Editorial: A history of waste

Sunday, April 8, 2007 | 7:29 a.m.

Federal audits show the government has lost track of billions of dollars appropriated for Iraq reconstruction and military projects. Fraud and mismanagement are blamed.

And as USA Today reported last week, even a company hired to account for such losses has failed to fulfill its obligations. Reviewer Management International of New York was hired by a U.S. contracting office in Baghdad to track more than $7.3 billion in lost Iraqi reconstruction funding and create a database that would help investigators track fraud. Stuart Bowen, Iraq reconstruction special investigator, had recommended developing such a database in the wake of an $8.6 million bid-rigging scheme in Iraq, USA Today reports.

Nearly two years later, RMI has failed to provide the database for which the government paid $1.5 million. A report released by Bowen's office at the end of January says RMI wasn't able to provide the database because it wasn't given adequate instructions until the end of its contract period, USA Today reports.

That is just the most recently revealed example in the history of poor management and outright fraud in the federal government's contracts with private entities , which have been hired to do everything from rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure to providing U.S. soldiers' meals. Bowen's investigators also have discovered that U.S. officials lost track of $8.8 billion in Iraqi oil proceeds that had been transferred to Iraq's U.S.-led provisional government. Federal officials have spent close to $400 billion in taxpayer money on Iraq reconstruction efforts alone and have lost track of large portions of it. It is no wonder that Congress now balks at throwing billions more at President Bush's failing war, with, as Bush demanded, "no strings attached."