U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

55–125PDF 2010

OVERSIGHT: HARD LESSONS LEARNED IN IRAQ

AND BENCHMARKS FOR FUTURE

RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL 

ORGANIZATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND OVERSIGHT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Serial No. 111–82

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

VACANT 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

HUMAN RIGHTS AND OVERSIGHT

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri, Chairman 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

JERRY HALDEMAN, Subcommittee Staff Director 

PAUL BERKOWITZ, Republican Professional Staff Member 

MARIANA MAGUIRE, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

Mr. Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 

Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction ...................... 7

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Chairman, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight: Prepared statement . 3

Mr. Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 

Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction ...................... 10

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 34

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 35

(1)

OVERSIGHT: HARD LESSONS LEARNED IN 

IRAQ AND BENCHMARKS FOR FUTURE RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

HUMAN RIGHTS AND OVERSIGHT,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Russ Carnahan (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. The International Organizations Subcommittee 

will come to order. I want to thank Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, for testifying here today. 

He has undertaken an enormous task, and I really want to thank 

him for his service. 

With over $50 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds spent for Iraq reconstruction—the largest reconstruction ever since the Marshall 

Plan—through Fiscal Year 2010, there are a number of lessons to 

be learned. I believe if we fail to learn these lessons we are doomed 

to repeat many of these mistakes. Some money was spent properly, 

but far too much has been wasted, misspent or wholly mismanaged. There have been numerous examples of poor accountability and inadequate procurement processes, just to name a few 

of the problems. 

With reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, Haiti and others sure 

to take place, we need to ensure we take the lessons learned in 

Iraq and turn the corner. While there is certainly no one size fits 

all, we need to make sure there is a process in place that meets 

not only our goals of reconstruction, oversight and accountability, 

but also one that ensures we are meeting our development and diplomacy goals as well. 

Mr. Bowen has put forward a proposal that seeks to answer the 

question of who should be accountable for planning, managing and 

executing stabilization and reconstruction operations that are part 

of an overseas contingency operation. The question is being asked 

because there was not a coordinated U.S. Government approach to 

reconstruction operations, which has resulted in, among other 

things, mismanagement of U.S. taxpayer funds. 

I am very interested in hearing you testify about your proposal 

today. I am especially interested in hearing how your proposed U.S. 

Office for Contingency Operations would increase effectiveness and 

2

accountability while dramatically decreasing instances of waste, 

fraud and abuse. I am also interested in hearing how this proposal 

would enhance our diplomacy and development goals. 

When Secretary Clinton announced the inaugural QDDR this 

past July, she indicated that it would provide a ‘‘comprehensive assessment for organizational reform and improvements to our policy, 

strategy and planning processes’’ with respect to diplomacy and development; our ‘‘smart power,’’ specifically. Diplomacy and development are essential to any reconstruction operations, so I am interested to also hear how these goals can be met with your proposal. 

Again, Mr. Bowen, I want to thank you for your work on these 

issues and for your willingness to testify. I would now like to invite 

the ranking member, Mr. Rohrabacher from California, to give his 

opening remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carnahan follows:]

3


55125a.eps
4

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My 

first duty this morning is to welcome you to the subcommittee and 

congratulate you on ascending to this spot. I hope you will enjoy 

your time here as much as I enjoyed with your predecessor, Mr. 

Delahunt, and we were able to utilize this position both ranking 

member and chairman to look into issues that were really important and we enjoyed broad areas of disagreement, but we also 

found a lot of areas of agreement, and I hope that we have that 

same type of very positive relationship that will serve our country 

and will make sure that we are not just wasting our time; we are 

getting something done. That is what Stuart Bowen is all about: 

Getting something done. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I certainly will. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I just want to thank you for those remarks. You 

know, our colleague, Mr. Delahunt, has not left us. He is still a 

member of the committee and I know he looks forward to continuing here, but you and I have talked privately and I also very 

much look forward to a really strong and positive working relationship with you and all the members of the committee. Thank you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you. As I was saying, Mr. Bowen and 

I have known each other many years, and he has been here as a 

person who is really dedicated his life to trying to make sure that 

we accomplish our goals in some very trying circumstances and trying to do it with the American taxpayer in mind and it has been—

he has met the ultimate challenges and he has got some ultimate 

insights as to maybe the way we can do these things in the future 

in a better, more efficient manner. I have, of course, long been frustrated by our reconstruction efforts in Iraq, there is a lot of goodwill that has been there but we have wasted some of that goodwill; 

before that we have wasted a lot of money too. 

We need to figure out ways of how we can do this more effectively in the future, when we meet future challenges. I will—let me 

note—when I say that we have wasted some money, certainly 

things could have been done better. Let me just add to that I am 

very proud that the people of the United States have helped free 

the people of Iraq from a brutal tyrant, Saddam Hussein, who murdered their people by the hundreds of thousands and created a 

reign of terror among his people. We should never forget when we 

are analyzing what is going on here that that monster, that Hitler 

of the Middle East has been eliminated and the world will be better for it and certainly the people of Iraq; not only will be, but are 

better for it today. 

So let us not forget when we criticize and we try to figure out 

better ways of doing things that while the critical eye is there we 

also are recognizing the good things that have been accomplished 

even though at a high cost. Between defense spending and reconstruction spending we see that Iraq has cost us almost $1 trillion, 

and that is an enormous amount of money to be spent on the part 

of the United States especially considering that we are borrowing 

a significant amount of money each year in order to pay for that 

type of operation 

Mr. Chairman, you were not here when this vote happened, but 

there was a proposal by my Democratic colleagues early on in the 

5

Iraqi operation that the Iraqi Government should be expected to 

pay for the expenses of our operations to free them from Saddam 

Hussein from future oil revenues. 

I don’t know what was wrong with the last administration. I 

don’t know why George Bush decided that oh, that is a terrible 

idea, but the fact is that I was one of only three Republicans that 

voted in favor of that Democratic proposal, and I would suggest 

that right now that we reaffirm to people that America will not 

spend one more penny in Iraq until it is agreed to that the American people are going to be reimbursed. 

We can’t afford to do this anymore. I mean, yes, we can be proud 

that we eliminated Saddam Hussein, but we cannot afford to go 

around the world and spend this kind of money when our own people are in terrible need right now, so I would hope that is one thing 

we could be thinking about in this committee of moving forward 

that type of proposal, as well as the specific structural changes that 

Mr. Bowen has in mind. 

I would like to remind everybody about that particular issue that 

I just mentioned because if that would have passed at that time 

it would have saved America a lot of money and American people 

at a time when we needed it the most, but it didn’t pass because 

people were afraid to be saying well, this war is about oil. It is 

blood for oil. You heard that, blood for oil. 

Well, who has won the oil contracts now that the war against 

Saddam Hussein is over and the situation is stabilized in Iraq? 

Who is winning those oil contracts? Not the United States, but the 

Chinese. So here we are. We have borrowed money from the Chinese in order to repay them with interest of course in order to free 

Iraq so that they can give contracts to the Chinese. 

This certainly isn’t representing the best interests of the people 

of the United States, and we need to make sure that we dedicate 

ourselves, that we are not going to get into this mess again and 

that we are going to have some structural changes, as Mr. Bowen 

is suggesting to us today, but also some solid, fundamental policy 

standards that we will have to meet before we commit ourselves to 

these type of operations. 

