License to Bill: Congress Cracks Down on Contractors

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Stuart-Bowen_300.jpg

This morning’s Washington Post includes a front page story detailing alleged mismanagement and questionable expenditures by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), headed by Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., a former Bush adviser who has earned equal praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for his dogged approach to uncovering… well, mismanagement and questionable expenditures in the Iraq reconstruction.

According to the Post, Bowen’s office is the target of at least three ongoing investigations, by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Presidential Council on Integrity and Efficiency, and the U.S. Army’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office. Echoing State Department Inspector General Howard “Cookie” Krongard’s recent troubles, all three are said to have resulted from complaints brought by members of Bowen’s own staff. Among the charges: that due to abuse of federal overtime policies, at least 10 staff members netted more than $250,000 last year (General Petraeus pulled down $174,900, by comparison); that Bowen’s pursuit of a $3.5 million book project about the Iraq reconstruction became a financial sink hole; and that Bowen and his deputies reviewed employee emails without permission, allegedly to identify “who was loyal and who was not,” according to one aggrieved staffer. Compounding the misery at SIGIR—which according to another employee quoted by the Post, is “gripped by paranoia” and has taken on “a siege mentality”—is the revelation earlier this year that the office’s claim to have saved taxpayers $1.87 billion in reconstruction spending was not only untrue, but way, way off the mark: a new estimate last summer put the figure at just $95 million, or five percent of SIGIR’s original claim.

Despite all this, the SIGIR model stands to be expanded in the latest version of the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill, which was passed by the House earlier this week and is now awaiting Senate approval before making its way to President Bush’s desk. It would create a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) to “conduct, supervise and coordinate audits and investigations of the treatment, handling and expenditures of appropriated funds by the United States government, and of the programs, operations and contracts carried out utilizing such funds in Afghanistan in order to prevent and detect waste, fraud and abuse,” according to the bill.

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…

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate