Audit: FBI agents billed $45k each for Iraq OT

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Audit: FBI agents billed $45k each for Iraq OT
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON – A new Justice Department report shows that FBI agents each billed an average of $45,000 in overtime during three-month tours in Iraq and were sometimes paid for watching movies, exercising and going to parties.

The investigation released Thursday by the department's inspector general found that agents claimed at least eight hours of overtime a day, every day, for the 90 days they were stationed in Iraq.

That amounted to $63 million in overtime between 2003 and 2007, the report found.

This year, overtime costs in Iraq came to about $6.4 million.

The inspector general concluded that the FBI improperly used overtime funding.

The FBI did not have an immediate response to the report.

It could be feasible that they considered their duty in a war zone to be worthy of hazardous pay, but had no other way to express it for billing purposes. In a war zone, they would be in danger at all times, and not only during business hours, but since they were not suppose to be there except in secret, they would have no way to bill for their time spent in danger of their lives. It is not like they could leave to be in a safe place after business hours were were over for the day. If they were capable of acknowledging
their whereabouts for billing purposes there would be no issue, but since it was undercover operations, they would not have been able to expose their location. This makes since when examined carefully, and will all probably be swept under the rug in the long run, and this now exposed issue gets pushed aside for more serious matters.

Whoever the investigators are on this budget issue will probably drop the probe after a few life threatening messages to keep out of FBI matters. I would not like to be in the shoes of these investigators.