Let us note that even as it has stabilized, even as we have spent 

so much money and blood in Iraq, some of the fundamentals have 

still not been dealt with there. For example, if you trace this back 

all the way to the beginning of when our trouble started with Iraq 

it was an Iraq conflict with Kuwait that started this whole dynamic 

that led to all of this expenditure of blood and money. 

Well, Iraq is still dealing and has not brought up and not compensated Kuwait for the damages that it inflicted on Kuwait. I 

mean, it still has U.N. sanctions that it still has to deal with. Iraq 

still owes Kuwait billions of dollars of compensation. 

Now, let me just note that the Ambassador from Kuwait has notified me that Kuwait is willing to reach out to Iraq and any 

amount of money that is repaid of those billions of dollars for the 

damages for the destruction that the Iraqis did on Kuwait, they are 

willing to invest that directly back into Iraq. That is a wonderful 

compromise, and yet Iraq has not been willing to step forward and 

deal with that specific fundamental issue. 

6

We also haven’t seen, for example, there hasn’t been an Ambassador sent by Iraq to Kuwait. Again, a fundamental issue. It needs 

to be resolved. Is there going to be peace between Kuwait and Iraq 

or is there not? Get that done. We need to make sure that gets 

done or otherwise everything we have spent, all the lives that have 

been lost, are for nothing. 

Let us note there was a border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq. 

These are things that can be resolved politically. These are doable, 

and we should, as we are looking at reforms and the way we handle ourselves, we should look to make sure what are the fundamental things that need to happen so we can close this book on the 

Iraqi involvement of American troops and so much massive presence there. 

Let me just note that includes the fact that Iraq must pass a carbon law and must get their own back together so that they can become a prosperous and free and secure country. We can’t do that 

for them forever. So they haven’t even got themselves organized to 

the point where that issue is solved as to where the profits will be 

channeled and the revenue from oil resources in their country. 

So let us remember that we can’t do everything for Iraq. Let us 

try to push them in the right direction, but we can set standards 

for ourselves in future operations, which is what this hearing is 

about. Let us make sure the Iraqis know that these opportunities 

they have to solve these problems themselves were paid for dearly 

with American treasure and American blood. 

Again, I rarely hear a thank you from our Iraqis that come to 

visit us, and I think that we, the American people, deserve that. 

And today I thank you for hosting this hearing, and let us see if 

we can get some valuable insights out of it. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. And I would now like to introduce 

our witness for today’s hearing, Mr. Stuart W. Bowen, Jr. Mr. 

Bowen is currently the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a position he has held since October 2004, where he is 

responsible for ensuring effective oversight of $52 billion appropriated for the reconstruction of Iraq. 

Just prior to assuming this position, in January 2004, Mr. Bowen 

was appointed as the Inspector General for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Previously, Mr. Bowen was a partner at Patton 

Boggs, LLP, and has held various positions in the George W. Bush 

administration as Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy Staff 

Secretary and Special Assistant to the President, and Associate 

Counsel. 

He also served on the Bush-Cheney transition team and prior to 

that held several positions as counsel to then-Governor Bush in 

Texas, where he was also an Assistant Attorney General from 1992 

to 1994. Additionally, Mr. Bowen spent 4 years as an intelligence 

officer in the U.S. Air Force, achieving the rank of Captain. He 

holds a B.A. from the University of the South and a J.D. from St. 

Mary’s Law School. 

Welcome, and thank you for joining the subcommittee today for 

this important hearing. We now turn to Mr. Bowen for his opening 

remarks. 

7

STATEMENT OF MR. STUART W. BOWEN, JR., SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION, OFFICE OF 

THE SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION 

Mr. BOWEN. Thank you, Chairman Carnahan, Ranking Member 

Rohrabacher, for the opportunity to appear before you this morning 

on this important topic. I am especially honored, Mr. Chairman, to 

appear at your first hearing of your chairmanship. 

I think that the issue that you have taken on is highly relevant 

to ongoing stabilization and reconstruction operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan and very applicable to an issue that must be resolved; 

that is, how the United States should approach managing, executing, planning for stabilization and reconstruction operations. 

There is no clear answer for that and that, sadly, is one of the 

hardest lessons from Iraq. 

A year ago my office put out Hard Lessons, a comprehensive review of all that has happened in the reconstruction program over 

the last 7 years. We had some tough stories to tell, but I think perhaps the toughest is that we simply did not have a structure in 

place adequate to the mission that we took on in 2003. 

As you rightly pointed out in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, this program was undertaken at great cost and, because of 

that lack of organization, great waste; as we pointed out before, upwards of $4 billion in waste, wasted taxpayer dollars, the consequences of failing to properly prepare. 

The issue that we have addressed this week, this hard lesson in 

our latest lessons learned report, Applying Iraq’s Hard Lessons to 

the Reform of Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, is the 

need for a new office to bring together the disparate elements that 

are scattered across the government now among several departments to plan and execute stabilization and reconstruction operations. 

As we say in the opening of this report, the question of who is 

in charge is not clearly answered. The United States has taken 

steps to address this matter over the last 10 years, and we spell 

that out in Part 1 of the report, but those steps have not yielded 

a coherent response. Those steps produced a series of ad hoc organizations in Iraq, most of which no longer exist, so the accountability issue is lost. 

Those responsible for that waste were parts of organizations that 

have ceased to be. A more permanent solution is necessary, we 

firmly believe, to ensure that there is accountability, for results 

and that there is clarity on the responsibility for planning and execution. 

We have also pointed out in this report that there are 10 things 

that the United States could do now to improve stabilization and 

reconstruction operations. They best be undertaken by a new office, 

the U.S. Office of Contingency Operations, but those 10 straightforward, targeted reforms are still relevant today—reflective of the 

fact that our lessons have not been sufficiently learned to date from 

Iraq. 

For example, there is not coherently implemented policy for stabilization and reconstruction operations (SORs) by the NSC yet, 

and we recommend that the NSC develop a more concrete and imVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:24 May 04, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\IOHRO\022410\55125 HFA PsN: SHIRL
8

plemented process for overseeing these important missions—missions that are not development, not diplomacy, not defense, but elements of all three; thus they are unique and fundamentally interagency with respect to protecting U.S. interests abroad. 

There is a system in place that was adopted 3 years ago, the 

Interagency Management System. It is fairly complex. It has a 

Country Reconstruction Stabilization group that oversees these operations. It has an interagency planning cell that is supposed to 

help resolve conflicts and it proposes active response teams. The 

problem is it is not implemented. Three years down the road and 

it is a dead letter right now. 

Other reforms include developing sensible budgets in advance, 

understanding what the obligations of the taxpayers are going to 

be in future scenarios, developing contingency contracting regulations of the kind that we repeatedly argued for, developing more 

effective oversight, permanent oversight that ensures that from the 

start of a stabilization and reconstruction operation that there is 

an IG presence, developing IT systems that ensure that we can 

track the projects we are doing. 

We only know 70 percent of what we have built in Iraq because 

there was no system developed until our audits identified that 

problem and one was developed. We still haven’t been able to capture all the data. That is an enormous weakness. How can you 

make good decisions with a 70 percent picture? 

These are existing problems, well documented by our work and 

all supportive of our core recommendation: The need to bring together the disparate elements that now have parts of the mission 

of stabilization and reconstruction operations into one office, the 

U.S. Office for Contingency Operations (USOCO). 

USOCO would capture what I think is perhaps the most revolutionary development at the Department of Defense in years, the 

Stabilization and Operations Branch, a huge capacity that has 

been developed in Iraq and applied in Afghanistan, but not well coordinated by any means, by any analysis. 

