Auditor wants CIA accounting

WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- With less than a week left as the top U.S. auditor, David Walker is asking Congress again for a review of finances of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Walker, whose 10-year term as comptroller general concludes Wednesday, is backing legislation that would give the Government Accountability Office access to the last major area of the federal government not subject to its audits and investigations.

Walker said he is fighting powerful legislative patrons of intelligence agencies who have resisted examinations of how taxpayer dollars are spent.

"Everybody's for accountability in Washington until they're the ones subjected to it," Walker told The Washington Post. "There are a lot of forces that are vested in the status quo."

The Justice Department issued a ruling in the early 1990s that restricted oversight of the CIA to House and Senate select committees on intelligence.