BANGOR – The U.S. government’s top auditor of reconstruction efforts in Iraq described his staff’s job Thursday as providing “oversight under fire” in a high-stakes arena replete with successes and failures.

“Frankly, it’s been a real challenge to track that money in a war zone,” Stuart Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, told Bangor-area business leaders.

Bowen and his staff of 32 auditors and inspectors have the arduous task of attempting to keep track of the U.S. share of a reconstruction effort that recently surpassed the $100 billion mark. About half of that money – or $45 billion, according to Bowen – comes from the American government.

“It’s a mixed story,” Bowen said, “but it’s a story of gradual improvement, too, and of lessons learned.”

Bowen, who was the guest speaker at the Husson College Business Breakfast, has made 18 trips to Iraq since taking the inspector general’s job four years ago. He has also testified before Congress, which created his office, nearly two dozen times, including 16 times in the past year.

His office has initiated more than 330 investigations resulting in 13 arrests and more than $17 million in court-ordered restitutions or forfeitures. Seized items include weapons, a Porsche and more than $700,000 in cash that one man had stashed in a foot locker.

Most of those people were American contractors or employees of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was the transitional government in Iraq.

“We’ve put five people in prison as a result of our investigations to date,” Bowen said.

Audits performed by the inspector general’s office have saved or recovered an additional $57.8 million, according to statistics supplied by Bowen’s office.

But since Day 1 of the war in Iraq, the reconstruction efforts have been dogged by allegations of misspending, questionable no-bid contracts and rampant abuse. Bowen said he got an indication of the challenge ahead during his first trip to Iraq in 2004.

“I was walking down the hall that first morning behind people who didn’t know who I was … when one of them leaned over and said, ‘We can’t do that anymore. The IG [inspector general] is here.'”

Bowen fielded questions from breakfast attendees on the issue of no-bid contracts (they should be avoided whenever possible, he said), as well as the accountability and trustworthiness of Iraqi police and political leaders.

On the latter issue, Bowen called corruption within the Iraqi government “the second insurgency” that will have to be dealt with. But one of the most important lessons learned for Americans, he said, is that the U.S. government needs to dramatically improve its post-conflict planning.

The inspector general side-stepped a question about how the U.S. should get out of Iraq, saying that was a policy issue outside of his jurisdiction. But Bowen’s tour guide of Maine, Sen. Susan Collins, eagerly offered her thoughts on the issue of how to begin drawing down the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

Collins, a Republican, told the group American forces should be focusing more heavily on counterterrorism operations, securing Iraq’s borders, protection of U.S. citizens and infrastructure in the war zone, and training Iraqi troops.

“I believe right now we need to transition to those more limited missions and step back from the combat missions,” Collins said.

Bowen chuckled recalling how a top military officer asked him in late 2003 “why on earth” would he take such an impossible job.

A U.S. Air Force veteran, Bowen said he saw it as an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of his father, grandfathers and great-grandfather, who served the country during times of conflict.

“I’m proud of the auditors and inspectors that have carried out the work that I have asked them to do, and they have done so under duress,” Bowen said.