Under fire for its handling of postwar contracts in Iraq, the administration of US President George W. Bush plans to appoint NASA's inspector general to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad to oversee investigations of any alleged abuses, congressional aides said on Monday.
Robert "Moose" Cobb is expected to become the authority's first -- and probably last -- inspector general after more than a year and a half at the space agency. In Baghdad, he will coordinate audits and investigations and monitor and review reconstruction contracts.
His appointment was seen as a bid by the administration to counter criticism -- mostly from Democrats in Congress -- that oversight of multibillion-dollar contracts has been lax.
President George W. Bush is under mounting pressure to crack down on any abuses. A Pentagon audit of Halliburton, the oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, found the company may have overbilled the US government by more than US$120 million on Iraq contracts.
A White House lawyer, Cobb was sent by Bush to NASA in April last year. His task was to crack down on waste and fraud and help Administrator Sean O'Keefe restore credibility to an agency plagued by budget troubles.
Congress called for the appointment of an inspector general last month when it approved Bush's request for US$87.5 billion to finance Iraq's occupation and reconstruction.
Since then, the reconstruction effort has been marred by a series of controversies.
The administration has barred France, Germany, Russia and other opponents of the Iraq war from bidding on US$18.6 billion in US-funded contracts to rebuild Iraq.
Seeking to deflect criticism from the controversy surrounding Halliburton contracts in Iraq, Bush said last week: "If there's an overcharge, like we think there is, we expect that money to be repaid."
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