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Inspector General for Iraq Under Investigation | |
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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - December 17, 2007
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Inspector General for Iraq Under Investigation
By Robin Wright
The Washington Post
FBI, Congress among those probing allegations of over-
spending, mismanagement.
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 over-
spending 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.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the
Presidential Council on Integrity and Efficiency, and the
Army's Equal Employment Opportunity Office are also engaged
in separate investigations into complaints from SIGIR staff
members, according to current and former SIGIR officials
and others familiar with the individual probes. The
allegations range from retaliatory firing of a whistle-
blower to "sustained patterns of inappropriate behavior,"
according to employee complaints obtained by The Washington
Post.
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."
That official, and more than two dozen other current and
former SIGIR employees interviewed for this article, spoke
on the condition of anonymity because FBI and presidential
council officials have asked them to refrain from public
comments while the investigations proceed. Others did not
want to be quoted by name because of fear of retribution
by top SIGIR officials.
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SIGIR was created by Congress in 2004 to act as the chief
watchdog over the effort to stabilize Iraq by building
hospitals and schools, training security forces and
increasing electricity production. The agency quickly
earned a reputation as a tenacious, apolitical investi-
gative body, identifying cases of corruption, wasteful
spending and mismanagement that have led to 13 arrests
and more than $17 million in fines.
Members of Congress have heaped praise on Bowen, who served
as a legal adviser to Bush when he was governor of Texas.
He has been asked to testify at dozens of congressional
hearings. Democrats have expressed particular delight that
a close ally of the president's was willing to speak out
about problems with Iraq's reconstruction.
SIGIR claimed in an October 2006 report that its "financial
impact" - the cost savings resulting from its work, the
funds it recovered and other benefits - was as much as
$1.87 billion. The report led to an extension of SIGIR's
mandate last December. "SIGIR's oversight during this
process has been essential to ensuring that the taxpayers'
dollars are being used effectively and efficiently," Sen.
Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) said at the time.
But after other government agencies challenged that figure,
arguing that proper accounting standards were not used in
calculating the estimate and that SIGIR did not distinguish
between U.S. funds and Iraqi funds, SIGIR revised the
number in a report this summer. The new estimate was less
than $95 million, only 5 percent of the previous claim.
Government investigators have requested copies of many
SIGIR records on costs and savings, according to an
investigative document and people familiar with the probe.
SIGIR changed its calculations this year, Bowen said, to
reflect actual savings and not potential savings.
As SIGIR grew in prominence, dissension was growing within
the agency's offices. In 2006, several former SIGIR
employees sent an eight-page complaint to the presidential
council, an executive-branch oversight body, alleging that
the agency's leaders had engaged in fraud, violated federal
regulations, created a hostile workplace, abused their
positions and "sustained patterns of inappropriate
behavior." The council launched an investigation and
eventually referred some of the matters to the FBI.
In an e-mail to SIGIR staff members, Bowen described the
complaint filed with the presidential council as a result
of "disgruntled former employees."
Since then, investigators have broadened their inquiry to
include allegations that SIGIR management may have tried
to influence staff members who were sought for questioning
by investigators, according to people familiar with the
inquiry.
Among the issues that have sparked the most internal
tension have been SIGIR's overtime practices. Last year,
30 agency employees earned more than the $165,200 salary
of a senator or a congressman, according to internal SIGIR
documents obtained by The Post. Seven earned $100,000 or
more above their salaries, the documents show. More than
two dozen earned more than the $174,900 in salary and
benefits paid last year to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the
top U.S. military commander in Iraq. One SIGIR inspector,
who had a $142,000 base salary, earned $346,017 last year,
in part by claiming more than 1,200 hours of overtime.
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SIGIR staff members, like other federal civilian employees,
receive hazard and hardship pay equal to 70 percent of
their salaries when they are in Iraq.
At least 30 SIGIR employees charged between 800 and 1,400
hours of overtime and compensatory time in 2006 - up to
almost nine months of additional work stuffed into the
year. Thirty-seven others charged between 200 and 725
hours of overtime and comp time.
"The number of hours didn't wash," said a senior SIGIR
official. "It's physically and mentally impossible to
work that many hours."
