Pentagon Budget Watchdog MIA For 1 Year

Pentagon without 'budget watchdog' for over a year

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has been without its chief watchdog for more than a year, even as the military spends billions of dollars a month in Iraq and controversy simmers over warrantless surveillance, missing weapons and friendly fire deaths.

President George W. Bush's nominee for the inspector general job is being held up because answers he gave lawmakers have raised concerns with a key senator about his independence.

The inspector general's job was created by Congress more than a quarter century ago to be an independent watchdog to investigate fraud, mismanagement and abuses like the infamously overpriced hammers and toilet seats that became past symbols of Pentagon waste.


The Defense Department's last inspector general, Joseph Schmitz, stepped down in August 2005, and Bush named David Laufman, a federal prosecutor with GOP credentials, to take over the job months ago.

The current inspector general's office has been criticized as being slow to get staff on the ground to investigate Pentagon issues in Iraq and as shying away from examining the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program. >>>cont

LinkHere

Bush administration says detainees have 'no rights'

Top Marine: There was 'no plan' for post-Saddam Iraq