GAO accused of coverup

WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- A senior Congressional investigator says his agency covered up fraud by builders of a system intended to shield the United States from nuclear attack.

The $26 billion system is the centerpiece of the Bush administration's anti-missile program, which is expected to cost more than $250 billion over the next two decades, The New York Times reported.

Subrata Ghoshroy, the Government Accountability Office investigator who made the charge, led technical analyses of a prototype warhead for the anti-missile weapon. He received awards for his "great care" and "tremendous skill and patience" in studying the project over 18 months, the newspaper said, but he says the GAO ignored evidence that two contractors had doctored data, skewed test results and made false statements in a 2002 report in which the contractors were credited with revealing the warhead's failings to the government.

The GAO denied the accusation and said the 2002 report was impartial and accurate. Agency head David Walker called Ghoshroy a "relatively low-level, disgruntled employee."

Ghoshroy, 56, made the charge in a letter to Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif. He is currently on leave from the GAO as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.