Oversight in the wake of the F-22

With all the noise today over the Obama-Gates victory in quashing Congressional plans to expand the F-22 program, I hope that this isn't going to be the end of serious discussion about defense appropriations, and what the role of both civilian leadership of the defense department, and congress should be.

There has been relatively little done to improve the oversight of the War in Afghanistan, even as the resources devoted to the conflict have dramatically increased this year. While there has been limited lip service to the need to expand the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), this Mother Jones piece is the first I've seen in a while to highlight how short that effort has fallen:

In March, when President Obama unveiled his new Afghanistan strategy, he promised "robust funding" for Fields' anti-corruption efforts. But Fields says his FY2010 budget of $23 million is still about $8 million short of what he needs. Instead of the 90 employees Fields asked for, SIGAR has 44. It has produced just one audit. By way of contrast, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released more than a dozen audits in its first year.

maybe some of that 2 billion that was just cut out could be redirected here, huh?

It also may be worth thinking about how the Brits are handling some of the same problems, in light of a former Defense Secretary telling politicians to get out of the ring and not to 'second guess' the military or behave like armchair generals'". You think the debate is nasty over here.