Busted

Some FBI agents got quite a windfall, but they had to go to Iraq to collect it. Today's Washington Post notes that agents sent to Iraq to investigate Saddam Hussein and his cronies, interrogate detainees at Abu Ghraib and the other black prisons, and to collect evidence "to protect the US targets against terrorism" nabbed some pretty hefty bonuses.

For nearly five years, FBI leaders encouraged employees on temporary assignment in Iraq to bill an average of $45,000 in overtime and extra pay by routinely claiming to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, even when some of that time was spent eating, exercising, watching movies or attending cocktail parties, the Justice Department inspector general reported yesterday.

FBI counterterrorism division managers condoned a time-billing practice under which 1,150 employees between 2003 and 2007 earned about $71,000 during a typical 90-day tour -- nearly triple the typical worker's salary, Inspector General Glenn Fine reported.

The practice violated federal law and regulations and accounted for at least $7.8 million to the $99 million taxpayer cost of the FBI efforts. [Emphasis added]

To be fair to the agents involved, it wasn't some kind of grand conspiracy to rip the government off (apparently only private contractors are allowed to do that). They were actively encouraged to fudge on their time cards by their superiors, the idea being that it was considered a form of "hazardous duty pay," the kind US soldiers get when they are shipped to an active theater of war. Unfortunately, it was illegal.

Even the FBI's top management acknowledges the illegality:

In a statement, [FBI Assistant Director John] Miller said FBI managers early on tried to adapt normal pay practices to "unprecedented wartime assignments" for FBI personnel who were living with sniper attacks, mortar fire and roadside bombs, and employees followed a pay and overtime policy "they were told to use."

However, Miller added, "A system that both fairly recognized employees and complied with pay statutes and other personnel regulations should have been put in place but wasn't."

While I can understand the need for incentives to get volunteers for the hazardous duty, sorta kinda, I do not at all understand why the FBI had to send its agents over to Iraq in the first place. Traditionally, the FBI turf has been domestic. The CIA and military intelligence agencies operated outside the US. While in the past the different intelligence and investigatory agencies didn't communicate well (and there were rules forbidding such communication), after 9/11 we were told that a new system had been developed to encourage the sharing of intelligence amongst the different agencies. Are they still not talking?

Or is it, as I suspect, a case of internecine turf wars still going on, especially in light of the fact that all three branches are now actively engaged in spying on people right here in the US.

Whatever the reason, the article makes it clear that as soon as the DOJ inspector general opened the investigation, the practice was suddenly dropped. By that time, however, nearly $8 million had been spent.

Heckuva job, FBI.