the rebar was inspected by my strucual engineer before pour. Now I am being told after the pour that I need a special inspection done that the strucual engineer was a observation.
Can anyone give me insight on who should have made sure the special inspection was done before the pour. I am the owner.

My guess is the where you live, like earthquake country, you may have needed to be inspected by the city building department.

Even around here, the plans must be approved by the city building department and on-site inspection to be sure they are install as per the approved plans before being buried by all that concrete.

Of course this all depends if you were a good guy and pulled a building permit before starting anything. They would have given you a "Sign Off" sheet that the inpsectors sign off on when they inspect.

Every now and then an engineer or construction company tries to slip one by.

Now who is suppose to make sure all this is done in the right and in the right order. The general contractor.

If you are doing this yourself and you are the one contacting the trades, then you are the general contractor.

If you hire or contracted with someone or company to do all this for you, then they are the general contractor.

Around here, my place of employment, I am sometimes the General Contractor and other times I contract it out. Depends on the size of the job.