[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 141 (Friday, September 21, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11943-S11945]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to make a few comments this 
morning about a hearing we just completed in the Democratic policy 
committee, but I am waiting for some charts. While I am waiting for 
those charts, I want to talk a moment about what is happening with 
respect to the debate here in this Chamber dealing with the war in 
Iraq. It relates to some things I said on the floor of the Senate 
yesterday but I think really bear repeating.
  We are talking about the war in Iraq, the need to attempt to change 
course in Iraq, and yesterday I described again what the latest 
National Intelligence Estimate tells us. Now, all of us have access to 
this. There is a classified version, a top-secret version, and a 
nonclassified version, but all of us have access to this information. 
Here is what it says in the context of protecting this country and 
providing security and safety for this country. Here is what the 
National Intelligence Estimate says:

       Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist 
     threat to the homeland. We assess the group has protected or 
     regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, 
     including: a safe haven in the Pakistan federally 
     administered tribal areas, operational lieutenants, and its 
     top leadership.

  Here is what it says. It says the greatest terrorist threat to our 
homeland is al-Qaida and its leadership, who even now are plotting 
attacks against our country and who have a safe haven in the Pakistan 
region. Now, if that is the case, it is quite clear that the central 
fight on terrorism is not going door to door in Baghdad in the middle 
of a civil war. Yet that is what we are doing.
  I have asked this question, and I have repeatedly asked it: Why 
should there be 1 square inch on the planet Earth that is secure or 
safe for Osama bin Laden and the leadership of al-Qaida? Yet our 
National Intelligence Estimate says they are in a safe haven. A ``safe 
haven.'' These are the people who boasted of killing Americans on 9/11. 
They boasted about engineering 19 terrorists aboard airplanes full of 
fuel and passengers, and they ran them into buildings, killing innocent 
Americans. And 6 years later, our National Intelligence Estimate tells 
us that those who engineered that attack have regrouped, are developing 
new training camps for terrorists, and are in a safe haven and 
developing new plans to attack America. That is unbelievable to me.
  We are debating the war in Iraq, which our National Intelligence 
Estimate also says is largely sectarian violence, or a civil war. Yes, 
there is some al-Qaida in Iraq, but that is not the central front, and 
that is not the central war on terrorism. If, in fact, our role as a 
responsible country is to protect our citizens, then it seems to me we 
would change course and change strategy so that we are taking the fight 
to the terrorists and fighting the terrorists first.
  We have been bogged down--longer now than in the Second World War--in 
what has become a civil war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the greatest terrorist 
threat to our homeland is in a safe haven. Osama bin Laden, al-
Zawahiri, and others, the leadership of al-Qaida, in a safe haven.
  What are the consequences of that safe haven? Let me show a newspaper 
report from last week. All of us understand this because we heard about 
it. They picked up terrorists in Denmark, they picked up terrorists in 
Germany. The terrorists in Germany were plotting attacks against the 
largest U.S. military base in Europe. Where did those terrorists train? 
In Pakistan. In terrorist training camps in Pakistan.
  We are now seeing the fruit of what has been allowed to happen--the 
leadership of al-Qaida in a safe or secure place, operating or 
developing new training camps, training new terrorists to launch 
attacks against our country. Meanwhile, we are going door to door in 
Baghdad in the middle of sectarian

[[Page S11944]]

violence. If ever there is a description of a need for a change of 
course, that is it. I do not understand why some fail to recognize what 
has happened.
  You can go back to February, you can go to June, you can go to the 
disclosures and read them. This one is June:
  ``Al-Qaida regroups in new sanctuary in Pakistan border.''

       While the U.S. presses its war against insurgents linked to 
     al Qaida in Iraq, Osama bin Laden's group is recruiting, 
     regrouping and rebuilding in a new sanctuary along the border 
     between Afghanistan and Pakistan, senior U.S. military, 
     intelligence and law enforcement officers said. The threat 
     from the radical Islamic enclave in Waziristan is more 
     dangerous than from Iraq, which President Bush and his aides 
     called the central front of the war on terrorism, said some 
     current and former officials. Bin Laden himself is believed 
     to be hiding in the region guiding a new generation of 
     lieutenants and inspiring allied extremist groups in Iraq and 
     other parts of the world.

