13.1 |
Resources
The report
also recorded that SIGIR had developed innovative oversight
practices:
•
a focus on
producing rapid “performance reviews” rather than
slow‑moving
financial
audits; and
•
a focus on
converting findings from audits and investigations into lessons
for
colleagues
on the ground, consolidated in nine “lessons learned”
reports.
The report
offered a number of lessons for future stabilisation and
reconstruction
operations,
including the need to provide a “robust in‑country team of
auditors, inspectors,
and
investigators from the operation’s outset”. Such a team would
detect or deter fraud,
waste and
abuse, improving mission efficiency and effectiveness. The absence
of a strong
team early
in the Iraq operation had allowed too much fraud, waste and abuse
to occur.
SIGIR
convened the Iraq Inspectors General Council in March 2004, to
enhance
collaboration
and co‑operation among the inspectors general of the agencies that
oversaw
Iraq
reconstruction funds.442
The Council
met quarterly to exchange details about current
and planned
audits, identify opportunities for collaboration and minimise
redundancies.
Council
members included: CENTCOM Inspector General; Department of Defense
Office
of
Inspector General; Department of State Office of Inspector General;
Government
Accountability
Office; USAID Office of Inspector General; and the US Army Audit
Agency.
704.
The direct
cost of the UK’s intervention in Iraq was at least £9.2bn between
the
UK financial
years 2002/03 and 2009/10. The table below provides a detailed
breakdown
by
financial year.
705.
That figure
does not include expenditure by departments other than the MOD,
the
FCO, and
DFID. Although other departments made important contributions to
the UK
effort, in
particular in the post‑conflict period, their expenditure was
relatively small.
442
Special
Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Quarterly
Report and Semiannual Report to the US
Congress, 30
July 2009.
563