Rare Bipartisan Support to Keep Iraq Watchdog Agency Alive: " The Senate voted Tuesday in favor of keeping open a federal agency that monitored taxpayer-funded reconstruction efforts in Iraq - a month after the Republican majority in both houses of Congress quietly passed legislation signed into law by President Bush to close down the agency next year.
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) issued a scathing report in October accusing Halliburton, the oil services corporation once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, of once again trying to defraud the federal government related to its work in Iraq. Shortly after the report was released, Stuart Bowen, the inspector general, said he would be out of a job come October 2007, having been told by White House officials that the watchdog agency he headed would be shuttered.
But, in a rare show of bipartisan support, an amendment attached to a military spending bill was drafted ensuring the Inspector General's office would remain open. The overall spending bill is expected to pass the House later this week."
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