Republicans eliminate Iraq auditor office (Contemptible Arrogance!)

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Friday November 03, 2006 · 1:36 PM PST

2006/11/03 · 13:36

Rod Dreher is a die-hard conservative and contributor to the National Review Online. Today he reacted to this story:

Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office

by posting this response.:

Contemptible Arrogance
This, finally, is what continued Republican rule means: sneakily shutting down an independent office that keeps track of waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq.

The gory details below the fold:

Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.
Mr. Bowen's office has inspected and audited taxpayer-financed projects like this prison in Nasiriya, Iraq.
And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen's supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

Everyone who's surprised raise your hand. Bueller? Bueller?

The termination language was inserted into the bill by Congressional staff members working for Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and who declared on Monday that he plans to run for president in 2008.

Obi wan Abramoff has taught you well, young Padowan.

In any case, as the bill came out of conference, the termination date of Oct. 1, 2007, was inserted, effectively meaning that Mr. Bowen would have to start working on passing his responsibilities to other agencies by early next year.
Capitol Hill staff members said that after House Democratic objections were overridden, Senate conferees agreed to the provision in a bit of horse-trading: the amount of money Mr. Bowen could look at would be expanded, but only with the hard termination date.

Of course, what is going on here is obvious. Oversight into Dick Cheney's buddies defrauding the American public and screwing up the occupation/war in Iraq? Can't have that can we. These guys make Robert Mugabe look like a model of good governance.

If you need any further motivation to GOTV, or to motivate your neighbors to vote, just show them this story. To remove this band of criminals is not our duty as Democrats.

It's our duty as patriots.

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