 to examine reconstruction money spent in Iraq, was always envisioned as a temporary organization, permitted to continue its work only as long as Congress saw fit. Some advocates for the office, in fact, have regarded its lack of a permanent bureaucracy as the key to its aggressiveness and independence.

But as the implications of the provision in the new bill have become clear, opposition has been building on both sides of the political aisle. One point of contention is exactly when the office would have naturally run its course without a hard end date.

The bipartisan opposition may not be unexpected given Mr. Bowen’s Republican credentials — he served under George W. Bush both in Texas and in the White House — and deep public skepticism on the Bush administration’s conduct of the war...."

Ohhh.... I would say (for ME, personally) its a bit stronger than SKEPTICISM...

Rob

So now how are we supposed to find out about the misappropriation and mismanagement in Iraq? This is really creepy and only serves to reinforce my belief that we throw out the baby AND the bath water where Congress is concerned.

The hell? Four years ago Bush signed into law a bill that was supposed to strengthen the auditing system in the nature to prevent fradulant accounting practices and corporate fraud. Now he's decided that he wants to terminate the office that could be doing the exact same thing for the war effort, saving us tons of time and money?


What a joke.

As was pointed out on CNN this afternoon, Democrats knew of this and raised no objections, so it's not as big a slam dunk as it would seem. This wasn't legislation inserted in the middle of the night. Democrats knew of this and signed off on it as well. Just three words describe this debacle: Pa, The, Tic!

UCLAfan, I thought I read today that Democrats' objections were ignored, but I very well could have misread this. I'll try to check the vote tallies tomorrow. Either way, it's an awful outcome. So let's see if the Democrats, should/when they take office, reverse this.

You have to wonder, where's the outcry about all those missing US weapons that appear to have fallen into the hands of the Iraqis? The Times has an article today about the rise of snipers killing and wounding US soldiers, and we know about the sophistication of the IEDs. What role have the stolen or missing US weapons played?