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The chairman of the U.S. House Committee on International Relations subpoenaed records last week and is pursuing his own probe of the UN program. ``My committee has an obligation to continue its inquiry,'' said the chairman.

They are everywhere -- ferrying money to businesses in military-style vehicles, guarding gated communities or sitting on three-legged chairs watching over suburban streets. "Private security is growing and has gone through a silent revolution. All over the world, the industry has boomed," says the chain-smoking Jenny Irish-Qhobosheane, a private security researcher.

South Africans seem to be relying more and more on private security. The army of armed and unarmed security guards is growing and seems to be filling in the gaps left by the overstretched police force.

Companies working in Iraq, auditors and the U.S. government office running the $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding program all say contracting staff shortages in Baghdad are a problem as overworked employees struggle to oversee and award contracts in a stressful, hostile environment.

'Worse-case scenario is that someone took it home,' official says

An amendment was slipped into Iraq Supplemental spending bill behind closed doors that would prohibit the Pentagon from terminating the C-130J program. The Senate is expected to vote on final passage of the bill next week.

More companies are beginning to see the benefits of having energy-efficient buildings and physical plants. Cleaner, more efficient office buildings and work spaces not only help the environment but can save a company money, improving that company's -- as well as all of society's -- bottom line.

A criminal investigation into possible fraud in a handful of cases is under way to determine what happened to some of the $96.6 million that was earmarked to rebuild south-central Iraq, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

The U.S. government has opened a criminal inquiry into suspected embezzling by officials who failed to account for nearly $100 million they disbursed for Iraqi reconstruction projects, federal investigators said Wednesday.

Numerous breakdowns in management and oversight occurred when the Interior Department, on behalf of military forces in Iraq, hired private sector interrogators to work in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, according to a Government Accountability Office report.