Talk:Stuart Bowen

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Untitled[edit]

Bogus Article Disguised as a Biography

The author of the article has misconstrued the letter and intent of the presidential signing statement. This statement, made in conjunction with the signing of H.R. 3289, does not deny Stuart Bowen authority to investigate any contracts or corruption issues involving the Pentagon. It states: "[The]... IG shall refrain from initiating, carrying out, or completing an audit or investigation, or from issuing a subpoena, which requires access to sensitive operation plans, intelligence matters, counterintelligence matters, ongoing criminal investigations by other administrative units of the Department of Defense related to national security, or other matters the disclosure of which would constitute a serious threat to national security." The entire statement is at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-12.html

The author has attempted to create a "biography" of Stuart Bowen to promote some agenda, and has not let the facts get in the way.

The entire article should be deleted and replaced with a legitimate Bowen bio.

Mitch19 (25 September 2006 UTC)

Bremer's counter-attack against Bowen ?[edit]

This article, and several other, say:

Paul Bremer, and other CPA officials ahve complained that Mr Bowen didn't interview them, and wasn't making allowance for the high turnover rate of the CPA staff.

Unfortunately for the credibility of Bremer's claim is that there is an easily checkable paper trail. Bowen's memos and audit reports include copies of the correspondence he and his staff carried out with Bremer's deputies.

In contrast to Bremer's claim, Bowen's most quoted report, the one from January 30, 2004, does address Bremer's understaffing excuse. -- Geo Swan 04:11, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that GS was not the editor who struck thru the sentence in question and left it in the article. And for that matter, there are plenty of things besides stupidity and negligence that could lead editors to make that error, so this is not about any editors' sins or unsuitability. It's just for the record, so that no one is confused by the strike-thru existing in an article for 7 weeks:
A false, or PoV, or misleading, or unverifiable sentence that is bad enough to need to be struck thru is too bad to leave in the article.
If you need to strike some text thru, you need to remove it from the article.
In this case:
  • putting it on the talk page where readers don't have to look at it but editors will (eventually) discuss and reword & qualify it into something suitable for the article, and then put it back, is quite reasonable.
  • leaving it in the article, struck thru like this is lousy.
</rant>
--Jerzy•t 05:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Clean up POV and writing quality[edit]

  • I agree with the cleanup tag from Jerzy•t. There are two problems with this article. First, it is not a true biography. The sole purpose of the article is to discuss Bowen in the context of the Coalition Provisional Authority. This is evident from the death of normal biographical information. Second, this article has clear NPOV issues. Third, the writing needs to be cleaned up. this is similar to the clean up issues in Carolyn Wood and in view of the response on the Wood talk page, here are some specifics. Joaquin Murietta 23:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Stuart Bowen is a lawyer, from Texas (Where is the bio?) , and associate (What does this mean? Bush41 is nto a lawyer, so Bowen was not a legal associate. Were they business associates?] of George W. Bush, who was appointed (which one was appointed, Bush41 or Bowen?) the Coalition Provisional Authority's Inspector General on January 20, 2004. In late 2004 his (comma needed) term was extended, and (comma not needed) his duties amended (duties are not amended, they are changed, expanded, clarified.), when he was appointed Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction(Is this a proper noun? Is there an article by this title?).

According to the KPMG audit (What does this acronym mean?) of the CPA's (this is the Coalition Provisional Authority, but the acronym was not introduced above) expenditures from the Development Fund for Iraq, (Why is this in caps? Is it a title?) US Law 108-106 mandated the creation of the post Inspector General on November 9, 2003. The law specified that the Inspector General should be appointed within 30 days. (Why the paragraph split in the middle of this wonderful argument? And what does this have to do with the biography of Bowen?)

Mr Bowen wasn't appointed until January 20, 2004 and travel to Iraq until February 2004. (traveled? verb or is this meant to be a noun?) Although appointed by the White House, Bowen also reported directly to Paul Bremer. (The significance is not immediately clear.) Mr Bowen's investigations into the Financial management (why the caps?) of the CPA have been critical (investigations have been critical, do you mean they resulted in criticisms?) of its practices.

In contrast the KPMG audit records, the KPMG auditors and many other key members of his staff refused to meet with them and left Iraq without signing crucial documents. (Too many errors to list here!) This left more junior staff members who had not been responsible for those portfolios, and could not speak to their accuracy, to sign them. (This sentence is not well written.)

  1. More details supplied of Bowen's career prior to serving as Inspector General. Yes, "Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction" is his official title. The "Development Fund for Iraq" was the official name of the fund of Iraq's oil revenue that was the successor to the UN oil-for-food program.
  2. KPMG is a large firm of international auditors and financial consultants. When the UN handed over authority of Iraq's oil revenue it did so under certain conditions. One condition was that those expenditures would be overseen by an international board of highly respected financial experts, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, and the IAMB was to approve the choice of the CPA's external auditors, and those auditors were to report to the IAMB. The audit reports from KPMG are available for download. The KPMG audit team was working at the same time as Bowen's team. The reason why the KPMG audit is relevant here is that when (1) Bowen first criticized Bremer, (2) Bremer called foul, saying "they never met with us", (3) well, the KPMG auditor said that it was Bremer who did not make himself available to meet with auditors, and not vice versa -- thus supporting Bowen's position.
What I am really looking forward to is a fuller explanation of what you consider POV, where you say, specifically, what you consider POV. Attempts to arrive at a compromise wording that satisfies everyone will have to wait until you can be more specific. -- Geo Swan 16:22, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I highlighted the key points. Joaquin Murietta 04:58, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

2007 cleanup edits[edit]

I have made an effort to update and expand this article to cover more current information. As it stands now, it does need some sourcing for the biographical information. I think the article is a servicable one, though it probably needs some checking over by other editors to make sure I didn't miss anything. As for accusations of the article lacking a NPOV, I feel that most of the information contained in it as it stands now is relevant to the subject matter. Bowen is notable BECAUSE of his position as Inspector. It makes sense that the thing that makes him relevant would be discussed in his article. --Lendorien 19:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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