SIGAR would receive an initial operating budget of $20 million for fiscal year 2008. Short of congressional reauthorization, its duties would be scheduled to conclude on September 30, 2010. Once up and running, the office would produce quarterly and semi-annual reports detailing its activities and accomplishments in reducing waste and fraud in Afghanistan.

Although we may not hear as much about it as we do about Iraq, waste in Afghanistan is real and could be undermining the overall U.S./NATO mission there. The U.S. government has already invested some $20 billion in the country since 2001. And, according to critics, it's contractors, not Afghans, who have benefited more. As Sarah Chayes, a former NPR reporter in Afghanistan and author of "The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban," said in a recent interview with Fresh Air's Terri Gross, projects supervised by agencies like USAID are often unnecessarily large and involve far greater numbers of highly paid contractors than necessary. "It costs a fortune, and Afghans see it," she says. "They understand that that was money that was earmarked for Afghanistan, and they see it going back into the pockets of the contractors."

Although SIGAR might help reduce some of this waste, the Pentagon has opposed its creation from the very beginning. The department claims it "does not have a reconstruction role in Afghanistan" similar to the one ongoing in Iraq, and suggests that launching a new oversight office will only add further strain to an already over-burdened staff at DOD's inspector general's office, which must compete with other departmental IGs for trained staff willing to travel to Iraq. Such complaints did not sway lawmakers.

By the way, SIGAR is not the only innovation in this year's defense authorization bill targeting government contractors. The bill would also establish an independent, bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting to focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, which would expand the reach of SIGIR and SIGAR beyond mere reconstruction contracts and for the first time grant them authority to investigate security-related contracts, as well. In addition, the Commission will undertake an investigation into the overall impact of using civilian contractors in war zones.

And if that's not enough for firms like Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and DynCorps to worry about, this year's defense authorization also demands that the Pentagon tighten its policies specifically with regard to security contractors, requiring that it maintain records on individual private security personnel, register and clearly identify contractor vehicles in conflict areas, and brief contractors on U.S., Iraqi, and international laws governing the use of force.

So, after more than four years of war, might we finally be seeing the beginnings of the first serious effort to rein in the private security industry's free-for-all in Iraq? Obviously, it's too early to know, but the signs are pointing in the right direction for once. Thanks, Blackwater...