[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 156 (Thursday, December 2, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8377-S8380]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNRESOLVED ISSUES
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I wanted to take some time today to talk
about some issues that have been around for a number of years and
remain unresolved in a way that I believe is very detrimental to our
country and our citizens.
There is a lot of discussion these days about deficits and debt at
the Federal level. We have a $13 trillion Federal debt and a $1.3
trillion deficit this year. We have a fiscal policy that is in great
difficulty. The discussion these days is about extending tax cuts--by
the way, none of which is anticipated in the budget numbers that are
already unsustainable, showing large debts for the long term. Extending
all of the tax cuts that were scheduled to expire this year will add $4
trillion to the $13 trillion debt that already exists. The reason I
mention the fiscal policy issue is, when we talk about debt and
deficits, most people talk about the need to cut spending. We also need
some additional revenue from those who are not paying their share. But
we do need to cut spending.
I believe I have held 21 hearings as chairman of the Democratic
Policy Committee over recent years--21 separate hearings on the subject
of waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Much of it still goes on in terms of the work with the
Pentagon on this contracting issue.
I have just received a letter from the inspector general at the
Pentagon, who is looking into one of the issues of the last hearings--
the issue of soldiers and contractors who were exposed to sodium
dichromate, a chemical that was the subject of the movie ``Erin
Brockovich,'' soldiers who were exposed and not told they were exposed
to that deadly carcinogen and some of whom have already died. They were
both National Guard and Regular Army soldiers.
In the context of doing a lot of these hearings, I have discovered
and I believe that throughout the last decade, we have seen the
greatest waste and fraud and abuse in the history of this country. It
has contributed immeasurably to this overspending and deficits and
debt. I wanted to talk about that work we did, myself and my
colleagues, over 21 separate hearings.
At one of the hearings we held, we had testimony from a man who, in
Iraq, was responsible for rooting out corruption in the Iraqi
Government. His name was Judge al-Radhi. I have a photograph of Judge
al-Radhi. He testified in this country. He testified that in his work
as head of the anticorruption unit in Iraq, he found that $18 billion
was missing, most of it American money, most of it coming from the
American taxpayer.
Just missing. Now, why was he here in the country testifying at a
hearing I held? Because he got booted out of Iraq, and he got no
support from the U.S. Government as he was booted out of Iraq, and he
ended up in this country. But he is the person who was supposed to be
rooting out and investigating and prosecuting waste and fraud and
abuse.
His investigations and the investigations of his staff--some of whom
were assassinated, some of whose families were killed--show there was
$18 billion--$18 billion--missing, and most of it was American money.
Well, that is the story about Judge al-Radhi.
We had a hearing early on in this process and talked about the issue
of contractors and contracting. As you know, in the early part of the
war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, money was just shoved out the back door
of the Pentagon, hiring contractors, very large contracts, in most
cases no-bid, sole-source contracts.
A very courageous woman came to testify before our committee. Her
name was Bunnatine Greenhouse. She was the highest civilian official at
the Army Corps of Engineers, the highest civilian official in the
Pentagon in charge of contracting. Here is what she said. She objected
to the way the Pentagon was doing these contracts, massive contracts,
sole-source, a massive amount of money, and she watched as the normal
processes were avoided and ignored. She testified in public:
I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to
contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root represents the
most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed
during the course of my professional career.
This is an extraordinary woman, the highest civilian person in the
Army Corps of Engineers. She was in charge of contracting. Two master's
degrees, came from a family in Louisiana. All three kids have advanced
degrees. Her brother, by the way, was one of the 50 top professional
basketball players in the last century, Elvin Hayes. Bunnatine
Greenhouse. Remember that name. A very courageous woman, she saw
abuses, spoke about it publicly, and for that she lost her career. She
gave up her career. She was told: Resign or be fired.
Let me talk about what she meant when she said the most unbelievable
abuses she had seen in contracting. I want to do it starting small
because then I am going to talk about billions of dollars.
But at one of our hearings, we had a man who kind of looked like a
bookkeeper at a John Deere dealership in a
[[Page S8378]]
small town. He was kind of a good old guy with glasses, and he had been
in charge of purchasing for Kellogg, Brown & Root or Halliburton over
in Kuwait, purchasing the things our troops needed in Iraq. He came and
testified, and he said: You know, as I was purchasing things, I was
told by my employer, Halliburton: Don't worry what the cost is, the
taxpayer pays for this. This is cost-plus.
