Word: ig
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Over the past seven years they [the Bush Administration] have systematically worked to undermine IG authority and chill audit and investigatory range," says Paul C. Light, a recognized IG authority who teaches about public service at New York University. "This has been a sustained effort and it has taken its toll... so I would say they are the worst; they would make the Reagan Administration proud...
...latest, and perhaps the most egregious, IG abuse to come to light has been at the State Department, where IG Howard Krongard is alleged to have repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in the $3.6 billion spending that State has overseen in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the new U.S. embassy, which is racked with problems. In the process, according to seven former and current staffers, he is alleged to have censored politically embarrassing reporting, which many argue has helped obscure the corrosive effect of widespread corruption in Iraq. "One consistent element in these allegations is that you believe your foremost...
...system of Inspectors General - an elite but underappreciated slice of the federal civil service - is arguably the best-spent taxpayer money in Washington. At their best, these quasi-independent ombudsmen save the country billions, many multiples of what it costs to employ close to 12,000 staff in 64 IG offices, while doing their best to ensure the efficient and impartial functioning of their respective agencies...
...with such lofty mandates - and powerful offices - their failures can be equally crucial, helping to shield the worst excesses of powerful government bureaucracies. And almost 30 years since its landmark creation, many critics say the IG system has never been in more dire need of reform as it is under the Bush Administration. An unusually high number of Bush IGs, such as Janet Rehnquist at Health and Human Services, have been forced to resign under a cloud as a result of bipartisan pressure, often because of bald incompetence or gross interference with the IG mission. At the same time...
...more recent flashpoint is at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where agency director General Michael Hayden has launched an investigation of his agency's own IG office, headed by John Helgerson. The move is unprecedented and provoked criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for jeopardizing the independence of the IG - by intimidating any staff that might want to report misgivings - and interfering with its oversight function. In a letter urging Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, to order Hayden to cease his inquiry, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and member of the Select Intelligence Committee, said that...