The lack of coordination is obvious to those that are involved in 

this. I hear it on the ground at the embassy when I visit with U.S. 

Forces-Iraq individuals. I hear again and again the challenges in 

coordination at the operational level, and it is because of a lack of 

an integrated system. 

At the Department of State, as you know, over $100 million has 

been appropriated and invested in developing the Coordinator for 

Reconstruction and Stabilization, a 5-year old organization that is 

now shaping a Civilian Response Corps. They have about 89 on 

board now, split between U.S. Agency for International Development and SCRS, about 16 on the ground in Afghanistan, three in 

Haiti, so it is not terribly robust, but, more importantly, it is not 

well integrated with the Department of Defense for operations that 

are fundamentally civil military operations. 

U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Transition 

Initiatives and also part of the Civilian Response Corps, but again 

another agency with part of a mission, but with no purview, with 

no authority, with no capacity to carry out this essential process, 

this essential kind of operation to protect our interests abroad. 

9

What is the consequence, besides waste, of failing to have a coordinated planning system? The consequence is the lack of unity of 

command. The hundreds of people I interviewed for Hard Lessons 

and those that we discussed for this latest report and frankly virtually every trip—I am going on my 26th trip to Iraq in the near 

future, and I hear on every visit recognition that there is a lack of 

unity of command. 

Lack of unity of command yields a lack of unity of effort exemplified, interestingly, most recently by two audits, one by my office, 

one jointly by the DoD and State IGs, addressing the same issue, 

police training. Two and a half billion, the largest contract in State 

Department history, in Iraq, and a contract in excess of $1 billion 

in Afghanistan, reaching the same conclusion: There was a lack of 

capacity to oversee and properly protect taxpayer interests with regard to the training of police in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

How important is that issue? General McChrystal says it is number one, so the urgency of this reform is evident I think at the 

ground level in these latest reports. Indeed, the State-DoD IG report said the Chief of Mission in Afghanistan thought the lack of 

unity of command was what was responsible for the failure of this 

contract. 

USOCO is a new idea. Some have criticized it as perhaps a 

layering of bureaucracy or unnecessary. To the contrary. It is a reorganization. The government, when it is confronted with systemic 

problems, has responded in recent years to meaningful reform that 

has improved the United States approach to critical problems. The 

Department of Homeland Security is one example. The Director of 

National Intelligence is another example. 

Those are new offices, but they really are ways that have 

brought together unity of effort, unity of command, to critical 

issues of national security interest. This is another perfect example 

that needs such reform, and those with experience on the ground 

in Iraq and on this issue recognize it. 

General Scowcroft, perhaps the godfather of contingency operations, recognizes this issue as well as anyone on the planet and 

believes this is the right answer. Ambassador Ryan Crocker 2 

years in Iraq lived with this issue, worked with me daily on helping set the course right, sees this as the right solution. Spike Stevens, on the ground at the beginning as Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development, sees this as a plausible approach. 

So this is the product of 6 years of careful study, an issue that 

we identified 3 years ago that we vetted heavily on the ground, 

through the departments, through experts and thus firmly believe 

that some reform is necessary. We think this is the right reform. 

Though not a panacea, it is a positive step forward. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Rohrabacher, for 

this opportunity, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bowen follows:]

10


55125b-1.eps
11


55125b-2.eps
12


55125b-3.eps
13


55125b-4.eps
14


55125b-5.eps
15

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Bowen. Again, I think your remarks here this morning really reflect those hundreds of interviews 

and years of work and expertise, experience, listening, and learning 

on the ground from people that are trying to achieve our goals in 

Iraq and seeing how we can move forward in a better way. So I 

really appreciate you being here today, and this is very timely as 

we look at other operations going forward. 

These reports that have been prepared I think are very instructive and your ideas are very instructive. I guess I want to start 

with a question about the estimated $4-plus billion that you have 

indicated has been wasted in Iraq. 

Can you break that down in terms of where you think that has 

come from and also simply how can we prevent that going forward 

because in an era where we have limited resources? We need to be 

sure the dollars that we are putting forth here are getting where 

they need to be. Obviously some of that is overlap, lack of coordination at best and at worst mismanagement, fraud and beyond. So 

give us an idea of where that is coming from. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. I can give sort of the macro picture of why it 

happened and specific examples. In 2003, specifically March 2003, 

the vision for Iraq reconstruction was about $2 billion. It is now 25 

times that. How did we get there? A significant change in policy 

for which there was no structure undergirding it to implement. 

That policy change occurred in the summer of 2003 that produced the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, $18.4 billion, and 

then following upon that the Commander’s Emergency Response 

Program, $3.5 billion spent, the Iraq Security Forces Fund, another 

$18.5 billion. These numbers boggle the mind, eventually—how 

much we ultimately put into an effort that was anticipated to be 

very short and very modest. 

The fact that there was no structure in place to carry out these 

missions meant that ad hoc structures were all created and ad 

hocracy evolved in Iraq and a series of acronyms that people have 

forgotten: PCO, CPA, ERMO, ITAO, MNSTC–I. All of these are 

temporary agencies that have gone away, but they spent billions 

and they spent billions on the fly figuring out how to do it, addressing problems that were there without sufficient contingency contracting capacity, without quality assurance. 

And that gets to our audits. Three hundred inspections and audits yield some important lessons of the causes of this waste. We 

sort of exposed, frankly, the massive drop in the U.S. Government 

contract capacity. For whatever reason in the 1990s, perhaps as 

part of the Cold War dividend and the outsourcing movement, the 

contracting corps at DoD was dramatically cut. The consequences 

of that were severely realized in Iraq because there weren’t enough 

warranted officers there to oversee. 

Second, the lack of capacity to ensure quality assurance. Quality 

assurance means the government makes sure contracts do what 

they are supposed to do. We didn’t have enough people going out 

and visiting projects. A lot of times my inspectors would arrive at 

a project and we were the first Americans that the contractors had 

seen in a long time. That obviously is a grave weakness. 

It results in things like Kahn Bani Saad Prison, $40 million 

spent for a monument to failure in the desert an hour north of 

16

Baghdad. It will never house an Iraqi prisoner I don’t think because not much was accomplished. Money was poured into failure 

after failure because of poor oversight, just one example of projects 

that simply did not get completed. 

The other significant waste areas included asset transfer, 

projects that didn’t get finished but we declared concluded and just 

unilaterally handed over to the Iraqis. It happened hundreds and 

hundreds and hundreds of times where they refused to accept it 

and so the Corps of Engineers would just sign a unilateral transfer, 

hand it to them and that is it. It is a project again not accomplishing anything. 

These various elements, the macro weaknesses, the failure to 

have a system in place of the kind I have discussed in my opening 

statement, the fact that an ad hocracy of now nonexistent agencies 

spent billions, 50 times more than expected, and the fact that the 

oversight on the ground and the aptitude, the expertise, was not 

present to ensure that projects got done and that money was properly spent yielded this waste. 

We are here today with really that hardest lesson before us on 

the table essentially saying never again, and never again means 

preventing it from happening, which means improving how the 

United States tackles planning and executing these kinds of operations. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. It is not only a hard lesson, but a colossally expensive lesson. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. The problem with throwing so much money at a 

problem and to so many entities that are now gone——

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN [continuing]. Seems to me very difficult, and we 

may never figure out where some of that money went. 

