Legislators seek longer life for Iraq oversight office
Measures approved by the Senate and introduced in the House would reverse a last-minute termination provision passed before recess.
Lawmakers came together quickly this week to introduce legislation extending the tenure of an inspector for Iraq reconstruction, after media reports highlighted an early termination clause tucked into a Defense bill passed before the pre-elections recess.
In the Senate, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., introduced a measure (S. 4046) to restore the date the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction is disbanded to 10 months after 80 percent of Iraq reconstruction funds have been spent. Last month, SIGIR spokesman Jim Mitchell said a rough estimate would place the formula-based termination point about two years away, though that date would depend on the pace of spending.
The Senate approved the measure Tuesday evening as an amendment to the fiscal 2007 military construction appropriations bill.
On the House side, Armed Services Committee ranking member Ike Skelton, D-Mo., introduced similar language in a bill (H.R. 6313) that has attracted numerous co-sponsors.
Both the House and Senate measures came in response to language inserted during conference negotiations into the fiscal 2007 Defense authorization bill, setting SIGIR's termination date at Oct. 1, 2007. President Bush signed that bill into law in late October.
Collins, who leads the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and has supported SIGIR in the past, has told reporters she does not know how the fixed termination date appeared in the conference version of the defense bill.
"[SIGIR] is responsible for providing the American taxpayer a benefit of more than $25 for every dollar it has spent on oversight and investigations," Collins said in presenting her bill. "It is inconceivable that we would remove this aggressive oversight while the American taxpayer is still spending billions of dollars on Iraq reconstruction projects."
The Washington Times reported that an administration source said the State Department had been behind the insertion of a termination date. SIGIR shares oversight responsibilities with Defense, State and the U.S. Agency for International Development -- the three agencies most closely involved in the reconstruction. But it has completed many more audits and investigations related to Iraq reconstruction than the others.
Many of the resulting reports have reflected poorly on the administration and the agencies' work in Iraq. One investigation led to the arrest of a contractor for bribing reconstruction officials with more than $2 million in cash and gifts; others have pegged reconstruction failures at health clinics, schools and police academies to poorly planned contracts, understaffed contracting offices and lax project management.