Inspector General

Washington -- Congress should force the State and Defense departments to cooperate in planning and overseeing wartime reconstruction efforts to prevent the kinds of problems that fouled rebuilding efforts in Iraq, according a new investigative report being issued today. The failure of a comprehensive unified planning effort before the Iraq invasion, and shifting oversight of the reconstruction program after the invasion, hindered the United States' ability to effectively rebuild Iraq, according to a "lessons learned report" by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

A clinical trial on the effects of dietary supplements on Naval Academy midshipmen is drawing scrutiny from federal investigators, in part because of concerns that researchers may have violated study guidelines and imperiled the students' privacy. The Food and Drug Administration halted the study last month after discovering that its researchers were unable to account for the medical records of at least 92 of the 260 midshipmen subjects. FDA Commissioner Mark B. McClellan asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inspector general to investigate, noting "important concerns about the integrity" of its study.

Lyman B. Kirkpatrick Jr., 77, a former top CIA official, died Friday from complications of pneumonia at his home in Middleburg, Va. He was in the intelligence services since he enlisted in the Army in 1942, when he was on the editorial staff of U.S. News and World Report. He joined the CIA at its inception in 1947, eventually becoming its inspector general and then executive director, which at that time was the third-ranking position. He left in 1965 to teach at Brown University.As inspector general, he had the job of investigating some internal agency actions that were criticized years later -- among them the 1953 death of Frank Olson, an Army biochemist who died while using LSD in an agency experiment.

The Howard County state's attorney's office has hired an investigator to aid attorneys prosecuting white-collar crimes.State's Attorney Marna McLendon announced this week that Francis W. Curran, a veteran investigator for the federal government, will fill the slot.Curran is deputy assistant inspector general for investigations assigned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the Office of Inspector General.He has worked for 27 years with the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Treasury and NASA, as well as FEMA.

According to a new analysis of data from the Federal Aviation Administration, a commercial aircraft comes too close - so close as to nearly collide - to another plane on the ground or in the sky once every 10 days. The report from Ken Mead, inspector general for the Department of Transportation, says that although the FAA has made progress in reducing such close calls, the number of serious incidents, in which the aircraft are often only seconds away from hitting, is a critical safety concern.

Federal funds to provide counseling for Hurricane Hugo victims financed a catered Christmas party, Caribbean beach outings, $80 pen sets, movie videos that included "The Godfather" and books with titles such as "Sexual Secrets," "Dirty Words" and "Cartoon Classics."The expenses were disclosed in a government audit of the $6.6 (( million provided to the Caribbean Behavioral Institute, Inc., a private company incorporated in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The money came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

WASHINGTON - Honeywell International Inc. should face criminal prosecution or civil penalties for false statements made in a bid proposal that helped it win a $1.2 billion Air Force contract to provide satellite ground station services, the Pentagon inspector general's office said yesterday. Its subsidiary, Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc. of Columbia, Md., misled the Air Force when it said it had in place a management system that tracks the amount of dollars spent on a monthly basis against what was budgeted, the inspector general said in a March audit report.

The U.S. military has not properly tracked hundreds of thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces and has failed to provide spare parts, maintenance personnel or even repair manuals for most of the weapons given to the Iraqis, a federal report released yesterday has concluded. The report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a federal oversight agency, found discrepancies in U.S. military records on where thousands of 9 mm pistols and hundreds of assault rifles and other weapons might have ended up. The U.S. military did not even take the elementary step of recording the serial numbers of the weapons that were provided to Iraqis, the inspector general found, making it impossible to track or identify any that might have fallen into the wrong hands.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said last week that his committee does not have the resources to investigate allegations of hiring and promotion discrimination at the National Security Agency, but that he would support such a probe spearheaded by the Pentagon inspector general's office."

WASHINGTON -- Astronauts at the Johnson Space Center in Houston have flown two-seater supersonic jets to Colorado Springs on weekends during ski season as well as to New Orleans and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., according to NASA's inspector general.While the astronauts said they were fulfilling the flight time required of them each month, some lawmakers criticized the flights to resort cities, which cost about $2,000 an hour.Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Regulation and Information, said the audit, which was prepared by the inspector general and made public in February, raises questions about the purpose of the trips.