Bowen's deputy, Ginger Cruz, said SIGIR's overtime
practices are "cost-effective" because one employee
earning maximum overtime is cheaper than hiring two
people. She said SIGIR this year reduced overtime
allowances to 24 hours per two-week pay period. She
also noted that other U.S. government agencies provide
generous financial packages to employees serving in Iraq.
Federal employee salaries are subject to an annual cap,
which is $215,000 for this year. But additional earnings
can be paid out the following year or after workers leave
the agency.
Government investigators are also probing SIGIR's other
expenses, including the book project about Iraq's
reconstruction, according to staff members questioned by
investigators. The presidential council informed SIGIR last
year that the agency was being investigated for "possible
fraud, waste and abuse in connection with the printing of
the SIGIR history book and possible false statements made
to the Office of Management and Budget to justify SIGIR
funding," according to a copy of a letter from the council
to SIGIR obtained by The Post.
Bowen described the book as SIGIR's "potentially most
important project" in a memo he sent last month to the
secretaries of state and defense and eight congressional
committees.
According to people questioned by investigators and
documents obtained by The Post, one of the most serious
allegations that the FBI and federal prosecutors are
probing is whether top SIGIR officials broke federal
laws by accessing employee e-mail messages stored on
computers maintained by the Army without proper
authorization.
At least four former senior SIGIR officials said they told
investigators that Bowen and Cruz looked at employee e-mail.
One of them claimed to be an eyewitness to Bowen going
through the e-mail of three employees. Another said Bowen
and Cruz read the messages "to find out who was loyal and
who was not."
The former officials said the e-mail monitoring began in
2005, before the government investigations commenced. They
said the monitoring continued into this year in an effort
to identify employees suspected of speaking with
investigators and other government agencies.
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In an interview, Cruz said she participated in
administrative investigations "some time ago" that involved
a "limited review" of three people's e-mail. Bowen said
that "SIGIR policy states that employees do not have an
expectation of privacy in the use of their government
computers.... E-mail reviews can, and have been, conducted
by SIGIR management to investigate allegations of work-
related misconduct."
The investigations are focusing largely on the actions of
Bowen and Cruz, according to current and former senior
staff members who have been questioned, as well as
congressional sources and other U.S. officials familiar
with the probes.
Cruz, a former spokeswoman for the governor of Guam,
originally joined SIGIR as a contractor working for the
accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. Current and former
SIGIR employees have told investigators that Cruz
threatened to put hexes on employees and made inappropriate
sexual remarks in the presence of staff members. Cruz is a
self-described wiccan, a member of a polytheistic religion
of modern witchcraft. "We warned Ginger not to talk about
witchcraft, that it would scare people," a former SIGIR
employee said.
Cruz denied making comments of a "sexual nature" and noted
that she was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal
SIGIR investigation into the claim.
After the detailed but anonymous complaint was sent to the
presidential council, Cruz sought special dispensation
from Bowen for SIGIR to pay her legal fees - an uncommon
practice within government, according to U.S. officials.
So far, the agency has paid for more than $32,000 of Cruz's
legal fees, according to copies of the invoices provided by
SIGIR under a Freedom of Information Act request. Bowen
said the agency's general counsel advised him that the
payment of Cruz's legal fees was permissible.
The Army's Equal Employment Opportunity Office probe is
focusing on a complaint by a former employee who had raised
allegations of SIGIR discrimination in the dismissal of her
African American assistant, which she charges led to her
own dismissal in retaliation. The employee, Denise Burgess,
stated in her complaint that she was terminated on the same
day she spoke to the presidential council, just two months
after receiving an $8,500 bonus from Bowen for exemplary
work. Current and former SIGIR employees said they have
been asked by FBI investigators about Burgess's termination.
Several staffers interviewed at the suggestion of SIGIR
expressed loyalty to Bowen. One senior staff member said
he has not seen any firsthand evidence of illegal or
inappropriate behavior.
Several current and former officials expressed concern
that the practices of SIGIR's leaders are discrediting
the work of the agency. "SIGIR's purpose was to look at
reconstruction and then go away," said a former senior
official. "Are they contributing to the good anymore?
No. Were they before? Yes. But they should have stuck
to the plan and been willing to stand down in 2008."
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Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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