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The U.S. will halt construction work on some water and power plants in Iraq because it is running out of money for projects, officials said Wednesday.

After leaving FEMA in March 2003, Joe M. Allbaugh, who managed the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign, founded Allbaugh Co., a lobbying-consulting firm with many clients in the disaster-relief business. The firm's Web site quotes Allbaugh: "I'm dedicated to helping private industry meet the homeland security challenge."

Stuart Bowen, U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said it is unclear where the new funds would come from, but it is not the right time to discuss more money to given the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. Gulf region.

A labor union is reporting significant security problems at seven Army bases where federal contractors are guarding the gates, freeing up soldiers to serve in Iraq.

There's one group of people who should be giving thanks daily for the Enron scandal: the partners of KPMG, one of the Final Four accounting firms. That's because the fallout from Enron is what allowed KPMG to extract a favorable settlement from the Justice Department last week. The firm agreed to fork over less than a year's profit in return for not being indicted on a zillion counts of cheating the government by peddling sleazy, dishonest tax shelters for six years.

It is a familiar role for KBR, which under longstanding contracts has delivered the engineering equivalent of first aid to the Navy and other military and government agencies after natural disasters for more than 15 years. This time, the Halliburton unit's performance is likely to be watched especially closely, as its work under separate contracts in Iraq has come under extensive criticism in the past two years.

The resignation comes after Sen. Charles E. Grassley sent Defense Department Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz several letters informing him that he was the focus of a congressional inquiry.

Some lower-level U.S. Air Force and Pentagon officials do not yet fully recognize the need to overhaul defense procurement to make it more transparent and avoid problems of the past, the U.S. military's top internal watchdog said on Thursday.

The Pentagon's chief internal watchdog said on Thursday his agency continues to investigate the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, although he declined to give details.

After fighting mad cow safeguards, the US beef industry complains about the consequences - a multi-billion dollar decline in exports - and a shortage of imported beef because of inadequate domestic testing and labeling.