A State Department review that faulted the agency for failing to comply with its own policies for overseeing bomb disposal grants in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan will not impact ongoing efforts to remove improvised explosive devices (IEDs) left behind by the Islamic State (IS), officials say.
Released Aug. 9, the report from the Office of the Inspector General found that the State Department did not develop required strategies to mitigate security threats for 10 out of 28 (36%) “high-risk” grants that the US government handed out in the Middle East and South Asia since 2013. The audit also found that the agency failed to collect performance and financial reports from grantees in many instances.