The Commission on Wartime Contracting, created last year by Congress to scrutinize government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan for waste, fraud and abuse, is holding its first hearing today in Washington. The panel is kicking off with a headline act: Stuart Bowen, Jr., who has served as the top government watchdog for Iraq reconstruction since 2004.

Bowen is set to unveil a major report, "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience." (The full report is to be posted today at 10:00 a.m. on the Web site for the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.) This door-stopper of a report scrutinizes the approximately $44 billion that has been allocated so far for Iraq reconstruction – out of a total of $51 billion appropriated by Congress.

For anyone who has followed the issue, the conclusions are not surprising. In advance interviews, Bowen estimated that around 15 percent – or $3 billion – of the $20 billion allocated for big-ticket reconstruction projects in Iraq had been wasted. In a draft copy of the report that was leaked last year, Bowen recalled seeing bags of dollar bills literally being hauled out of the Republican Palace, headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority. "What I saw was troubling: large amounts of cash moving quickly out the door," he wrote. "Later that same day, walking the halls of the palace, I overheard someone say: 'We can’t do that anymore. There is a new inspector general here.'"

The colossal waste of taxpayer dollars in Iraq holds lessons for Afghanistan as well. The new wartime contracting commission – inspired by the World War II-era Truman Committee – will be investigating Afghanistan projects for potential waste, fraud and abuse, and they'll have their hands full. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates so diplomatically put it last week, coordination of aid and reconstruction to Afghanistan has been "less than stellar."

[PHOTO: UPI]

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