During the first three years of the war, when the GOP controlled Congress and the White House, there was very little, if any, accountability of the money spent by government contractors in Iraq.

Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.

Since the Democrats took over Congress, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has been charged with trying to find out what happened to the billions of dollars the administration and its cronies have squandered, lost or stolen.

Unfortunately, in too many cases, the job has turned out to be impossible:

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said it was forced to suspend its audit of the DynCorp contract after administration officials told investigators they had no confidence in their own accounting records.

The inspector general said the agency had not validated the accuracy of invoices received before October 2006 and described bills and supporting documents as being in disarray.

Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.

The inspector general blamed the problems on long-standing contract administration problems at the State Department agency responsible for the contract — the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL.

“As a result, INL does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program. INL’s prior lack of controls created an environment vulnerable to waste and fraud,” SIGIR said in an interim review.

DynCorp is a private military contractor based in the Washintong suburbs that receives 96 percent of its $2 billion in annual revenues from American taxpayers.

In addition to training the Iraqi police, the company orovide security in Afghanistan and is involved in the poppy eradication program there. It was also deployed in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.