At a time when the Republican Congress appears loath to initiate an independent, non-partisan commission to look into the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, The New York Times' Philip Shenon reports that the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security is just beginning his investigation.

The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that his office had received accusations of fraud and waste in the multibillion-dollar relief programs linked to Hurricane Katrina and would investigate how no-bid contracts were awarded to several large, politically well-connected companies.

The inspector general, Richard L. Skinner, who serves as the department's internal watchdog, said in an interview that he intended to be "extremely aggressive" in monitoring the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will receive most of the $62 billion in disaster-response financing approved by Congress last week.

FEMA, which is part of Homeland Security, was harshly criticized in recent months as mismanaging millions of dollars in relief funds after a 2004 hurricane in Florida.

[...]

[Skinner] said that his investigators would focus on several no-bid contracts awarded over the last two weeks to large, politically influential companies, including the Fluor Corporation of California, a major donor to the Republican Party, and the Shaw Group of Baton Rouge, La. Shaw is a client of Joe M. Allbaugh, a consultant who is the former head of FEMA and was President Bush's campaign manager in 2000.

Another of Mr. Allbaugh's clients - Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the giant defense contractor once led by Vice President Dick Cheney - is doing major repairs at Navy facilities along the Gulf Coast that were damaged by the hurricane. That work is being done under a $500 million contract with the Defense Department.

It's amazing that the Inspector General would even have to field such inquiries regarding no-bid contracts going to companies connected to the Republican Party. Would it be impossible to create an expedited bidding process? (This is not a rhetorical question; I do not actually know the answer to this.) If the answer is no -- that for the rebuilding to occur, there must be no-bid contracts -- why not just spread around the largesse to remove any doubt in the minds of critics? Are Halliburton and other such corporations really the only companies equipped to undertake such tasks?