Mr. BOWEN. That is exactly right. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I guess my next question has to do with really 

quantitative and qualitative metrics that can be used in determining today progress in Iraq. 

I mean, obviously there is the look back in terms of what went 

wrong with some of the money and lack of systems and coordination. But going forward, what are some of the measurements that 

we can use in terms of number of civilians trained, police trained, 

election reforms, economic development statistics? Where are we in 

terms of that snapshot to measure progress? 

Mr. BOWEN. Great question, and we are going to provide snapshots of that to you over the next year. I have established an Evaluations Branch, an element of oversight that is critical to answering exactly the question you are raising. 

What are the results? Ultimately that is the core question of any 

stabilization and reconstruction operation. What did you achieve? 

What difference did you make? And that, I assure you, we will provide you over the next 12–18 months. We are going to produce our 

first report later this spring that assesses the various evaluative 

reports that have already been accomplished. 

So what do we know now? I think that is the first question, and 

then we are going to get into some evaluative studies of infrastructure projects. What were the outcomes, the results of all that 

17

money spent on hard infrastructure? You know, I have told you the 

bad news, but what potential good news is there from it? 

We know from our quarterly reports that electricity is and has 

been now for 11⁄2 years above pre-war levels, so there is outcome 

evidence of progress there, but I need to tell you how did our investment achieve that? That is the question you are asking. 

And then the next report after that will be looking at ministry 

capacity development, an important matter that has been focused 

on heavily the last 3 years under the State Department’s aegis, and 

it is certainly a laudable goal. What results have we achieved? 

That is what we will be getting to. I think it is time now to make 

these evaluations and to provide the Congress with concrete evidence of what was accomplished. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. I am now going to turn it over to the 

ranking member, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you again, Mr. Bowen, for your long and very dedicated service to our country. 

Mr. BOWEN. Thank you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The things we are talking about are of great 

significance to so many people. I mean, we have to realize that 

thousands of lives have been lost, American lives have been lost, 

and there are people who will never have a father in their lives because their father is dead in Iraq now and wives who will never 

have a husband for the rest of their lives. 

I grew up in a military family and I know about those sacrifices, 

so it is our job to make sure that at the very least we try to be 

as effective as we can if we are going to be involved in these kind 

of operations, and I would suggest the very first reform that needs 

to take place is for us to be aware that we are making these decisions and how significant it is to the thousands of our fellow citizens that we will not go into situations. 

I don’t think there are many of us who supported the call that 

we were called upon by President Bush to support this invasion of 

Iraq. I don’t think there are many of us who would in retrospect 

have gone along with that had we known the price that was being 

paid for what we have gotten out of it and what the world has gotten out of this. 

Let me just note that World War II, if I remember—what was 

that book? Catch-22. When you look at World War II and you take 

a look at what really happened if you look down at that level, there 

was an enormous amount of corruption. An enormous amount of 

corruption. 

And in Vietnam—I just have to say I spent a little time in Vietnam in 1967 when I was 19, and while I was not a soldier I was 

out with the Montagnards and various places in Vietnam, but I 

was totally dismayed after I left knowing that the level of corruption that I thought indicated to me that we would never be able 

to win and all the lives and all the gore that was going on was 

going to be for nothing, and that is how it turned out, of course. 

So here we are now again, and Vietnam had a horrible impact 

on our country economically, as well as every other way. Let us 

hope that what is happening now in Iraq and Afghanistan do not 

leave America in that same retreatist mindset that plagued us 

18

after Vietnam. That did not do well for our country and I think 

brought on some of the problems we face today. 

But World War II and Vietnam were noble causes, even though 

the corruption level in both of those were things that led us to perhaps not succeed as we should have succeeded, or in the case of 

World War II we lost 300,000 people there and it was a very costly 

war and perhaps we could have had some idea of how to prevent 

it from the beginning by standing up to Hitler. Who knows. 

Let us get back to some of the basic points you are making. I like 

that ad hocracy. That was an excellent way to put it because what 

you are saying is we just weren’t prepared for how to handle this 

part of the conflict. In order to be successful, that part had to be 

handled and it wasn’t. 

Is it true that billions of dollars were handed out from the Central Bank of Iraq? Once we captured Iraq that there were billions 

of dollars there that American military personnel then utilized 

right off the bat to make sure that things didn’t totally collapse 

and it was just basically handed out? That wasn’t our money. That 

was Saddam Hussein’s stash. 

Mr. BOWEN. You are right. Those were called seized funds, and 

that is how the Commander’s Emergency Response Program begin, 

speaking of ad hoc developments. 

You put your finger exactly on one of the most significant things 

that, ironically, has turned into a new institutionalized program 

within DoD that has accomplished thousands and thousands of 

projects funded at $3.5 billion now in Iraq by the Congress. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. This is fascinating. This might even be a little bit higher than micro loans you might say directly to the people 

there. 

Mr. BOWEN. Well, and you put your finger on another important 

point that the program expanded beyond its regulatory limits and 

has had to be reined in by the Congress and that it was supposed 

to be for small projects, $50,000 to $500,000 at the top. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. BOWEN. And now in order for a $1 million project to go forward the Secretary of Defense has to sign off. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The Office of Contingency Operations that 

you are suggesting. Would this help in problems like that? 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes, because it would provide clarity where there is 

only ambiguity now. It would provide coherence where there is only 

diffusion now. It would provide organization where we have disorganization. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Let me challenge this for you here. So 

you are making that as a suggestion. You have told us, for example, that you have a Civilian Response Corps, which is in place. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What is the budget again for that? 

Mr. BOWEN. They have received about $130 million——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Mr. BOWEN [continuing]. To date with more coming. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Civilian Response Corps, $130 million, 

yet we only have 16 people in Afghanistan and three in Haiti. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

19

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And $130 million doesn’t sound like a very 

effective use of money. If our highest priorities are Haiti and Afghanistan, would what you are suggesting, would that make this 

operation more efficient? 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. USOCO would coordinate or integrate this operation with everything else that is going on in government. Indeed, the Civilian Response Corps you are referring to itself is bifurcated between the U.S. Agency for International Development 

and the Department of State so that the program itself is suffering 

from a lack of integration. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And the $2.5 billion in police training that we are talking about. Now, are you telling us today that that $2.5 

billion expenditure for police training in Iraq has been a failure? 

Mr. BOWEN. No. We are carrying out an audit of the executing 

of the contract. Our review was of the management of the contract; 

in other words, contract oversight. 

Were invoices getting reviewed? No, they weren’t. Does that create a huge weakness and vulnerability to fraud and waste? Yes. 

And those are the findings of our audit and also the audit of Afghanistan. 

This is another example of the lack of unity of command. It was 

DoD money going through a state contract then back to DoD to 

execute. That sort of division of duties would be solved by USOCO. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. When I was 19 years old I was trying to find 

out the dynamics of how we were going to win the war in Vietnam 

politically at that level, and I was taken by some people about a 

hundred miles north of Saigon, some doctors, American doctors 

who were trying to win the hearts and souls of the people there—

that was our idea, hearts and minds—by setting up clinics and 

helping them. 

When we went to these clinics it was a horrible mess. It is unbelievable the stench and the fact that everything had been looted 

frankly. It had been looted, and these doctors were just—here they 

were dealing with young Americans, people from my area who I remember this surfer who was shot and it was really horrible. 

They were crying. They were just crying to me. What are we 

going to do? This is a $1 million investment here and look at it. 

