There’s a really good guy in the Bush Administration, who took his job seriously.  His name is Stuart Bowen, and his title is Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.  His job?  He and his staff of 55 auditors make sure there’s no hanky-panky with the money being allocated to reconstruct Iraq.

When Bowen was appointed by Bush in January 2004, many suspected that he was just another Bush crony. 

But Bowen proved the critics wrong.

Bowen has exposed all kinds of corruption and fraud within the Iraqi reconstruction efforts, even taking on the Bush hobby-horse known as Halliburton.  The Wall Street Journal wrote that Bowen "has become one of the most prominent and credible critics of how the administration has handled the occupation of Iraq."

Why am I telling you this?

Because last week, the Senate approved an additional $1.5 billion for Iraqi reconstruction. 

But as the Wall Street Journal reports, something is a little different now:

The new funds won’t be overseen by the government watchdog charged with curbing the mismanagement that has overshadowed the reconstruction.

The administration’s main vehicle for rebuilding Iraq has, in the past, been designated "Relief and Reconstruction" funds, which by law are overseen by a special inspector general, Stuart Bowen. The new money going toward similar reconstruction goals will be classified as coming from "Foreign Operations" accounts. The State Department is responsible for spending both pools of money.

So basically, the State Department — and not Bowen — will have oversight of the new spending allocation for Iraqi reconstruction.

Except for one problem.  The State Deparment doesn’t have the manpower to conduct effective oversight:

Because the new money technically comes from a different source, Mr. Bowen, who has 55 auditors on the ground in Iraq, will be barred from overseeing how the new money is spent. Instead, the funds will be overseen by the State Department’s inspector general office, which has a much smaller staff in Iraq and warned in testimony to Congress in the fall that it lacked the resources to continue oversight activities in Iraq.

Well, how conveeeenient.

When learning about this, several Senators sought to attach an amendment to the Iraq reconstruction bill which would allow oversight of the new funds to be kept by Bowan and his staff.  But it never reached a floor vote.

One might ask why the latest Iraqi reconstruction funds came from a different account this go-round.  What was the genesis of this?  The WSJ answers the question:

Republican Appropriations Committee aides say legislators shifted the Iraq money to the foreign operations accounts at the request of the White House..

Ah.  The plot thickens…

…not to curb oversight. They say administration officials sought the change to streamline accounting so the Iraq reconstruction would be incorporated into the State Department’s operations and budget rather than kept in stand-alone accounts.

So it wasn’t to curb oversight, but to "streamline accounting" (whatever that means).

I don’t believe it, and neither does Patrick Leahy (D-VT):

"This is nothing more than a transparent attempt to shut down the only effective oversight of this massive reconstruction program which has been plagued by mismanagement and fraud," said Sen. Patrick Leahy.