IRAQ:The man credited with rooting out fraud in efforts to rebuild Iraq is himself mired in allegations of overspending and mismanagement, writes Robin Wrightin Washington.
Over the past four years, inspector general Stuart Bowen and his staff have investigated allegations of waste and fraud in the $22 billion US effort to rebuild Iraq. Their work has led to arrests, indictments and millions of dollars in fines. It has earned Bowen, who had been a legal adviser to US president Bush, many admirers among both parties on Capitol Hill for his efforts to identify overspending and mismanagement.
But Bowen's office has now also been mired in allegations of its own overspending and mismanagement. Current and former employees have complained about overtime policies that allowed 10 staff members to earn more than $250,000 each last year. They have questioned the oversight of a $3.5 million book project about Iraq's reconstruction modelled after the 9/11 commission report. And they have alleged that Bowen and his deputy have improperly snooped into their staff's e-mail messages.
The employee allegations have prompted four government investigations into the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), including an investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors into the agency's financial practices and claims of e-mail monitoring, according to law enforcement sources and SIGIR staff members.
Federal prosecutors have presented evidence of alleged wrongdoing to a grand jury in Virginia, which has subpoenaed SIGIR for thousands of pages of financial documents, contracts, personnel records and correspondence, several sources familiar with the probe said.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Presidential Council on Integrity and Efficiency, and the army's Equal Employment Opportunity Office are also engaged in separate investigations into complaints from SIGIR staff members, according to current and former SIGIR officials and others familiar with the individual probes.
The allegations range from retaliatory firing of a whistle-blower to "sustained patterns of inappropriate behaviour", according to employee complaints obtained by the Washington Post.
Bowen declined a request for an interview but addressed several questions by e-mail.
He said that "no current SIGIR official has been notified that he or she is the subject or target of any such investigation". He also said the congressional investigation had ended, and he refused to comment on the complaint to the army.
Spokesmen for the FBI, the US attorney for the western district of Virginia and the presidential council refused to comment, but law enforcement sources said all three investigations are continuing.
SIGIR was created by Congress in 2004 to act as the chief watchdog over the effort to stabilise Iraq by building hospitals and schools, training security forces and increasing electricity production. The agency quickly earned a reputation as a tenacious, apolitical investigative body, identifying cases of corruption, wasteful spending and mismanagement that have led to 13 arrests and more than $17 million in fines.
- (Washington Post service)