It is nothing. The problem was, of course, we were sending aid into 

that area via the Vietnamese, who were our allies, and they were 

stealing everything. 

Now, where do we do this? This board that you are talking about. 

Is it going to be responsible? Are you suggesting as you are overviewing what we have done in Iraq and in the past, should we be 

channeling it directly in to local people or should we have direct 

control over every expenditure? 

If we have direct control over every expenditure, do we then not 

leave ourselves in a situation that we are assuming work that we 

would like the people on the ground to be doing for themselves? 

Mr. BOWEN. Well, it shouldn’t be exclusively either approach. It 

is conditions-based, and that is essential for effective oversight. 

You have to have controls in place that ensure that there is sufficient oversight of the money that is going forward, but again it is 

conditions-based. If you know that those with whom you are dealing are rife with corruption then that is a signal for more controls. 

20

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Let me give you specifically in Iraq a 

case I know about. They wanted to build schools for the kids of 

Iraq. They needed school desks. There was a company that happens to be in my district—I know about this; that is one of the reasons I know about this specifically—that builds school desks and 

wanted to send these desks over, okay? They want to do that now 

for Haiti. Their school desks are superior. They will last forever. No 

matter what happens, they last for 20 years. 

They couldn’t get the contract, Mr. Chairman, to provide the 

school desks because they wanted to make sure that the local people had the contract to build the school desks, but all the school 

desks that were being built there in Iraq—I saw examples of it—

fell apart after a few weeks. It looked good for about a week and 

then they all fell apart, so a wasted expenditure. 

What do we do? Are we going to give the money to some company here to build the school desks and send it there or does our 

aid program focus on building enterprise in the country? 

Mr. BOWEN. Well, I think both aspects have to figure in to a stabilization and reconstruction operation. It should be neither one 

nor the other exclusively. 

I think that certainly there have been and we have documented 

many, many failures by Iraqi contractors. At the same time they 

have improved, partly because we have gradually empowered them. 

The Joint Contracting Command Iraq implemented about 31⁄2 years 

ago, something called Iraqi First, and that is where I think this is 

coming from. In other words, preference to Iraqi contractors on continuing projects. 

That was difficult at first for reasons you are alluding to, but I 

think that the contractors have improved over time, so building capacity through contracting has certainly been part of our mission. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Just one last thought, and that is if we are 

to succeed we must have Americans who take this job very seriously, as we need to take our job of oversight seriously. You, sir, 

have taken your job seriously. 

There is not just an easy answer to any of the questions that I 

asked, but the real answer is making sure that we have people 

with good hearts who are diligent and responsible trying to make 

sure these programs succeed with the best judgment they can put 

forth. So thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for 

holding this hearing. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Next I am going to recognize Judge Poe from 

Texas. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you being here. 

Setting up a new agency, Office for Contingency Operations. How 

much is that going to cost? How much is it going to cost to set up 

this agency? 

Mr. BOWEN. That would be determined by the scope of it, but it 

would take the existing money that is out there now, and there is 

significant money for stabilization and reconstruction operations 

that is spread at S/CRS costing $140 million, at DoD hundreds of 

millions being spent on stabilization operations there, as well as 

money at AID and other agencies. 

And so as a practical matter, while there is an incremental cost, 

this would be a cost saver over time because right now, as I pointVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:24 May 04, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\IOHRO\022410\55125 HFA PsN: SHIRL
21

ed out, these responsibilities are not clearly allocated. They are diffused among the agencies, and there is not a clear point of accountability, which is about saving money, or clear point of responsibility, which is about effective execution, in the current system. 

Instead it is stovepiped, to use the term of art, within the agencies and that leads to waste. Frankly, the waste that occurred in 

Iraq, billions of dollars in waste, was symptomatic of not having an 

established structure. Indeed, the leadership that I interviewed for 

Hard Lessons, our report on what happened in Iraq, reiterated this 

point over and over again. They were shocked that there wasn’t a 

structure. 

Mr. POE. Excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. Bowen. 

Mr. BOWEN. Sure. 

Mr. POE. Do you see this agency being permanent? 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. POE. Eventually in our lifetime we will leave Iraq probably. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. POE. But do you see this agency staying around for other 

type situations like this? 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. Yes, sir, because this is not about Iraq only, 

and certainly I think its effect would be well beyond Iraq. It could 

help Afghanistan, but it is about preparing for stabilization and reconstruction operations in the future. 

This is a relatively new kind of operation. In the last 30 years 

we have had about 15. The two largest are Afghanistan and Iraq, 

but we had several in the 1990s. Indeed, President Clinton issued 

Presidential Directive 56 to try and get some control of the kind 

we are talking about today around these kinds of operations. 

It didn’t succeed, and as a result over the last 8 years in Iraq 

and Afghanistan through Presidential directives and other directives we have had to create more temporary agencies to try and 

tackle the problem. That resulted in waste. 

Those temporary agencies are gone. There is no accountability. 

Creating an entity that plans for these before they begin, that 

takes a look at the 10 reforms we talk about in the report like ensuring there is a policy. As a matter of fact, the Interagency Management System, the policy that is in place 3 years now, is a dead 

letter. It has never been implemented, and that is just another element of weak integration. We have to go beyond coordination to integration, beyond temporary execution to permanent accountability 

to avoid waste. 

Mr. POE. You say that $4 billion approximately, 10 percent—I believe that is 10 percent—of our funding of Iraq has been unaccounted for, wasted. Do we know where that $8 billion went? 

Mr. BOWEN. The $4 billion? 

Mr. POE. Excuse me. I am sorry. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. POE. The 10 percent. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. POE. The $4 billion that you mentioned. I am sorry. 

Mr. BOWEN. We do. We have done 300 audits and inspections, 

and we have looked at the causes of it. There are macro causes and 

there are micro examples. As I alluded to earlier, the reality is this 

was a situation in 2003 that expected to spend $2 billion. 

22

March 10 the decision was made for a very narrow program. The 

first Iraq Relief Reconstruction Fund was about $2 billion, a very 

limited infrastructure program. It is now $52 billion, and that is 

because in May and June of that year it went to $18.5 billion additional, as well as——

Mr. POE. Excuse me, Mr. Bowen. My time is limited. Cut to the 

chase. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. POE. Did the bad guys get any of this money? Did al-Qaeda 

get some of this money? Is it possible? Do we know? 

Mr. BOWEN. It is possible. It is possible. Indeed, we did an audit 

in 2006, to cut to the chase on this point about lack of accountability over weapons. As a matter of fact, it was the first review. 

I think you remember that one. It was 14,000 missing Glocks. 

But more importantly, that audit pointed out that the Multi-National Security Transition Command wasn’t doing serial number 

tracking of weapons it was distributing. It began after that audit 

came out, but what happened before? We found part of the issue, 

but the troubling points you are making is evident and supported 

by that. 

Mr. POE. All right. Thank you very much. Well timed. 

Mr. BOWEN. Thank you. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BOWEN. Thank you, Judge Poe. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Judge. Mr. Bowen, I wanted to get 

back and ask a few other questions here and in particular talk 

about your reference to Secretary Gates and that he observed earlier ‘‘contracting in Iraq was done willy-nilly.’’

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. What can be done to institutionalize these contracting procedures in this ad hocracy that just seems to have no 

standards whatsoever? Later, I want to get to the whole matter of 

the police contracts that you have talked about, but talk to me 

about the sort of overall system going forward. 

