[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 21, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H4374]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    MILITARY WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, next week the Nation will celebrate 
Memorial Day. A fitting celebration of Memorial Day in this House would 
be to crack down on the waste, fraud, and abuse at the Pentagon so that 
we can better equip our troops and we can meet our obligations to our 
veterans.
  At the run-up to the last war, the Pentagon was scrambling to find 
chemical and biological suits. But it turned out that another part of 
the Pentagon had put them up for sale for surplus on the Internet, 
usable suits, and were selling them for pennies on the dollar at the 
same time that we did not have enough to go around in the field.
  But that is nothing new at the Pentagon. They have misplaced $1 
trillion, T, trillion, not million, not billion, trillion dollars 
according to the GAO. They lost 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, 36 Javelin 
missile command launch units. They spent $20 billion trying to overhaul 
their accounting system, and then abandoned that effort.
  That did not help one soldier in the field, did not help one veteran, 
did not help the Nation. Waste, fraud, and abuse by contractors and 
bureaucrats is not patriotic. Let us clean up the Pentagon. Let us do 
something in the bill today to make certain this no longer occurs.

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