House Dems introduce bill creating IG for overseas contingency operations

Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) and 14 other House Democrats last week introduced legislation that would create a special inspector general for Overseas Contingency Operations, a response to an August report that said billions of dollars have been wasted in war contracting related to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Commission on Wartime Contracting's conclusions are alarming, and its recommendations must be taken seriously by Congress," Tierney said late last month. "It is clear that we need to have systems in place to audit and monitor how U.S. taxpayer dollars are being spent as soon as the U.S. puts troops on the ground and to enhance prospects for the future safety of our troops."

The commission found that of the $206 billion spent on private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, between $31 billion and $60 billion was lost to waste and fraud.

Tierney's bill, H.R. 2880, would create a special inspector general charged with providing "objective supervision" of audits, promoting efficiency and preventing and detecting fraud related to contracting. The IG would also be tasked with accounting oversight, monitoring and reviewing operations and contracts, and investigating overpayments made in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan operations.

More broadly, the IG would have to "provide for an independent and objective means of keeping the secretary of State, the secretary of Defense and the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development fully and currently informed about problems and deficiencies relating to the administration of such programs and operations and the necessity for and progress on corrective action."

The IG would be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Among the co-sponsors of the bill are war critics Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).

---