Mr. BOWEN. It is a critical area for needed reform right now. 

Some steps have been taken by the Department of Defense, significant steps, since the issuance of the Gansler Commission report 

which identified huge weaknesses in Army contracting capacity. 

But still we don’t have a coherent system of agreed upon approaches, contracting approaches, principles, regulations for stabilization and reconstruction operations. We first identified this 4 

years ago in our contracting lessons learned report that there 

needs to be some coherence and simplification of the approach to 

contracting. We reiterated it in Hard Lessons a year ago, and we 

reiterated it again in Applying Hard Lessons this week. What it 

means is achieving efficiencies in how the United States goes about 

contracting. 

Right now there are several versions of the Federal Acquisition 

Regulation, the regulation covering contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan operatives on the ground, and they each have their own permutations and they make complex in a conflict situation what must 

be simple, so as to ensure that policies that happen at a much faster pace are effectively executed. 

23

As a matter of fact, at the Wartime Contracting Commission 

hearing on Monday it was mentioned that a contract protest under 

existing regulations was potentially impeding critical military 

progress for 6 to 9 months. That is exactly the kind of legal reform 

that should be addressed by meaningful contracting improvements 

that are there to be executed, in my opinion, for stabilization and 

reconstruction operations. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I want to move on to talk about the issue of the 

police training. When I traveled to Iraq back in early 2005. I had 

a tour of a police training facility and there was much fanfare 

about this as one of the highest priorities for success in the country 

and substantial funding had been provided to it, and there were 

glowing numbers about how quickly they were going to get the 

numbers of police trained up to where they needed to be. You 

know, even today, as you mentioned, General McChrystal is saying 

that one of the number one priorities is to get our police trained. 

You know, between 2005 and now we haven’t seen anywhere 

near the progress that we need to have seen, and I guess with the 

planned withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq by December 

31, 2011, what challenges do you foresee? I guess my first question, 

what challenges in terms of the transition and responsibility from 

the military to State, and do you believe State will be able to successfully take over that training program in October 2011? 

Mr. BOWEN. First of all, a great question, because I think it is 

the critical issue to ensure improved security in Iraq going forward. 

We are going to go down to 50,000 troops in 4 months, so that is 

going to obviously mean that the Iraqis have to shoulder the complete security burden moving forward. 

We have trained hundreds of thousand of police and equipped 

them over the last 5 years, and we are doing an audit now to provide you the particulars of how the military executed the police 

training contract. That will be out later this year. 

But the transition issue I think that is paramount is the fact 

that the contract and the management of the contract that we criticized in this most recent audit, the DynCorp contract, is up for bid 

right now in Iraq. No surprise, DynCorp is one of the bidders for 

that, and I think it is a contract that has to be managed by the 

State Department. 

The core of our criticism was the lack of in-country oversight, the 

failure to review invoices, the questions raised about the vulnerability to fraud and waste regarding billions of taxpayer dollars. 

Those weaknesses have not been remedied yet. 

Now, Deputy Secretary Lew, when I met with him on this a 

month ago, assured me that he is going to take a personal interest 

and ensure that there is adequate oversight, but that promise 

needs to be fulfilled and thus here is the issue, the number one 

issue: Ensuring contract management of this continuingly very expensive oversight package for Iraq. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. So the question of this transition. How do you 

see that happening? 

Mr. BOWEN. Well, I have visited with the State Department individual in charge of management. It is going to be radical reform 

I think of the approach simply because of the limited assets the 

State Department has vis-a`-vis the Department of Defense and so 

24

it is going to move, as he described it, up to 30,000 feet from 5,000 

feet. 

It is going to be about macro improvements to ministry capacity, 

and there will be a reduction in staffing. There will not be the individual police training at the level that is going on now. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And to the specific contract, you indicated we have put $2.5 billion into police training? That is correct? 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And that this is the largest single contract——

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN [continuing]. In all of the Iraq reconstruction? 

Mr. BOWEN. In the State Department. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. In State. 

Mr. BOWEN. The State Department has ever managed. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. In State Department history? 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And how many U.S. Government officials were 

overseeing this contract? 

Mr. BOWEN. In-country officer representatives? Three. This is the 

tough story here, Chairman Carnahan. We looked at this 4 years 

ago, and the problem we identified 4 years ago was lack of contract 

management raised in our first audit issued in the first month of 

2007. 

Then we got into the whole contract and found that it was 

inauditable and so we issued a review in October saying the State 

Department asked for 3–5 years to get their records in order because it was a mess. Then we went in in 2008 to see if there were 

remedial measures, and there were, but then we go in last summer 

and find the same problem: Three people in-country overseeing a 

contract that is spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. 

And more disturbing, the lack of clarity about who was supposed 

to do what. The in-country contracting officer representatives my 

officers interviewed said well, invoice accountability is being done 

back in Washington. We went back to Washington and asked them. 

They said it is being done in Iraq. A huge vulnerability. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And with regard to the contractor, DynCorp, describe how that contract was initially awarded. 

Mr. BOWEN. It was an existing contract that was held by the 

State Department that was used—I don’t have the specific facts of 

the bidding process, but it was in existence in 2004 and used to 

apply to this program at the level of $2.5 billion. 

Again, as I said, it was DoD money that went into it so I think 

DoD was looking for a vehicle that it could use to spend this money 

and it did so. I think there are some questions about that process, 

but it certainly shows how bifurcated or disjointed both the source 

of the money, the contract management of the money and then the 

execution of the contract, all different places. It shows I think just 

the lack of clarity in stabilization and reconstruction contracting. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And in your reviews, to what extent can you account for how that money has been spent? 

Mr. BOWEN. As I said, we are looking at the execution of it now. 

My auditors in Iraq are today reviewing that matter and the outcomes, which are an important question for you, we will answer 

later this year. 

25

Mr. CARNAHAN. And you expect that report out when? 

Mr. BOWEN. By July. No later than July. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I am going to yield to Judge Poe. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just one question. 

Which of our Government agencies in your opinion was the most 

irresponsible about money? DoD? State Department? USAID? 

Mr. BOWEN. I think that the State Department did not carry out 

its contract oversight responsibilities sufficiently enough, and this 

particular contract we are discussing is the most egregious example 

of that. The disturbing point is it hasn’t remediated that weakness 

sufficiently today. 

Mr. POE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Judge Poe. Yes. I don’t know anything about police training, but if I had a $2.5 billion contract, I 

think I could figure out a way to train police. I mean, that is outrageous. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I guess continuing on with some of my questions 

about the oversight role, can you address the quality of oversight 

and effectiveness of Inspector Generals connected with international organizations such as U.N. or NATO? That is my first 

question, and then the other is, what oversight role has the Iraqi 

Government itself has played in these reviews? 

Mr. BOWEN. I can’t address to what extent the U.N. or international organizations are doing oversight, but I haven’t seen any 

evidence in Iraq of any such oversight. I have engaged very regularly since the beginning of my work in-country in February 2004 

with the oversight entities in Iraq. That includes the Inspector 

Generals—that we created, by the way. 

The Coalition Provisional Authority issued an order and established that system, and also the Commission on Integrity, formerly 

the Commission on Public Integrity, that we created in Iraq, somewhat parallel to the FBI and finally there is the existing Board of 

Supreme Audit, which has been in Iraq for many, many decades. 