So he told us a number of examples, big examples, but he brought a
small one that I thought reflected the entire attitude.
This is a towel. I ask unanimous consent to show the towel on the
floor of the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. This is a towel. Halliburton was to purchase towels for
the troops, hand towels. You know, they were purchasing hand towels to
be awarded to the troops. So he ordered some white hand towels for the
troops, and his boss said: Well, you can't order those white hand
towels. You have to order the hand towels that have the logo of our
company, ``Kellogg, Brown & Root,'' on the hand towel.
Mr. Bunting said: Yes, but that would quadruple the cost.
His boss said: That doesn't matter. This is a cost-plus contract.
Order the towels. Put our company name on them.
I mean, this is such a small but important symbol of the behavior
that went on for most of the decade that fleeced the American
taxpayers.
We had a hearing in which we were told by a food service supervisor
of Kellogg, Brown & Root that Kellogg, Brown & Root charged the Federal
Government for serving 42,000 meals a day to American soldiers but they
were only serving 14,000 meals. They were charging the taxpayer for
42,000 meals--according to this supervisor who was on the ground and
then left the company in disgust--they were charging the taxpayers, the
American Government, for 42,000 meals a day for soldiers and serving
only 14,000 meals a day.
We had testimony about brand new $85,000 trucks being left on the
side of the road to be torched because they had a flat tire or a
plugged fuel pump. Why? Cost-plus. A new truck. Taxpayers will buy
another one.
There was a company called Custer Battles to which the previous
administration and the Pentagon awarded over $100 million in security
contracts. We had a man named Frank Willis who came to testify at a
hearing I held. Frank Willis was a classic example of a guy who went to
Iraq to see if he could do some good and wanted to be helpful to our
government's effort in Iraq. He showed us a photograph, which I thought
I had--I think we probably do not--a photograph of $2 million which was
in the basement of the building in which he worked. They had cash, only
cash, and their message to contractors in Iraq was, you bring a bag, we
pay cash. And he showed me a photograph of $2 million, hundred-dollar
bills wrapped in Saran Wrap that he said they occasionally threw around
the office as a football--$2 million sitting on the table, American
taxpayers' money. By the way, much of that was loaded on pallets and
flown over to Iraq in C-130s. There were even stories about people
dispensing hundred-dollar bills out of the back of pickup trucks. So it
was.
Custer Battles went on to be charged with defrauding the Pentagon, of
massive over billing. We had a witness named Robert Isakson who said
that Custer Battles had handed in $10 million in fake invoices for
about $3 million of work. In one example, the company was charged with
taking forklifts that they found--they were to provide security for the
Baghdad Airport. They took forklifts they found in a building at the
Baghdad Airport--they received the forklifts for free because they took
over the security. They got the forklifts, took them someplace, painted
them blue, and then sold them back to the U.S. Government.
The case against Custer Battles was thrown out of court on procedural
grounds, and a new case is now pending, as I understand it, before the
Fourth Circuit.
We had testimony before this committee about something called The
Whale. It is a prison in Khan Bani Saad. I want to show what we have in
Iraq. Our country--that is, the coalition provisional government, which
was us; we set it up in Iraq and we ran it--said: We are going to build
a prison in Iraq, Kahn Bani Saad prison.
The Iraqis said: We don't want a prison there.
We said: We are going to build a prison anyway.
So we spent $40 million of American money on this. Two contractors
ended up getting $50 million total, and here is what it looks like
right now in Iraq. It has never been used, never will be used. The
Iraqis didn't want it. But our country dumped nearly $50 million into
this project.
You know, the question is, Who is accountable for that? Who is going
to answer to it? And I have watched now, holding 21 hearings over a
decade and finding that very few are held accountable for this kind of
thing. This prison was built of a scale to house 3,600 inmates. It will
never be finished. As you see, you have just a shell of some cinder
blocks, and the American taxpayers are out about $50 million.
We heard from witnesses about the Parsons Corporation, which got a
$243 million contract to build or repair 150 health clinics in Iraq.
Two years later, the money was all gone, and there weren't 150 health
clinics, there were 20.
