[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 4 (Friday, January 23, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S207-S208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            IRAQI CONTRACTS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on just one more issue, quickly, the 
Democratic leader was in the Chamber moments ago speaking of something 
I am very concerned about as well. This is the front page of the Wall 
Street Journal today and it says: ``Halliburton Tells the Pentagon 
Workers Took Iraq-Deal Kickbacks.''
  Let me read from the report.

       Halliburton Co. has told the Pentagon that two employees 
     took kickbacks valued at up to $6 million in return for 
     awarding a Kuwaiti-based company with lucrative work 
     supplying U.S. troops in Iraq.

  That disclosure came just days after the top Defense Department 
auditor asked the office to investigate whether Halliburton subsidiary 
Kellogg Brown & Root overcharged for fuel deliveries by more than $61 
million.
  This isn't the first whisper of this kind of issue. Week after week 
after week, for months we have been hearing these charges. Do you think 
anybody in the executive branch seems very concerned about them? 
Apparently the auditors in the Defense Department are. But do you see 
anybody scrambling to hold a hearing about it and do some investigation 
and some inquiry to bring somebody to account for this? It is as quiet 
as church mice around here.

[[Page S208]]

  In the last 6 or 8 years, every time there was a hiccup there would 
be a Senate investigation or a congressional investigation and we would 
hire special counsel and lawyers and have people under oath. Here is an 
example of what we ought to be investigating as well.
  How about getting to the bottom of this issue. The U.S. taxpayers are 
being overcharged $200 million, perhaps, for hauling gasoline into Iraq 
by a company that is charging $1 more than anybody else is charging for 
hauling the same gasoline into Iraq. How about some accountability for 
the American taxpayer. After all, this money comes from the American 
taxpayer. Overcharging, kickbacks, cronyism, preferential contracts, 
nonbid contracts--this demands, this begs for an investigation. This 
Congress has a responsibility to do it.
  I suppose the administration, this Congress, and the majority party 
can ignore this for another week or another month. This is not going to 
go away. Kickbacks, overcharges--this isn't going to go away. The fact 
is this company just got a new contract. This is a slap on the wrist, a 
pat on the back. That is what this is all about. Let us have an 
investigation to find out who is doing this. Let us suspend those 
contracts right now. If we have work to do, if we have fuel to haul, if 
we have supplies to buy, if we have projects to finish, let us get 
contractors to do that. Let us have contracts to haul that fuel and to 
provide those supplies so that we are not going to have to wonder 
whether there are kickbacks or overcharges or fraud.
  I am sick and tired of reading this in the papers and seeing inaction 
in this Congress--none. Week after week after week we have read about 
Halliburton and its subsidiary. It is not just us. The auditors in the 
Department of Defense think the taxpayers have been bilked--not by a 
thousand dollars or a couple hundred thousand dollars, but by tens and 
tens and tens of millions of dollars. Auditors in the Department of 
Defense believe that and are asking these questions. Yet this place 
looks as if it is at parade rest; won't move a muscle.
  There needs to be an investigation by the committees and the 
leadership of this Senate. My colleague, Senator Daschle, described 
that obligation this morning. There needs to be an investigation. I 
hope this will happen soon.
  It was my great concern, as I expressed when the Congress passed 
nearly $20 billion for reconstruction in Iraq, that this was throwing 
money up in the air in a way that called for a carnival of greed. It 
looks like hogs in the cornfield. You have all of this money--billions 
and billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq--and you have 
contractors running around trying to grab some of it. This contractor 
was one of the first with no-bid contracts, now we see these 
allegations--and they have been going on for months--about overcharges. 
Now we see allegations of kickbacks.

  The taxpayers deserve better than that. The taxpayers deserve 
accountability. This money is not some money that vanishes somewhere. 
This is money that comes from the pockets of the American taxpayers. We 
tax the taxpayers to get their money, and then this money is spent for 
the reconstruction of Iraq--a country, incidentally, which we did not 
destroy. We are reconstructing facilities that we did not damage, such 
as roads, bridges, the electric grid, and dams. We didn't target them. 
We didn't destroy them. Now we are told that we must reconstruct them 
with American taxpayers' money--a position that I voted against, a 
position that I think is absurd--in a country with the second largest 
reserves in the world, Iraq, next only to Saudi Arabia, which ought to 
be able, in my judgment, to sell the oil that it produces to 
reconstruct itself.
  For that country to rely, as the President insists it must, on 
American taxpayers' funds for reconstruction is absurd. But, 
nonetheless, that is what happened. The majority of this Congress 
decided they wanted to spend nearly $20 billion of American taxpayers' 
money to do that. Now we see at least part of the result of it, and 
there will be more. But the signal this Congress ought to send is one 
of accountability and demanding through public hearings and a thorough 
investigation. Can we not be as aggressive as the auditors in the 
Defense Department? Can we not at least express the same concern that 
auditors in the Defense Department express about the potential of our 
being bilked out of hundreds of millions of dollars? That is the least 
the American taxpayer should expect from this Congress.
  I think this Congress has not heard the last of this. I and others 
will be on this floor attempting to demand investigative hearings. The 
taxpayers, in my judgment, deserve hearings on these subjects.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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