Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry Into Iraq Work, Office of Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction

NYT: Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry Into Iraq Work
Published: November 12, 2006
This article is by James Glanz, David Johnston and Thom Shanker.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — Congressional Democrats say they will press new legislation next week to restore the power of a federal agency in charge of ferreting out waste and corruption in Iraq and greatly increase its investigative reach.

The new bills, the first of what are likely to be dozens of Democratic efforts to resurrect investigations of war profiteering and financial fraud in government contracting, could be introduced as early as Monday morning. The move would nullify a Republican-backed provision, slipped into a huge military authorization bill, that set a termination date for the agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The agency’s findings have consistently undermined Bush administration claims of success in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Oversight, the power wielded by Congressional committees to demand information and internal documents and to haul executive branch officials to hearings, by subpoena if necessary, is reverberating through Congress as a Democratic battle cry....

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Investigations by the Iraq oversight agency, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., have already led to convictions of American occupation officials on federal bribery charges and uncovered many instances of substandard construction.

Mr. Bowen’s investigations of Halliburton have uncovered tens of millions of dollars of charges for work that achieved little in the way of results, but apparently met the letter of the company’s contract with the United States to repair oil facilities. Mr. Bowen has also found that Halliburton has been using federal loopholes to impede investigations of its work by declaring nearly all information about company activities in Iraq to be proprietary, or sensitive because it could aid the company’s competitors....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/washington/12oversight.html?hp&ex=1163307600&en=c52cf5e8d8c97fa4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

edit to add link and a snip

equation has changed. hee, hee.

There's a joke in there somewhere: Aid the company's competitors:rofl:

With no bid contracts I would think that is a Red Herring, and cannot be used as a flimsy excuse to block investigations. As a matter of fact as a US taxpayer I demand to know how they have abused their power.