I had a doctor, a very brave, courageous physician, come to this
country to testify to what he saw of the ones that were completed.
Unbelievable. So what happened to the money? The American taxpayers
lost the money. Did this improve the health of the Iraqis?
The physician who came to testify said he went to the Minister of
Health in Iraq and said to the Minister of Health: Where are those
clinics, because I am told the Americans have spent $243 million to
build health clinics. Where are the clinics?
The Iraqi Health Minister said: Well, most of them are imaginary
clinics.
Yes, but the money was not imaginary. The American taxpayers' money
is gone.
We had several hearings on the issue of Kellogg, Brown & Root. And I
mention them because they got the biggest contract, sole-source
contract. That is why they are the ones that are mentioned the most.
They were providing water treatment to the military facilities in Iraq.
So our solders are in military camps in Iraq, and KBR gets the water
treatment contract. It turns out that the nonpotable water they were
providing to soldiers in the camps that we had a hearing on was more
contaminated than raw water from the Euphrates River.
We actually had, from a whistleblower, the internal memorandum from
Kellogg, Brown & Root, by the guy who was in charge of the water
contract in Iraq, and in his memorandum, he said this was a near miss.
It could have caused mass sickness or death. But publicly, they said it
didn't happen. The Defense Department said it did not happen. But it
did happen, and I asked the inspector general to investigate it. He
did. He did a report and said that both the Defense Department and
Kellogg, Brown & Root were wrong. It did happen, in fact. That kind of
contaminated water was being served to the troops because the contract
was a contract that was not provided for appropriately by the company.
The company was taking the money and not doing what it was supposed to
do with the water.
By the way, in the middle of these hearings, while the Department of
Defense, Department of the Army, as well as Kellogg, Brown & Root were
denying it all, I got an e-mail here in the Senate from an Army doctor,
a captain, and she wrote to me and said: I am a physician in the camp.
I had my lieutenant follow the water line to find out what was
happening because I had patients here who showed that they were
suffering diseases and suffering problems as a result of contaminated
water.
So that came from the physician who was in Iraq on the ground.
So despite all of the denials, the inspector general finally issued a
report saying: No, no, the Defense Department was wrong, as was
Kellogg, Brown & Root. A contract to provide water to these soldiers
across Iraq at the Army camps was not being appropriately handled, and
very contaminated water was going to those camps.
The list is almost endless. I know there is a photograph I have shown
on
[[Page S8379]]
the floor previously because it is another contract to provide
electrical capabilities to the Army camps. When you put up an Army
camp, you have the need to provide electricity. And I held two hearings
on this subject.
This is a photograph of SGT Ryan Maseth--quite a remarkable young
man, a Green Beret from Pennsylvania. He is shown there with his
mother, who is a very courageous woman as well. He was killed in Iraq,
but Sergeant Maseth wasn't killed by a bullet from an enemy gun;
Sergeant Maseth was killed taking a shower. He was electrocuted in a
shower. And it wasn't just Sergeant Maseth; others lost their lives as
well--electrocuted in a shower, power-washing a Jeep.
The fact is, what we discovered when we held the hearings was that
the work that was done to provide electricity and to wire these camps
was done in some cases by people who didn't have the foggiest idea what
they were doing. Third-country nationals who couldn't speak English and
didn't know the first thing about electricity were working on these
issues.
The Army originally told Mrs. Maseth that her son died, they thought,
because he took an electrical appliance into the shower. No, he didn't.
He was killed because shoddy electrical work was done that ended up
killing this soldier.
Now, Kellogg, Brown & Root denied that, as did the Defense
Department. The inspector general did the report and said: Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that sure did happen.
In fact, let me show you what the inspector general has said.
This is from Jim Childs, master electrician hired by the Army Corps
of Engineers, to inspect this electrical work for which the American
taxpayer paid a bundle. Jim Childs, master electrician, went in after I
held the hearings. He said:
[T]he electrical work performed by KBR in Iraq was some of
the most hazardous, worst quality work I have ever inspected.
Let me show what Kellogg, Brown & Root said:
The assertion that KBR has a track record of shoddy
electrical work is simply unfounded.