  I don't, for the life of me, understand the failure to recognize a 
set of facts. This reminds me of the period prior to the invasion of 
Iraq--a set of information that on its face later turns out to have 
been wrong.
  We don't need to be told what is right or wrong in terms of the set 
of facts--read the facts, understand the facts. If the central threat 
to our country, the greatest threat to our country, according to 
National Intelligence Estimates, is al-Qaida and its leadership and its 
reconstruction of its system of terror and the development of new 
terrorist camps, if that is the case then, that is where America has to 
be to wage the fight against that kind of terrorist group. Instead, we 
are in the middle of a civil war. That is why we need a change in 
course, a change in strategy.
  It is not as some of my colleagues talk about, a plan for surrender. 
It is simply deciding we are going to attack and launch an effort to 
destroy that which represents the greatest threat to our country. It is 
surprising to me that 6 years later there is anyplace on the planet 
Earth that should, by our national intelligence officials, be declared 
safe or secure for the leadership of al-Qaida. Yet that is exactly what 
we read and what we hear and what we see in official reports. That is 
not something we should accept.
  I wish briefly today to talk about the results of a hearing that the 
Democratic Policy Committee held this morning. The hearing was about 
the subject of contractors in Iraq and also the subject of what are 
called whistleblowers, those are people who are, in many cases, very 
courageous people who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse on 
behalf of the taxpayers of America; to say this is wrong and it must 
stop.
  We had some very disturbing testimony this morning. We had eight 
witnesses. Four of them were whistleblowers. They have paid dearly for 
having the courage to come forward.
  Let me read the testimony of a Donald Vance, U.S. Navy veteran; 30-
year-old U.S. Navy veteran. When leaving the Navy, he chose to go to 
Iraq as a civilian to help American efforts to rebuild the country. He 
worked for a couple of private military contractors in Iraq. Here is 
what happened to him.
  What he saw with respect to the last contractor he worked with was 
the sale of weapons, the sale of stolen weapons to interests who should 
not have weapons, insurgents and others. So he began to report it. It 
was something he believed very seriously. He reported it to his 
superiors. He reported it to the FBI. He reported it to U.S. military 
officials.
  As a result, this U.S. Navy veteran found himself in big trouble. 
Here is what he said.

       Because of the information I possessed and because of my 
     unwillingness to condone the corruption in the company that I 
     saw, I became a target within the company. They took measures 
     to ensure that I could not leave their compound in the Red 
     Zone in which [they] were located. When I called the United 
     States government for help, [the U.S. Government] came to the 
     compound to rescue me. But what started as a rescue ended up 
     as a nightmare.
       That night I was taken to the United States Embassy and 
     debriefed. I told the agent that questioned me everything I 
     had witnessed [about the sale of illegal guns and illegal 
     activity that had gone on.] I also told him that I was 
     informing for the FBI. Instead of contacting the FBI to 
     verify the information I provided, these U.S. government 
     officials blindfolded me, handcuffed me, and took me into 
     detention. According to the Department of Defense 
     spokesperson, they did not bother to contact the FBI until 
     three weeks into my detention. To this day [he said] even 
     though the Freedom of Information Act requests [have been 
     made] no government official has explained what was asked 
     of the FBI regarding myself and what the FBI said in 
     response.
       I spent 97 days in . . . isolation. I was denied food and 
     water. I was denied sleep. I was also denied requested, and 
     much needed, medication. There was intolerably-loud heavy 
     metal and country music blaring into the cells. The lights in 
     the cells were always on. The guards would threaten me and 
     physically assault me. For example, the guards would walk me 
     into walls while I was blindfolded and handcuffed, ``shake 
     down'' my cell for contraband, threaten to use excessive 
     force if I did not obey all of their orders. Finally, for the 
     first few weeks I was [in this prison] I was denied a phone 
     call. No one in my family knew where I was, if I was alive or 
     if I was dead.
       During [that] time I was interrogated constantly. Before 
     each session, I would ask for an attorney. The request was 
     invariably denied. Instead, I was interrogated by a host of 
     United States government personnel, including FBI agents, 
     Navy Criminal Investigative Service officers, as well as 
     possibly CIA and DIA agents. . . .
       According to the government, I was being held as a security 
     internee because of my affiliation with [the private security 
     firm], certain members of which the government believed were 
     selling weapons to insurgents. . . .
       Three months after I was detained, and after alleged 
     subsequent ``re-examination'' of my case, the government 
     released me. Before I was released, however, I had one final 
     interrogation. The main focus of that interrogation was what 
     was I going to do when I got home: Was I going to write a 
     book? Was I going to tell the press? Was I going to get an 
     attorney?

  When they released me, he said, they ``gave me a $20 bill and dumped 
me at the Baghdad airport to fend for myself without the documentation 
I needed to return to the United States.''
  A whistleblower who saw illegal activity, saw the selling of improper 
guns in Iraq, some to insurgents, he felt, went to authorities. His 
country, the United States of America, held him prisoner for 97 days. 
No habeas corpus--which is in the Constitution, by the way. No right of 
habeas corpus for an American citizen here. No right to contact an 
attorney. If this doesn't disturb the American people, I don't know 
what will disturb the American people.
  We heard today from other witnesses talking about two things. One was 
the abuse of the taxpayer by contracting firms in Iraq--waste, fraud, 
and abuse that represents I think some of the worst waste, fraud, and 
abuse in the history of this country. I have held, I believe, 10 or 12 
hearings on this subject as chairman of the Policy Committee over the 
last 3 years. The evidence is unbelievable: $40, $45 for a case of 
Coca-Cola. It doesn't matter, the taxpayer is going to pay for that. 
You order 50,000 pounds, 25 tons of nails, and they deliver the wrong 
size, it doesn't matter, throw them on the sand of Iraq, the taxpayers 
will pay for it. Or a $7,000-a-month lease payment for an SUV.
  Henry Bunting over in Kuwait, working for Halliburton--KBR, a 
subsidiary of Halliburton--he had a job as a purchaser. He said, as a 
small example, I was supposed to order hand towels for the American 
troops so I filled out an order to order white hand towels. My 
supervisor said: No, we don't want those white hand towels. We want 
hand towels with KBR, the logo of our company, embroidered on the 
towels. Henry says: But it will triple the cost. The supervisor says: 
It doesn't matter, the American taxpayer is paying for this. It is a 
cost-plus contract; don't worry about it.
  These are small items, but there are large items. It is unbelievable 
the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse we have uncovered. The fact is, 
there seems to be an attitude in some parts of this Government to 
sleepwalk through it all. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.
  Can you imagine a circumstance where a contractor, in this case 
Halliburton, KBR, is charging us for 42,000 meals a day it is providing 
American troops, American soldiers--42,000 meals a day, and it turns 
out they are only giving 14,000 meals a day? They overcharged by 28,000 
meals a day, according to Government estimates. How do you miss 28,000 
meals a day?
  The evidence is unbelievable when you go through this. This morning 
we had a hearing about contracting abuse. We had testimony. I read some 
from Donald Vance, who worked for a contractor in Iraq and was 
imprisoned by

