WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats hoping to capture control of the U.S. Congress in this fall elections called on Tuesday for probes of the Bush administration"s Iraq rebuilding effort, which they likened to the government"s botched response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Senate Democrats urged congressional and Pentagon investigations into hiring and contracting practices in Iraq. The requests came after the Washington Post newspaper reported young novices with Republican political connections got high-level jobs rebuilding Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

"Iraq, in one of the most critical moments in its history when the United States was there was being run by neocons (neoconservatives) in diapers," said Sen. Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois, a senior Democrat.

"The Coalition Provisional Authority became the Bush administration"s FEMA in Iraq," Durbin added, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The CPA was the U.S.-led governing authority in Iraq after the United States toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power in 2003.

Bush"s domestic popularity plummeted after Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast a year ago, leaving New Orleans in ruins. The public backlash followed a slow, uncoordinated response by Washington, especially FEMA which was headed then by an inexperienced political appointee, Michael Brown.

Hoping to demonstrate that political "cronyism" also contributed to American failures in an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, Durbin said the CPA hired "incompetent political hacks to try to rebuild a country."

He and other Democrats highlighted news reports of applicants for jobs in Iraq being asked their position on hot-button domestic matters, such as abortion. Applicants with language skills and post-war reconstruction experience were passed over because they were not politically connected, according to the reports.

LACK OF OVERSIGHT?

Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), the New York Democrat who is spearheading his party"s effort to gain control of the Senate in November"s elections, blamed the Republican-controlled Congress for turning a blind eye to poor hiring practices in Iraq.

"Where were the hearings, where was the oversight? We didn"t have a thing," Schumer said.

A spokeswoman for the Senate committee that oversees federal hiring was not immediately available for comment. But the committee held a hearing this summer on "lessons learned in contracting" for Iraqi reconstruction and many of the criticisms raised by Democrats were echoed there.

At that hearing, Chairman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, spoke of "waste, greed and corruption" that have "drained" funds that should have been spent rebuilding Iraq.

Collins also drew parallels between U.S. rebuilding efforts in Iraq and the U.S. Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, saying, "In both cases, mistakes, mismanagement and abuse led to unacceptable waste of precious resources and prolonged suffering."