Star Tribune doesn't know the facts about Norm's oversight

In today's Minneapolis Star Tribune, Pat Doyle writes about the ads Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and DFL challenger Al Franken have been running against each other in a article entitled "Franken, Coleman ads cross line between fact, fiction." This is intended to be a neutral analysis piece. Unfortunately, Doyle has not been following this race closely and does not know that all the facts. Norm claims in his defense that another organization was doing the oversight of Iraq reconstruction. Doyle apparently does not know that this organization is just as corrupt as everything else in the Bush Adminstration. If Doyle would have had more time or inclination to research this article more thoroughly, he might have discovered that Franken's claim does hold merit.

I attempted to contact Mr. Doyle prior to writing this, but he did not return my emails or phone calls.

I will start with Doyle's inaccurate sub-heading:

A Franken ad criticizing Coleman for holding no hearings into Iraq contract abuse isn't entirely accurate, but neither is a rebuttal ad Coleman is airing about his successes.
(Strib)

The problem is endemic to the Strib's death spiral. Readership is down. Consequently, they weren't making enough money in ad revenue so they slashed their reporting staff. As a result of the reduced staff they were unable to adequately cover the MN-SEN race. It was only in June that a writer was assigned to solely cover the race. Previously, one writer was assigned to this race, the Governor and the legislature. But as the race heats up and their resources get stretched, they've given an assignment to someone who does not know all the background of the race. Since Doyle did not return my emails and calls, I can only assume that he did little to no research into the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

Doyle relates how Franken claims that Norm has ignored his oversight duties in Iraq. He then relates how Norm claims in his own defense that he has uncovered $80 billion in fraud in Iraq:

The $80 billion figure refers to subcommittee inquiries since 2003, focusing on issues other than alleged Iraq bid-rigging, such as abusive credit practices, vulnerabilities in homeland security and Medicare.

The independent investigator referred to in Coleman's ad wasn't part of Coleman's panel but the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). The "nonpartisan reviews" that Coleman supported refer to 122 SIGIR audits from 2004 to 2008.
...
The subcommittee Coleman headed has a history of conducting aggressive investigations into military contract abuse, and Coleman's critics say he should have used it to conduct hearings into allegations that surfaced in 2003 about the Iraq contracts. Coleman says that SIGIR and other entities were better suited for the job and that he focused on exposing waste, fraud and abuse in other areas of government.

Ultimately, it's up to voters to decide whether the panel should have taken up the Iraq contracts.
(Strib)

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) which Norm headed used to have a strong history of "aggressive" investigations. Norm ended that pattern. Because Doyle hasn't been following this race as closely as I have, he doesn't know that Norm has three situations under which he will investigate corruption:

• No Republican will be hurt.
• The Republican or institution has already been thrown under the bus (Heckuva Job Brownie).
• The person or institution is hated by Republicans (UN & the Oil-for-Food scandal).

When Franken asserts that Norm failed to use his oversight abilities as Chair of the PSI to investigate contractor abuse, Norm's defense that SIGIR was the best means to investigate is bogus. SIGIR's problems make it yet another failed Bush Administration institution incapable of uncovering the criminal activity of and fostered by the Bush Administration. I reported back on May 13th of this year:

Today, the Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq and corruption in the Iraqi government. Two former State Department employees testified, including Judge Arthur Brennan, the former director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT) in Iraq. He said that his office’s work “was ignored and demeaned by the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and the government of Iraq.”

He also revealed the State Department completely altered a report he sent to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) that criticized an Iraqi watchdog agency as being a “disaster”:

MCCASKILL: And your testimony — I want to make sure that you have said the Department of State has negligently, recklessly and intentionally misled Congress, the American people and the people of Iraq. And you stand by that testimony, Judge?

BRENNAN: I stand by that testimony.

MCCASKILL: And so, what we’re learning today is that SIGIR, the information we’re getting from SIGIR is not, in fact, always factual, that sometimes it is being spun by Ambassador Crocker and that it is your testimony today that Ambassador Crocker knows the level of corruption in the Iraqi government and has failed to be honest with the American people about it.

BRENNAN: If he doesn’t know, then he’s negligent. If he does know, then he’s intentionally misleading Congress and the American public.
(Think Progress)

While Norm claims that SIGIR saved American taxpayers vast sums, SIGIR really only saved a few drops in the bucket compared to the gusher of cash flowing to the contractors. It audited in millions when billions were being wasted. This is another citation from my May 13th post:

[James] Mattil, who worked with Brennan, made similar allegations. Specifically, he said the U.S. "remained silent in the face of an unrelenting campaign" by senior Iraqi officials to subvert Baghdad's Commission on Public Integrity, which had been led by al-Radhi. Then, the U.S. turned its back on Iraqis who fled to the United States after being threatened for pursuing anti-corruption cases, he said.

"Since we have done so little (to undercut corruption), it's easy to see why the government of Iraq has not done more," said Mattil, who left the accountability office last October after having served for a year as its chief of staff. "We have demanded no better."
(NPR)

I think Norm's claim that he uncovered $80 billion of corruption is inaccurate. Take SIGIR as the perfect example, they barely break even.

How ineffective was SIGIR? When we spend well over $2 billion a week in Iraq, SIGIR saved American taxpayers about $57 million over several years yet costs $35 million a year. You do the cost-benefit analysis yourself ... it's pretty clear how effective they are.

SIGIR is a temporary federal agency, created by Congress, that is responsible for oversight of expenditures and revenues associated with reconstruction and rehabilitation in Iraq. It is also charged with auditing, inspecting and investigating the use and potential misuse of funds intended for Iraq reconstruction programs. With a staff of approximately 130 and an annual budget of $35 million, SIGIR has produced more than 200 reports on Iraq reconstruction, including 94 audits, 95 Project Assessments, 14 quarterly reports to Congress and 3 comprehensive “Lessons Learned” reports on all aspects of Iraq reconstruction. It has initiated over 315 investigations, resulting in the arrests of 13 individuals and five convictions of individuals defrauding the U.S. government, and identified more than $57 million in taxpayer dollars saved or recovered.
(Norm's 9/28/07 press release)

It took whistleblowers coming forward to bring an FBI investigation into the corruption of SIGIR. You will not hear Republicans like Norm make any mention of this. But it is further evidence that things were not on the up-and-up at SIGIR.

The employee allegations have prompted four government probes into the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), including an investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors into the agency's financial practices and claims of e-mail monitoring, according to law enforcement sources and SIGIR staff members. Federal prosecutors have presented evidence of alleged wrongdoing to a grand jury in Virginia, which has subpoenaed SIGIR for thousands of pages of financial documents, contracts, personnel records and correspondence, several sources familiar with the probe said.
(Wash Post)

To summarize, a reporter at the Strib debunks Al Franken's assertion that Norm Coleman did no oversight of Iraqi reconstruction by pointing to Norm's claim that SIGIR was doing it. Sadly typical for journalism these days, it appears that the reporter did not investigate Norm's claims about SIGIR when if he would have, he would have written that Al's claim is correct. SIGIR was not a reputable organization. They were not working hard to uncover corruption, incompetence and waste in Iraq reconstruction, but were just another corrupt Bush Administration organization.s