Republicans Oust Iraq Auditor

Daisy · Nov 4, 2006

We don't need no stinking oversight!

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.

*snip*

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.

*snip*

The termination language was inserted into the bill by Congressional staff members working for Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and who declared on Monday that he plans to run for president in 2008.

*snip*

The criticism came to a head in a hearing a year ago, when Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, induced the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Thomas Gimble, to concede that he had no agents deployed in Iraq, more than two years after the invasion.

A spokesman for the Pentagon inspector general said Thursday that Mr. Gimble had worked to improve that situation, and currently had seven auditors in Baghdad and others working on Iraq-related issues in the United States and elsewhere. Mr. Gimble was in Iraq on Thursday, the spokesman said.

Mr. Bowen’s office has 55 auditors and inspectors in Iraq and about 300 reports and investigations already to its credit, far outstripping any other oversight agency in the country.

Source: NYTimes: JAMES GLANZ: Nov 3, 2006 (linkie)
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Yep, let the foxes guard the henhouse.

Of course, it isn't all Republicans - it seems mainly to have been Duncan Hunter who hopes to be president in 2008. Could this be in exchange for support of his future campaign? I don't know, but as it seems like a really bad idea and as it was done so furtively, it smells a bit funky.

El_Guero · Nov 4, 2006

Sure is funky to expect soldiers to keep track of another country's weapons . . .

. . . unless they are our enemy . . .

. . . So, is Iraq our enemy or not?

:BangHead:

Daisy · Nov 4, 2006

El_Guero said:

Sure is funky to expect soldiers to keep track of another country's weapons . . .
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Bowen is not a soldier, he's an auditor, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. The OP & article are about auditing - or not.

Do you think we should not keep track of what we're sending & spending in Iraq?

EG said:

. . . So, is Iraq our enemy or not?

:BangHead:
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Good question. I guess it depends on which Iraq you mean.

LadyEagle · Nov 4, 2006

Yes, Iraq is our enemy.

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