State Dept. Hides Facts from Congress

I know this may be slightly outside the usual scope of things here, but does this strike you as outrageous?

The U.S. State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects in Iraq and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit, written by the Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress and the Pentagon.

Sometimes what is government deceit to one person is …umm… a defensible position to another. But this… Can anyone defend the State Department’s blatant dishonesty with us and our elected representatives? Are people getting away with so much up there that they think it just doesn’t matter anymore what they do?