AP's story of...
Billions wasted in Iraq
The U.S. government is at risk of squandering significantly more money in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has already wasted, overcharged or poorly tracked $10 billion in taxpayer money, federal investigators said Thursday.
The three top auditors overseeing contract work in Iraq told a House committee that Defense and State department officials condoned or otherwise allowed poor accounting, repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for work shoddily or never done by U.S. contractors.
That problem could worsen, the Government Accountability Office said, given limited improvement so far by the Department of Defense even as the Bush administration prepares to boost the U.S. presence in Iraq.
David M. Walker, comptroller general of the GAO, Congress' auditing arm, said his agency has been pointing out problems for years, only to be largely ignored or given lip service with little result.
"There is no accountability," Walker said. "Organizations charged with overseeing contracts are not held accountable. Contractors are not held accountable. The individuals responsible are not held accountable."
"People should be rewarded when they do a good job. But when things don't go right, there have to be consequences," he said.
And further down in the article, surprise, surprise...
Of the $10 billion in overpriced contracts or undocumented costs, more than $2.7 billion were charged by Halliburton Co., the oil-field services firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Investigation...
Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., who chairs the panel, has pledged scores of investigations of fraud, waste and abuse — with subpoenas if necessary — on the Bush administration's watch. He decried the overpricing identified by the DCAA, a figure that has tripled since last fall.
"According to the Pentagon auditors, more than one in six dollars they have audited in Iraq is suspect," Waxman said.
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