I think the Board of Supreme Audit is the most reliable of those 

three and has issued some important audits, and we have in fact 

done some work with them in carrying out oversight of certain 

projects. Dr. Abdul Basit, its head, I meet with every trip. I will 

see him soon, in the next couple of weeks. I have confidence that 

he is a man of integrity and that he has done his best in a situation that he acknowledges to me is rife with corruption. 

Indeed, that is not really a point very much in dispute any more 

when I meet with Iraqi officials. The Minister of Finance, Bayan 

Jabr, who I met with two trips ago or last trip, said it is outrageous 

corruption. It is everywhere present, and he doesn’t know what to 

do about it except privatize was his suggestion. 

Others have said—Ali Baban, the Minister of Planning says—it 

is worse than ever. The Chief Justice of their Supreme Court says 

it is an out of control problem. Obviously those statements indicate 

to me that the progress or success of the oversight entities in Iraq, 

in the Iraqi Government, is very limited. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Next. This is an unusual way to ask a question, 

but I tweeted the news about today’s hearing yesterday and asked 

anyone interested to send some questions. We got several, but I 

26

picked out one that I thought was particularly good from a Michael 

Grady. 

His question was, ‘‘Is there any accounting for private contractors’ effectiveness in nation building in Iraq? Are we getting our 

money’s worth?’’ Mr. Bowen, how would you answer this question 

for Michael? 

Mr. BOWEN. That is a great question and a huge question because a study a couple years ago found that there were over 

180,000 private contractors in Iraq carrying out virtually every conceivable kind of task in-country and so it is difficult I think to 

make, A, a judgment about the success of any particular area or, 

B, to get our arms around the scope of expense and the return, so 

to speak, on that investment. 

What is clear is that the Iraqi and Afghanistan stabilization and 

reconstruction operations have used private contractors in an unprecedented fashion and the cost has been at historic highs. Have 

we managed them well? I think the answer is generally no. 

Why? Because there wasn’t adequate preparation, planning, 

structure, oversight in place before these operations began to ensure that there were clear regulatory limits and oversight of an 

army of contractors bigger than our Army in-country, and that is 

something that USOCO would squarely address. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And really, I guess it was a function of our lack 

of civil capacity that we basically had to go buy it and threw a lot 

of money at it——

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN [continuing]. And did not have the structure in 

place to create it or to properly oversee it and have accountability. 

Mr. BOWEN. That is correct. That is correct, and the security 

problem aggravated every aspect of that. I think an example is you 

say it is presence. They have a relatively small footprint of government employees, about 35, and then they have thousands of contractors that are carrying out their programs. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And of those 100,000 contractors in Iraq, can you 

describe—are those mostly U.S. contractors? Local contractors? Describe sort of the variety of things that they are doing. 

Mr. BOWEN. I think they are predominantly non-U.S. contractors 

as far as nationality goes, and they are carrying out everything 

from supporting food, fuel, and billeting to the troops in the field 

under the LOGCAP contract, to helping build local capacity in provincial governments, to building schools and health clinics. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. One of the things that you have very, I think, 

eloquently described is this problem with the silos of effort out 

there, and your proposal for the U.S. Office of Contingency Operations I think is a great way to begin this conversation, how to 

really break down those walls, but also to prevent overlap: Waste 

that is created by people being stuck in those silos and not coordinating that effort so we can get a better bang for our buck here. 

Mr. BOWEN. Yes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And I guess I really wanted to get you to talk 

about how you see those elements from Defense, State, and USAID 

coming together in a more functional way; in a practical way on the 

ground for delivering what we are trying to achieve. 

27

Mr. BOWEN. The functional execution is the key. Right now the 

responsibilities are diffused with limited coordination, frankly, and 

that is what I am told. Even today in Iraq when I talk to embassy 

personnel, USF–I personnel, there is good coordination at the senior, very senior levels, but in executing programs it is much more 

limited. 

That is not a new problem, and it is not a problem of lack of resources and it is not a problem of lack of leadership. It is a problem 

of institutional structure or inadequate structure in place. 

And so what USOCO would do would be before you even begin 

a stabilization and reconstruction outreach—this isn’t an issue that 

should be taken on in-country. This ought to be worked out ahead 

of time—the staffing, the contracting, the funding, the oversight, 

the information systems. 

These are matters that touch all of these agencies, but they 

ought not to be independently managed when it is a single mission 

and therefore this proposal would integrate. I think the word is integration versus coordination. We need to move beyond coordination to integration to execution, of planning and execution of stabilization and reconstruction operations. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I guess beyond your proposal I would like you to 

talk about other alternative ideas that get to this issue. Talk to me 

about some of those alternative ideas that are out there and why 

you think your proposal is the best way to address these issues. 

Mr. BOWEN. Well, we proposed some alternatives, the targeted 

reforms in our report; in other words, ensuring that the NSC executes and implements a set of stabilization and reconstruction operation policies and procedures. It doesn’t appear that the Interagency Management System is the one since it is not being used, 

so reconvene and redevelop and implement. 

There would be ways to develop and independent Inspector General oversight that could be standing and ensure that there is, from 

the start of an SRO, oversight. I think one of the challenges in Iraq 

is my office was developed 8 months, 9 months after the operation 

began and we didn’t get on the ground until 3 months before the 

CPA went out of business, so a lot of financial water under the 

bridge, waste under the bridge by that point. It ought to be there 

from the start. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Actually, if you could yield, that gets to another 

point I had that your operation, being there pretty much from the 

beginning, has saved millions of dollars by identifying these issues. 

Many people have been held accountable for mismanagement and 

fraud, but by contrast no IG was created for Afghanistan until 

early 2008. How do we be sure that those kinds of things are again 

part of the structure of ongoing operations? 

Mr. BOWEN. Well, USOCO would do that. I mean, creating 

USOCO would. Obviously because it impinges upon this existing 

turf it draws natural resistance. Absent creating an integrated office that plans, resources and executes and is held accountable—

I think that is the other thing. The job here, after an SRO you 

would have the USOCO Director sitting here and you would be 

holding him or her accountable for the outcomes. 

Who do you call now? Is State in charge? No. Is AID in charge? 

No. Is DoD in charge? No. I mean, you have to fill this table up 

28

and try and discern what is missing between the various gaps and 

do gap filling. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. They are all in charge, and nobody is in charge. 

Mr. BOWEN. If everyone is in charge, no one is in charge. You are 

exactly right. And so that is the core issue. 

We talk about it in our report, Applying Hard Lessons, the lead 

agency dilemma. We quote an NSC official saying exactly that. 

When you have a lead agency you only have one agency because 

it imbues upon the process its own culture, structure and biases. 

USOCO would be free from those particular institutional biases 

while drawing significantly upon the capacities of those respective 

agencies. NSC gives the policy. DoD has capacity. State, AID and 

the other agencies have expertise. What is filling the middle? Nothing right now. It is still diffused in the stovepipes. USOCO would 

fill that vacant space. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I guess I want to wrap up with maybe a historical perspective that I wanted to ask you about because you have 

identified—you actually have a table in your February report that 

lists the U.S. assistance for stability and reconstruction operations 

from Iraq, Germany, Afghanistan, Japan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Dominican Republic, Panama, Haiti, Lebanon, Somalia, Grenada, Cambodia. 

Are there common themes in all these operations that you have 

identified to help you make the conclusions that you have? 

Mr. BOWEN. I think the most common theme from these operations is we haven’t applied our lessons from them to the next operation. Each one is sui generis. Each one evolves on its own without a sufficient structure in place because there is no structure in 

place to carry it out. They begin. They are carried out. They are 

over. They are forgotten. Their lessons aren’t applied. 

