White Noise Insanity

IN THE MESS that is Iraq, there's one entity that has done an unquestionably good job: the special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction. Under the leadership of Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the inspector general's office has found that the Coalition Provisional Authority could not account for almost $9 billion distributed to Iraqi ministries. Mr. Bowen's office determined that the U.S. government lost track of thousands of pistols and hundreds of assault rifles given to Iraqi security forces. It found that Halliburton Co. wasted $75 million on a failed pipeline project and that Parsons Corp. bungled construction of a $75 million police academy in Baghdad so badly that human waste dripped from the ceilings. Its audits have saved the government more than $400 million.