Fortunately," the friend added, "the department ignored the request.

The department ignored mandated competitive sealed bidding for nonunique, commercial processes.

Even so, the department cannot ignore Congress's findings: awarding a share of the damages is necessary to attract whistle-blowers who would otherwise remain silent.

The department ignored me until one afternoon in November when one of its secretaries had me paged at the hospital.

Instead, the department simply ignored the provision until recently and allowed states to behave as though the teacher quality problem did not exist.

But he also leaves his successor with daunting challenges in other areas that critics say the department has largely ignored.

The department has rightly ignored Administration officials who seem to believe that saying anything might complicate the gulf war cease-fire talks.

"I do think the message is clearly sent that this department will not ignore any attempt to misrepresent yourself," Chief Gallagher said.

And, he said, the department had ignored a proposal that would allow them to pay back the time with vacation days.

That didn't happen this time because his department ignored outside experts who warned, months in advance, about exactly the disaster that has taken place.