Former Bush aide oversees Iraq reconstruction spending

ARLINGTON, Va. — Like many people whose paths have crossed with George W. Bush, former Austinite Stuart Bowen Jr. has parlayed that link into several influential government posts.

The latest for the former White House aide comes with exotic foreign travel, an office in a palace and government housing.

"I live in a trailer," Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in a recent interview before heading back to Baghdad for the eighth time. "So I've finally risen to trailer living in a trailer park with hundreds of other people."

And, just as inevitably for many folks with Bush links, Bowen — lead investigator of the billions of dollars that will be spent rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure -– labors under partisan suspicion that he is part of a cabal intent on protecting the wealthy and powerful, such as the companies that have high-dollar Iraqi reconstruction contracts.

It's a skepticism built on facts like the participation of Halliburton, a firm formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, in the massive rebuilding effort.

"Not warranted," Bowen said of the skepticism. "I think it has been disproved by my work. I said we will let our audits and investigations speak for themselves. I think our audits have spoken rather directly to the fact that we have been impartial and diligent in executing our oversight responsibilities."

To date, the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, headed by Bowen, has issued five quarterly reports to Congress, as well as a series of audit reports. The most recent report found "significant deficiencies," including shoddy record-keeping on $89.4 million in spending and total lack of accounting for another $7.2 million. The report blamed the problems on incompetence of what it called "indications of fraud."

Several cases were referred for criminal investigation.

Bowen, with offices and staff in Arlington and Baghdad, believes the work product should put to rest the kind of partisan criticism that flowed when he got the job in January 2004. At the time, he was a former longtime Bush aide, dating back to the Texas governor's office, who had just spent nine months working for a Washington law firm with a client, URS Group, that sought and won Iraqi contracts.

Jim Mitchell, Bowen's spokesman, confirmed that Bowen had intervened on behalf of URS while it was seeking the contracts. Mitchell said Bowen, who did not directly represent URS, "made some phone calls and arranged" for a U.S. Agency for International Development person to meet with URS, which eventually got non-USAID-related business in Iraq.

"They did wind up getting a sector contract in Baghdad in a partnership, but that had nothing to do with the transaction with Stuart," Mitchell said, adding that Bowen's agency could wind up auditing the URS contract.

In addition to skepticism about Bowen's independence, critics were concerned about the structure set up by Congress for the agency. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., called it a "fake inspector general" after Democrats failed in an attempt to give it broader powers.

"I am very concerned that this inspector general will lack the independence needed to fully monitor the way American taxpayer dollars are spent on Iraqi reconstruction," Clinton said during the debate over the agency created after the Iraq war. Bowen has led the agency since its inception.

The question of independence came up again last October in a report entitled "The Politicization of Inspectors General," a study prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and vocal Bush critic. The report concluded that Bush has a habit of putting politically-connected people with little to no auditing experience in key spots as inspectors general.

Bowen got separate treatment in the report because the slot he now holds is not under the Inspector General Act that created the other posts at federal agencies. The report noted Bowen's resume and quoted a newspaper article that named him a "key player" in the 2000 Florida recount effort that helped produce Bush's victory.

Five months later, Waxman is impressed with Bowen's work.

"Initially, I was skeptical," he said, "but his work seems both objective and thorough."

Bush ties

Bowen's first government jobs were with Texas Democrats: He was a clerk for former Texas Supreme Court Justice Raul Gonzales and an assistant to former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales.

Bowen, a Washington native who "grew up around the world" as the son of an Air Force pilot, became a key part of Bush's team during the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race when he was invited to sign on.

When Bush took office in 1995, Bowen served as assistant general counsel in the governor's office, later becoming deputy general counsel under Alberto Gonzales, now the nation's attorney general.

After the presidential race, Bowen served as deputy counsel for the transition team, including a 35-day stay in Florida during the recount.

At the White House, he served as associate counsel under Gonzales and later as deputy staff secretary under Harriet Miers, who became White House counsel when Bush named Gonzales as attorney general.

Gonzales on Friday praised Bowen as a "very smart, careful, thorough lawyer."

"He is just a nice guy to be around. I've always enjoyed his company and I've always really valued him being a member of my team," Gonzales said, "and that's why I have counted on him on several occasions to help me out."

In March 2003, Bowen left the White House for the job at Patton Boggs, a prominent law firm. He was recruited by Benjamin Ginsberg, a Patton Boggs partner who had been national counsel for the Bush presidential campaigns and a key player in the Florida recount.

After only nine months at Patton Boggs, the White House asked him to become the government watchdog over the reconstruction of Iraq.

"I knew I was getting into a situation that was unprecedented, for which there was no rule book on how to operate and that it was a high-threat environment," he said.

The setting

In Baghdad, Bowen runs a tight group of about 30 auditors, investigators and other employees packed in three rooms of the Republican Palace, an enormous two-story building within the Green Zone that also houses many of the agencies working under the U.S. Embassy.

"It is good to be close to those you oversee," he said Saturday, noting that the proximity makes him available in hallways or the large dining hall for people who want to give him tips for investigation.

The Republican Palace pre-dated Saddam Hussein's regime, but he expanded it to seemingly endless hallways of marble, ornate golden doorways and chandeliers suspended from high ceilings. Deep in the Green Zone, getting there requires going through several checkpoints and searches and navigating wide streets and, eventually, narrow channels set up by the new blast walls that mark off various compounds.

Aside from the high ceiling and one tall window, there is little grandeur in the small office Bowen shares with his staff, jammed around five new, plain desks and a few laptop computers.

"We are very much living cheek by jowl, that has been a challenge," Bowen said, adding that he will need more space this summer when 15 employees will be added to the office.

Bowen and the others in the office live a couple hundred yards away from the palace in trailers with their own bedrooms and shared bathrooms.

"I'm here because I've been asked to be here and I want to serve in this effort," he said. "There are obvious threats but we're really too busy to be distracted by them. . . . I've been woken up a number of times by the sound of explosions or small arms."

In January, a rocket landed on a part of the palace and killed two embassy employees. Several of Bowen's auditors were nearby but were not injured.

Like most of the embassy staff and contractors, the auditors work nearly every day. Bowen said he often jogs near the Tigris River in the mornings, though the river view is obscured by the tall blast walls that surround the four-mile-square Green Zone. He works out in a well-equipped gym where soldiers and contractors lug their weapons from machine to machine.

The task

The challenge is implicit in the "conditions" section of a recent job posting for an auditor's post at Bowen's agency:

"Living conditions in Baghdad are austere, and there is potential for confinement to a compound. Work often requires long periods of overtime, intense concentration, emotional and mental stability and participation in activities under dangerous and trying conditions."

Bowen talks about it as "extreme auditing."

Now, and in the 12-18 more months Bowen expects his agency to be in business, attention is turning to the spending of the $18.4 billion allocated by Congress for rebuilding.

Problems, including inefficiencies and fraud, may be inevitable, according to Bowen.

"I think there is much to be commended in the effort that has been put forth in Iraq," he said. "However our job is to review what we find and to report truthfully and completely about the problems we uncover. And that's why in our reports you get the good and the bad."

To help collect the good and the bad, Bowen goes to Baghdad for tours of duty that last a month or two.

He said he "generally" feels safe.

"The threat is always in the air," Bowen said, adding "Baghdad is a dangerous place."