Word: ig
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...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...
...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...
...Hayden may now be learning that not all IGs are equal. The IG at his previous post as National Security Agency director was among a second tier of IGs, created a decade after the original IG Act of 1978. Appointed by the agency head, they have less independence and investigatory powers and function more like internal auditors than the original batch of IGs that are attached to major government departments such as the CIA. Eleanor Hill, a former Defense Department IG from 1995 to 1999, suggested that the NSA's domestic wiretapping scandal might have been avoided if there...
...critical means of congressional oversight, IGs have never been particularly popular with the executive branch. Virtually every federal agency testified against the draft IG Act legislation, with the Justice Department arguing it constitutionally violated the separation of powers. Two years later the Reagan Administration tried to eliminate the system altogether, and since then all administrations have tried gaming the system to avoid embarrassments...
...system has become so dysfunctional in recent years that Congress is trying to give it added protections. New legislation to buttress IG independence easily passed the House in October and is expected to pass the Senate in November, although the President has already threatened a veto. The bill would make each IG appointment a fixed seven-year term, which is renewable, and would allow dismissal only for cause. IG budget requests would also have to be submitted to Congress, an important provision in light of the fact that some IGs have actually shrunk their staff. Unfortunately these kind of safeguards...