The State Department is refusing to allow the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to conduct an audit of the department’s multibillion-dollar training program of Iraqi police.

 

As the State Department sees it, the special inspector general, Stuart Bowen, is authorized to assess only infrastructure aspects of Iraqi reconstruction, not human training. But Bowen says that interpretation is incorrect.

 

“We have a long history of auditing the police training in Iraq,” Bowen told The Washington Times. “It is simply a misapprehension to conclude that our jurisdiction only applies to bricks-and-mortar reconstruction. To the contrary, Congress has charged us with overseeing the expenditure of funds in Iraq.”

 

The State Department has been spending heavily on police training, with $1 billion alone requested for the 2012 fiscal year.

 

Such training will continue into the future, even as the U.S. withdraws the last of its combat troops from Iraq at the end of this year. After that, the State Department will take over from the Pentagon as the dominant U.S. government agency in Iraq, overseeing diplomats, military advisers and security contractors working in the country.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

State Blocks Auditor from Iraq Police Training (by Eli Lake, Washington Times)