Well, that explains a lot:
The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating and reporting fraud and waste in Defense Department spending in Iraq quietly pulled out of the war zone a year ago -- leaving what experts say are gaps in the oversight of how more than $140 billion is being spent.
The Defense Department's inspector general sent auditors into Iraq when the war started more than two years ago to ensure that taxpayers were getting their money's worth for everything from bullets to meals-ready-to-eat.
The auditors were withdrawn in fall 2004 because other agencies were watching spending, too. But experts say those other agencies do not have the expertise, access and broad mandate that the inspector general has -- and do not make their reports public.
That means that the bulk of money being spent in Iraq does not get public scrutiny, leaving the door open for possible waste, fraud and abuse, experts said.
U.S. spending in Iraq falls into two big categories -- fighting the war and rebuilding the country. A Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has a 45-person staff in Baghdad to monitor $18.4 billion in contracts.
In contrast, the Defense Department inspector general, whose responsibility includes reviewing the $142 billion earmarked for the military, does not have a single auditor or accountant in Iraq tracking spending, Knight Ridder has found.
It perhaps explains, for instance, how Iraqi ministerial officials who were installed by Paul Bremmer could so easily steal the entire Iraqi defense procurement budget - over $1 billion dollars. Or how Halliburton subsiduary KBR could get away for ages with charging the DoD to move convoys of empty trucks across central Iraq
Talk about paving the path for your corporate pals' corruption.
(Meanwhile the administrations' bloggie cheerleaders are calling for a measly $35 million in "pork" cuts that include funding for essential anti-poverty measures.)
My ghast is officially flabbered.
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