[[Page S11945]]

his Government for 97 days, not given the right to an attorney, not 
given the right to contact anybody on the outside at any time during 
the early stages of that confinement. That is unbelievable.
  Bunnatine Greenhouse testified once again this morning, the highest 
ranking civilian official in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She said 
the abuse related to the awarding of contracts--here is what she said 
exactly. This is the highest ranking civilian official in the U.S. Army 
Corps of Engineers.

       I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to the 
     contracts awarded to KBR--

  that is a subsidiary of Halliburton--

     represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I 
     have witnessed during the course of my professional career.

  Do you know what happened to this woman for that? She lost her job. 
That is unbelievable, when you think about it. I talked to Secretary 
Rumsfeld about this case. I talked to Secretary Gates about this case. 
I talked to Deputy Secretary England about this case--nothing. Oh, we 
are all looking at it, we are all investigating. They have been doing 
that for 2 years.
  I called the commanding officer of the Army Corps of Engineers when 
Bunnatine Greenhouse was given this job. This is a woman with three 
master's degrees, judged by everyone from outside the Government who 
deals with contractors as outstanding, given outstanding references on 
her performance reviews all along, until somehow she got into a 
situation where she said: I saw things going on with sole-source 
contracting, awarding big contracts, billions of dollars of contracts 
and doing it improperly, abusively. ``I blew the whistle,'' she said, 
and all of a sudden she got into trouble and they demoted her.
  I called her former commanding officer, General Ballard, now retired. 
I called him at home one night and I said: Tell me about Bunnatine 
Greenhouse, because she has paid for her courage to speak out with her 
career. Here is what her boss said: ``She did an outstanding job.'' 
This is an outstanding employee. But because she had the courage as a 
whistleblower to stand up and report things that were wrong, abusive 
behavior, behavior that abuses the American taxpayer, she paid for it 
with her job.
  We can't let that continue to happen. That is why I held this 
hearing. The best disinfectant for bad behavior is sunlight, and I 
hope, as we continue to expose more and more of this, I hope we can put 
an end to it. Those who have the courage to come forward and report 
wrongdoing, to report waste and fraud and graft and corruption--in my 
judgment, we ought to thank them. There is a story, I don't have a copy 
of it here, a story in the USA Today newspaper, written by an 
investigative reporter, that deals with these issues, the issues of 
oversight of contractors and the oversight of contracts that are let 
with respect to the war in Iraq. What we have found--Senator Wyden and 
I have worked on this in the Senate--the Pentagon wants to hire 
companies to oversee other companies. You can't do that. You can't 
delegate that responsibility. Who is looking out for the taxpayer here?
  We had testimony today from Robert Isackson. Robert Isackson is a 
patriotic American. He was someone who saw criminal activity with a 
company called Custer Battles. He reported it. For that, he and others 
who were with him were surrounded by people with guns, threatened. He 
came today and expressed profound disappointment at the way the Federal 
Government has responded or failed to respond. As a person who had the 
courage to be a whistleblower, who saw something wrong and decided to 
try to right it, as a person who stood up for the best interests of 
this country and its taxpayers, we owe him a debt of gratitude.
  And yet we see today that what has happened, systematically--the 
Associated Press wrote a big article about this, exposing it. What has 
happened systematically under this administration to whistleblowers is 
they are abused, not protected; not thanked, but abused. I would hope 
whoever in this administration is responsible and listening and 
understanding might decide that has to stop.
  I will speak more at some point soon about the results of this 
hearing. My colleague Senator Grassley from Iowa I know has spent a lot 
of time on whistleblower issues, and other colleagues have as well. It 
is very important for us that when people come forward to report acts 
of wrongdoing, fraud, waste, abuse, that this country says thank you 
and follows up and will not allow those people to be abused and 
penalized. Yet, all too often, that has not been the case. It has to 
change.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted 
to speak, and then the Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski, be able to 
speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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