[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 62 (Friday, April 18, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3174-S3175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. LEAHY (for himself and Mr. Grassley):
S. 2892. A bill to promote the prosecution and enforcement of frauds
against the United States by suspending the statute of limitations
during times when Congress has authorized the use of military force; to
the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this country recently marked the 5-year
anniversary of the war in Iraq--a war that the Bush administration
refuses to end. The losses in this war have been staggering. More than
4,000 American soldiers have been killed and nearly 30,000 wounded.
Hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars has been spent to fight this
war, money which could have been--and should have been--used to help
American needs here at home. Estimates for the cost of the President's
adventure in Iraq are now into the trillions.
Through it all, the Bush administration has chosen essentially to
ignore one of its primary obligations during wartime--to protect
American taxpayers from losses due to fraud, waste, and abuse of
military contracts. Sadly, these problems are all too common in times
of war, and have been particularly pervasive in Iraq.
Over the past year, I have chaired hearings in the Appropriations and
Judiciary Committees focused on the billions that have been lost to
contracting fraud, waste, and abuse during this war. The testimony at
those hearings has exposed the Bush administration's failure to take
aggressive action to enforce and punish wartime fraud. It has also
shown how difficult it can be for investigators to uncover and
prosecute fraud amidst the chaotic environment of war.
These problems have been exacerbated time and time again by the Bush
administration, as tens of billions of dollars in ``no-bid'' and
``cost-plus'' contracts have been awarded with little, if any,
oversight or accountability. Billions in cash--physical, paper money--
have been flown to Iraq and handed out in paper bags, often without
records of who received what, and when. Billion dollar contracts for
training services cannot be audited because the records are incomplete,
lost, or in disarray. The Government has been billed for defective
products, like faulty ammunition, unsafe bulletproof vests, and even
unsanitary drinking water for the troops.
Too often we do not learn about serious fraud until years after the
fact. What we do know is that tens of billions of dollars are
unaccounted for, and potentially lost to fraud, and little has been
done to hold anyone accountable and recover the lost money.
This problem is not entirely new. Our nation has faced challenges in
past wars. During World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
spoke out against ``war millionaires'' who made excessive profits
exploiting the calamity of war. President Harry Truman, when he served
in the Senate, held historic public hearings to expose gross fraud and
waste by military contractors during the war.
Unlike the current President, however, Presidents Roosevelt and
Truman took action to ensure that wartime fraud could be successfully
investigated and prosecuted despite the difficulties presented by an
ongoing war.
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed the Wartime Suspension of
Limitations Act, which made it possible for criminal fraud offenses
against the United States to be prosecuted after the war was over.
President Truman signed a bill making that law permanent in 1948.
Everyone understood then that it was unrealistic to believe that all
contracting fraud could be tracked down immediately in the midst of a
war. The law provided for the suspension of the statute of limitations
until the war was over. Congress supported this law overwhelmingly, as
they had with a similar provision during World War I. President
Roosevelt wrote: ``The crisis of war should not be used as a means of
avoiding just penalties for wrongdoing.''
While the provision for post-war enforcement against fraud is still
the law today, the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are exempt
from its requirements. This Roosevelt-era law only applies ``when the
United States is at war.'' The military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan were undertaken without Congressional declarations of war.
In recent decades, Congress has
[[Page S3175]]
considered authorizations for the use of the Armed Forces, rather than
formal declarations of war. I voted for the authorization to strike
back at Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. I voted against the ill-
conceived authorization to go into Iraq.
Today we introduce the Wartime Enforcement of Fraud Act of 2008,
which updates President Roosevelt's law for our times. This will allow
us better to protect American taxpayers from contracting fraud today,
just as we did during World War II. I thank Senator Grassley for his
co-sponsorship of this important legislation. He has been a leader in
Congress on efforts to investigate and combat fraud against the United
States.
This bill would make current law suspending the statute of
limitations during wartime applicable to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan. In doing so, we would allow investigators and auditors
to continue their efforts to uncover criminal fraud and for those who
commit fraud to be brought to justice after the conflicts end. If left
unchanged, under the current statute of limitations, each passing day
of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan could amount to immunizing
fraudulent conduct by war contractors that has gone undiscovered during
the Bush Administration or during the conflicts.
This legislation would make three simple changes to current law.
First, it would suspend the statute of limitations not only to when the
United States is technically engaged in a declared war, but also when
Congress has enacted a specific authorization for the use of the Armed
Forces consistent with the War Powers Resolution. In doing so, this
language would apply the existing World War II-era law to the ongoing
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to similar actions in the
future. It would not apply, however, to international peacekeeping
missions under the auspices of the United Nations or to military
actions not specifically authorized by Congress.
Second, the legislation would extend the statute of limitations for
five years after the end of the conflict. The statute of limitations
today for criminal fraud offense is five years from the time of the
offense, and this bill would just toll the running of the statute
during the conflict itself and not a day longer.
Three, the bill would make clear that a Presidential proclamation
ending hostilities, and thus ending the tolling of the statute of
limitations period, must be a formal proclamation with notice to
Congress. Secret proclamation by the President or a self-serving
``mission accomplished'' speech will not do the trick.
The statute of limitations is an important check on the proper use of
government power, and we should not act to suspend it except in
extraordinary circumstances. Wars provide exactly such circumstances,
and current law recognizes this common sense reality by suspending the
statute of limitation for fraud offenses during wartime. It would be
wrong to exempt the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from this law and to
allow war profiteers immunity for their illegal and unpatriotic conduct
during wartime.
President Roosevelt called upon Congress to act on this important
matter during World War II. Today, I echo his concerns and call upon
the Senate to pass this legislation to protect the American taxpayers
from war contracting fraud. This Congress should pass--and the
President should sign--the Wartime Enforcement of Fraud Act of 2008
without delay.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 2892
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Wartime Enforcement of Fraud
Act of 2008''.
SEC. 2. SUSPENSION OF STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS WHEN CONGRESS
HAS AUTHORIZED THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
Section 3287 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by inserting ``or Congress has enacted a specific
authorization for the use of the Armed Forces, as described
in section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C.
1544(b)),'' after ``is at war'';
(2) by inserting ``or directly connected with or related to
the authorized use of the Armed Forces'' after ``prosecution
of the war'';
(3) by striking ``three years'' and inserting ``5 years'';
(4) by striking ``proclaimed by the President'' and
inserting ``proclaimed by a Presidential proclamation, with
notice to Congress,''; and
(5) by adding at the end the following: ``For purposes of
applying such definitions in this section, the term `war'
includes a specific authorization for the use of the Armed
Forces, as described in section 5(b) of the War Powers
Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(b)).''.
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