NYT: The Little Bit Of Oversight In Iraq Is Now Gone

Congressional Republicans have failed to do any oversight of Bush's war in Iraq. They are firing the only guy who is doing any kind of oversight -- and they did it in that sneaky, deceptive way they have of sticking language in a major piece of legislation when they thought no one was paying attention. The GOP undermines America's security in so many ways, this is another glaring example:

Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his
federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side
of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic
counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and
some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final
legislation.

Who is responsible for this outrage? Ultimately, it's the Republican leadership on the Hill and George Bush. The guy who was fired was only focused on one piece of the war in Iraq: how the reconstruction money was being spent. You'd think the GOP would be concerned about those billions and billions of U.S. taxpayers dollars, too.

But you'd be wrong. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who claims she was closely monitoring the legislation, sounds like a completely clueless idiot:

“It’s truly a mystery to me,” Ms. Collins said. “I looked at what I thought was the final version of the conference report and that provision was not in at that time.”

“The one thing I can confirm is that this was a last-minute insertion,”
she said.

Give me a break. This is how the GOP runs Congress. They want no Iraq oversight in any way. They undermine American security. They cheat American taxpayers.