Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Over the past four years, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen Jr. and his staff have probed allegations of waste and fraud in the $22 billion U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq. Their work has led to arrests, indictments and millions of dollars in fines. And it has earned Bowen, who had been a legal adviser to President Bush, many admirers among both parties on Capitol Hill for his efforts to identify overspending and mismanagement.

But Bowen’s office has also been roiled by allegations of its own overspending and mismanagement. Current and former employees have complained about overtime policies that allowed 10 staff members to earn more than $250,000 each last year. They have questioned the oversight of a $3.5 million book project about Iraq’s reconstruction modeled after the 9/11 Commission report. And they have alleged that Bowen and his deputy have improperly snooped into their staff’s e-mail messages.

The employee allegations have prompted four government probes into the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), including an investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors into the agency’s financial practices and claims of e-mail monitoring, according to law enforcement sources and SIGIR staff members. Federal prosecutors have presented evidence of alleged wrongdoing to a grand jury in Virginia, which has subpoenaed SIGIR for thousands of pages of financial documents, contracts, personnel records and correspondence, several sources familiar with the probe said.

Bowen declined a request for an interview but addressed several questions by e-mail. He said that “no current SIGIR official has been notified that he or she is the subject or target of any such investigation.” He also said the congressional investigation had ended, and he refused to comment on the complaint to the Army.

Spokesmen for the FBI, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia and the presidential council refused to comment, but law enforcement sources said all three investigations are continuing. David Marin, the minority staff director of the House oversight committee, said yesterday that the congressional investigation, which focuses on charges made by SIGIR whistle-blowers, “is ongoing.”

There are now so many probes that a senior SIGIR official said the agency’s Crystal City headquarters is “gripped by paranoia. It’s almost a siege mentality.”

Full Washington Post story here.