Iraq Watchdog Looks Back on Years of Reconstruction Waste

He’s back: Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, has released a new volume in his series of blood-boiling reports. Looking back on his five years as a watchdog, Bowen laments the widespread waste of taxpayer funds in Iraq, and warns that the same mistakes are being made in Afghanistan.

BBC:

On his first trip to Iraq, he says in the report, he observed large quantities of cash moving out of the office of the comptroller for the Coalition Provisional Authority, after which he overheard someone say: “We can’t do that anymore. There is a new inspector general here.”

Mr Bowen is concerned that the mistakes made in Iraq are being repeated in Afghanistan.

“It’s too late to do the structural part and make it quickly applicable to Afghanistan,” he told the Washington Post.

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U.S. Navy / Mark H. Overstreet