The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction issued the following new audits:

• 09-009 Full Impact of Department of Defense Program to Restart State-owned Enterprises Difficult to Estimate, January 30, 2009: “Task Force efforts have served to help restart state-owned factories and provide employment in a difficult security environment. However, the full measure of their impact is difficult to estimate because of the absence of good baseline data and weaknesses in the methodology used to identify the number of jobs
  impacted by the effort.”

• 09-011 Opportunities to Improve Management of the Quick Response, January 29, 2009: “The U.S. Embassy’s Office of Provincial Affairs (OPA) has developed a sound process for reviewing and selecting projects to be funded by the QRF program. However, improvements are needed in OPA’s and USAID’s processes for assessing whether their projects were successful and met their intended goals.”
• 09-013 Provincial Reconstruction Teams’ Performance Measurement Process Has Improved, January 28, 2009: “OPA has developed a performance assessment system for evaluating provincial capabilities; however, OPA has not consistently required the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) and embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams (ePRTs) to develop and submit work plans that identify planned activities to address areas of weakness identified by the assessment system.”
• 09-012 The U.S. Has Reduced Its Funding for the Iraqi Security Forces, but Continued Support Will Likely Be Necessary: “As of November 30, 2008, the Congress had appropriated $18.04 billion to the Iraq Security Forces Fund (ISFF), of which $14.3 billion had been obligated for sustainment, equipment, training, infrastructure, and other related support for Iraq‘s security forces. Of the remaining funds, $277.1 million has expired and cannot be used for new obligations, and about $3.5 billion is available for obligation until September 30, 2009. After accounting for its needs through FY 2009, MNSTC-I has about $730 million for which no requirements have been identified.”