[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]

      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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