[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 27 (Wednesday, March 9, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H1207-H1208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, as Congress prepares to debate another $80 
billion war supplemental next week, I call on my Republican colleagues 
to join Democrats in including amendments that would finally begin to 
hold the Bush administration accountable for the billions of dollars of 
taxpayers' money being sent to Iraq. The $81 billion the administration 
is now asking for comes on top of an additional $200 billion already 
spent in Iraq since the beginning of the war 2 years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, it was not supposed to be this way. The Bush 
administration never leveled with the American people about the type of 
sacrifices they would have to make in order to fight this war. You will 
remember that, before the war, President Bush and his war cabinet said 
the sacrifices would be minimal. In fact, the Bush administration told 
this very House that Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction.
  Two years ago this month, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his Deputy 
Secretary Wolfowitz testified before the House Committee on 
Appropriations on the minimal American funds that would be needed to 
reconstruct Iraq. Secretary Rumsfeld told the Committee on 
Appropriations, and I quote, ``I don't believe the United States has 
the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense. Reconstruction funds 
can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil 
revenues and a variety of other things.''
  Mr. Speaker, the Bush administration either deceived this Congress 
and the American people or woefully underestimated the cost of the Iraq 
war. Either way, Congress should hold them accountable for their 
mistakes, and that simply is not happening. Congress should also be 
demanding that Secretary Rumsfeld explain where the $200 billion 
already appropriated has been spent.
  Unfortunately, Republicans have abdicated their oversight 
responsibility and are giving the Bush administration a free ride on 
the enormous miscalculations we have all witnessed in the Iraq war.
  Mr. Speaker, during World War II, then Senator Harry Truman created a 
war investigating committee charged with exposing any fraud or 
mismanagement in our Nation's war efforts in both the Pacific and the 
Atlantic. Truman was a Democratic Senator serving in a Democratic 
Senate majority overseeing the Democratic administration of President 
Franklin Roosevelt. Truman never worried about the fact he was 
investigating a president from his own party. He refused to allow 
politics to get in the way of good government. And, as a result, his 
investigation saved the American taxpayer more than $15 million.
  Now, that is a lot of money in 1940, but it is also a lot of money 
today. I wonder just how much more money we could save the American 
taxpayers if congressional Republicans took their oversight 
responsibility for the war seriously?
  One Republican, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), sees the real 
need for a committee like the one Senator Truman created more than 60 
years ago. He and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) 
introduced House Resolution 116, which creates a select committee to 
investigate both the awarding and carrying out of contracts in our 
continued war efforts in Iraq.
  For more than a year, I have been strongly advocating for the 
creation of such an investigative committee, and today, I also became a 
cosponsor of this legislation that I hope we can include in the Iraq 
supplemental next week.
  Mr. Speaker, every Member of Congress should want to vote for this 
legislation. After all, one of our main functions in the legislative 
branch is to

[[Page H1208]]

oversee exactly where the executive branch is spending funds we 
appropriate. As Senator Truman demonstrated during World War II, this 
has absolutely nothing to do with party politics. Instead, it has 
everything to do with ensuring that the administration is not wasting 
the American taxpayers' money.
  I still cannot understand why congressional Republicans, with the one 
exception of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), are so afraid of 
overseeing the administration's funding of the war in Iraq. I am 
hopeful that Republicans will finally remember why they were sent to 
Washington and join us in creating this investigative committee. It is 
high time we look at the potential for war profiteering and abuse of 
these contracts and the money we are spending in Iraq.
  We need to have oversight. We need to have accountability. It does 
not matter that there happens to be a war. It does not matter that it 
happens that we have a Republican president and a Republican Congress. 
We should all join together on a bipartisan basis to ensure there is 
accountability for this money before we proceed in spending any more of 
it.

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