Embattled State Department Inspector General Resigns
Warren P. Strobel - McClatchy Newspapers
Washington - Embattled State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, under fire for allegedly impeding probes into problems with construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and with security firm Blackwater Worldwide, submitted his resignation Friday.
Krongard has been at the center of a storm for the past two months as current and former State Department employees charged that he blocked them from pursuing investigations into contract fraud and mismanagement at the unopened $740 million embassy and into alleged arms smuggling by Blackwater.
In an e-mail to his staff, obtained by McClatchy, Krongard said that he plans to leave the government by Jan. 15.
In a reference to the upheaval in the inspector general's office in recent months, he told his staff: "I also ask you, frankly, to make an effort to reduce the static that interferes with the harmony we would like to achieve."
There was no immediate comment from the State Department.
The State Department's inspector general is supposed to investigate criminal wrongdoing, audit contracts and inspect the agency's embassies and missions worldwide.
Krongard, a former counsel to several leading accounting firms, became the focus of attention in mid-September, when Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Committee, released a letter questioning his conduct.
Krongard initially vowed to fight the charges.
But his position crumbled at a hearing of the House panel last month, when it became known that his brother, former top CIA official Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, had been offered a position on a Blackwater advisory board.
In testimony to the House panel, Krongard initially disputed that his brother had ties to Blackwater. But he changed his position after speaking to him by phone during a break in the hearing. The revelation demoralized his Republican backers.
Krongard is the second major casualty in a spreading controversy over Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's management of department activities in Iraq.
Richard Griffin, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, quit in late October amid a furor over a Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad by Blackwater employees that left 17 Iraqis dead.
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