There were lessons I believe from Bosnia and Kosovo, certainly 

those who have lived them. General Nash, who worked with us on 

our lessons learned report, said hey, I did the lessons learned report and you are repeating a lot of what I have found in Bosnia. 

That is one of the reasons we pursued this entire lessons learned 

initiative to help apply lessons learned. A lesson learned that is not 

applied is a lesson lost, and that certainly is the commonality of 

the previous stabilization and reconstruction operations. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. It seems to be lessons learned reports that we 

are not learning from. 

Mr. BOWEN. Not sufficiently. That is clear. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I am going to yield to my colleague, Mr. 

Delahunt from Massachusetts. I am so glad that he could join us, 

particularly for this first hearing that I have had with the subcommittee. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You were an 

outstanding vice chairman, and you will I am sure more than adequately fill the shoes of the individual who preceded you in that capacity. 

And I want to say this. I think this is such an appropriate topic 

for the first hearing under your leadership because what is being 

discussed here really is the core responsibility of the Congress, 

which is to oversee the effectiveness of the Executive Branch, and 

to take that information that we glean and put forth recommendaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:24 May 04, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\IOHRO\022410\55125 HFA PsN: SHIRL
29

tions and proposals that make sense, that enhance the security of 

the country, that avoid waste and at some point in time are acknowledged for their value and for their worth. 

There has been in my judgment far too long where that role has 

been abdicated by Congress, and I want to say this: Mr. Rohrabacher, who continues to serve as ranking member, during my 

tenure in the chair was a terrific ally, and I know he will do well 

working with you to make oversight a truly bipartisan effort. 

We hear a lot about partisanship and bipartisanship and the lack 

thereof, but this committee—and I know at times it was difficult—

really took a hard look at what went wrong in Iraq and what has 

gone wrong, but Dana Rohrabacher was there despite the fact that 

during much of that time or really during all that time it was a 

Republican administration. 

I really want to acknowledge the great work of Stuart Bowen, 

who I understand is also a member of the Republican Party, but 

nobody in government could ask for anyone to better handle this 

particularly sensitive role in such a nonpartisan fashion. He just 

simply called them as he saw them. It was tough. I mean, what a 

colossal waste. 

I can remember reading the reports in the newspapers. Nine billion dollars was somehow lost. Nine billion. We forget about that 

now. Nine billions that was lost by the CPA, Coalition Provisional 

Authority, was in fact I think some five times as much as Saddam 

Hussein stole from the Oil-for-Food Program that was administered 

by the United Nations. 

In any event, I want to say to Mr. Bowen and to his outstanding 

team that these lessons that were so painfully learned in Iraq as 

far as future contingency planning are so important. You know, I 

am very impressed with your proposal to create a new Office for 

Contingency Operations. I hear the criticism that this is another 

layer of bureaucracy. 

I don’t believe it is, but if this question hasn’t been addressed, 

Stu, I would like you to take it because I am absolutely confident 

that if this function that this office has created, that the savings—

simply the cost—to the American taxpayer are going to be phenomenal. Put aside the fact that the United States will be fully 

prepared for crises that continue to plague the globe. Mr. Bowen? 

Mr. BOWEN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt. A question very applicable to whether to create USOCO is, is it a new agency that simply 

adds to what exists or is it a meaningful reform that improves the 

efficiencies of how we approach stabilization and reconstruction operations? The answer is it is the latter. 

The United States has shown a remarkable willingness, a proper 

disposition to address challenges in the National Security arena 

within the structure of government, challenges of weak integration 

by implementing reforms. Creating the Department of Homeland 

Security is one example. Creating the Director of National Intelligence is another, both in reaction to the challenges experienced 

over the last decade regarding these important issues. 

This is another one. This is a unique one, though. This isn’t defense. This isn’t development. This isn’t diplomacy, which is why 

it shouldn’t be assigned to DoD or State or AID exclusively, but it 

30

needs to find one place because if you assign it to all of them, as 

we were talking about, no one is in charge. 

So there has to be a place where we can bring all of these elements together that will ensure that we don’t repeat the ad 

hocracy, that we don’t improve with temporary agencies whose 

acronyms we have forgotten, that we don’t answer into significant 

stabilization and reconstruction operations and have to figure out 

what the contracting regs are. What is the IT system? Who should 

staff it? What is the oversight? All matters that were picked up on 

the fly in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The lesson learned, the hardest lesson from Iraq and certainly I think Afghanistan—Richard Holbrooke said in December $39 billion; we are starting from scratch because it was uncoordinated—

is that no structure was in place to carry this out. There were no 

plans in place to execute it. There were no systems ready to deploy 

that could ensure that taxpayer dollar are protected. Billions were 

lost as a result. 

Three hundred audits and inspections later don’t paint a pretty 

picture. Some successes, sure, developed over time as we learned 

our lesson, but why do we have to learn the hard way when we can 

learn now the hardest lesson from Iraq and I think Afghanistan, 

and that is the need to concentrate, integrate planning, preparation, resources, capacity in one place where you have that accountability. 

You know who to call. You don’t have to call five or six agencies 

and say well, what was your role in this breakdown. You have one 

person to call and to find out, A, whether you are prepared—I 

guess that is the most important question—for the next one, but 

then, B, explain the outcomes. 

So it is not only not a layering of bureaucracy. It is an efficiency 

that perfectly fits within how the United States Government has 

responded to crises in national security areas, reforming government to strengthen our capacity to protect our interests. That is 

very squarely what this is, but it also has a huge fiscal component. 

It will save money. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Bowen. Mr. Chairman, I have to 

excuse myself. The Russians are coming. They have arrived. Since 

I now chair the Subcommittee on Europe I have to meet with our 

colleagues from the Russian Duma, but thank you again for your 

service. 

Mr. BOWEN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt, and again congratulations on your new chairmanship of the Europe Subcommittee and 

for your continued service on this subcommittee. 

You know, I was pleased that Mr. Delahunt mentioned this committee working together in a bipartisan way and the spirit in 

which Mr. Rohrabacher has been engaged here and really look forward to that continuing. These issues are ones that should bring 

people together in a very focused way. 

You know, I often think about the history of our favorite son, 

Harry Truman, when he chaired that famous Truman Commission 

during his time in the Senate. He described it as one of the most 

bipartisan and patriotic committees in the Congress at that time. 

31

It was a democratically controlled Congress and a Democratic administration, but they were going after waste, fraud and abuse in 

a way that respected the taxpayers’ dollars, but also was focused 

on the mission supporting the troops, and results, and holding 

those contractors that were gaming the system accountable. 

So there are some great parallels in history here, but we do have 

to learn. We just can’t keep doing reports about how we should 

learn. We actually need to learn. So this is very helpful, and I 

think there are opportunities to have less waste, more savings, better results and for people in this Congress to really work together. 

I don’t know if you have invented the term of ad hocracy, but if 

you did I think it is a great invention and it is a great way to describe this problem. But you have also laid out some ways to really 

move forward better, stronger, and smarter, for us to get where we 

need to go in these stability and reconstruction operations. 

So thank you for your service. We look forward to continuing to 

work with you, and I think you have provided some very valuable 

tools for policymakers to take up going forward, so thank you. 

Mr. BOWEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. All right. 

[Whereupon, at 11:07 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(33)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

34


55125n.eps
35

Æ


55125m.eps