The inspector general did the inspection. We had to redo much of the
work in Iraq and Afghanistan, inspect it all and redo much of it. In
the meantime, people died. We have demonstrated that there is evidence
of shoddy work in a range of areas. Yet the contractors continue to be
given additional contracts. For the shoddy electrical work for which
some soldiers gave their lives, this contractor was not only given the
money from the contract but bonus awards for excellent work. I have
tried very hard to get the Pentagon to take back those bonuses,
unsuccessfully. But the reason I am going through this is to point out
that we have for a decade now been shoveling money out the door at a
time when we are deep in debt, spending a great deal of money on the
defense of this country, on the Defense Department, on the war effort,
and so on. A substantial portion of that which goes out the back of the
Pentagon in the form of contracts has represented the most egregious
waste in the history of the country.
One of my great regrets is that we did not--and we should have; I
tried very hard--ever get constituted a Truman-type committee which
existed in the 1940s to investigate this sort of spending and to try to
shut down spending that is not only injuring our troops and disserving
them but injuring taxpayers.
I started by talking about the issue of sodium dichromate. We think
about 1,000 soldiers were at risk at a place in Iraq that is called
Qarmat Ali. Some have died. Those soldiers who were at Qarmat Ali told
of seeing something like sand blowing all over the place. It was red,
however. That was the sodium diechromate, a deadly carcinogen. It is
the subject over which a movie was made called ``Erin Brockovich.''
We have tried for a long time to get the Pentagon to be as active and
involved as they should be with respect to the health and safety of
those 1,000 soldiers who were potentially exposed. Like most of these
issues, they have been very slow to respond.
My point is twofold. One is about supporting America's fighting men
and women, doing what is right for them. There have been a number of
people in the Pentagon--one of whom testified before the Armed Services
Committee in the Senate and who I strongly believe knew he was not
telling the truth. He was a general, as a matter of fact. There have
been a number who have denied virtually all of these circumstances. Yet
inspectors general have investigated and said they are wrong.
Obviously, the contractor denies these things. The contractors have
gotten wealthy doing this. We have had whistleblowers come in. A woman
came in and told us she was working at a recreational facility in the
war theater, and that is at the base. There is a facility where you can
play pool and ping-pong and do various things. It was a facility with
many different rooms. She worked for Kellogg, Brown & Root and she was
to keep track of how many people came in because they got paid based on
how many people came in.
She said: What they told me to do was to keep track of how many
people came in to each room, and that is what we billed the government
for. If somebody came in and went through three rooms, the government
was billed for three visits. I went to the people in charge and said:
This is fraud. We can't do this. We are defrauding the government. They
immediately put me in detention in a room under guard and sent me out
of the country the next day.
It is the story of virtually all the hearings we have held.
The point is twofold. One is to protect America's soldiers and do
right by the men and women who have gone to war because this country
asked them to. Secondly, on behalf of the American taxpayer, to decide
if we are choking on debt and deficit, to continue doing what we know
is wrong, shoveling these contracts out the door without adequate
accountability is something we have to pay attention to.
Secretary Gates has tried more than others. When I began these
hearings, which stretched into 21 hearings, the then-Secretary of
Defense had virtually no time for these issues. I have had an
opportunity to talk to Secretary Gates. I know he has tried very hard
to make changes. Moving the Pentagon on these issues is very difficult.
There is a relationship always between the Pentagon and the largest
suppliers and largest companies and contractors with whom they do
business. My experience has been we can have the goods and have them
red-handed. We can have internal memorandum from the company itself
that says they screwed up, could have caused mass sickness and death,
but publicly they will say none of this happened. It is about
deception, about lying, about cheating taxpayers, and about not
standing up the way we should stand up for America's fighting men and
women. This Congress needs to do much more. Congress needs much
stronger oversight, much more attentive oversight on this kind of
spending.
I went back and read the Truman committee work. Harry Truman was a
Senator. At a time when a President of his own party was in the White
House, he insisted that they establish the Truman Commission, of which
he became chairman. He insisted on getting a committee to investigate
waste in the Pentagon. They eventually created the committee, and they
made him chairman. They held 60 hearings a year for 7 years. The
committee was started with $16,000. In today's dollars, it saved $16
billion. Think of that. There is way too little oversight going on on
these issues. I have just scratched the surface in the 21 hearings I
chaired. Many of my colleagues were in those hearings. This country
deserves better.
One of the significant responsibilities of Congress is not just to
appropriate money and evaluate what money needs to be appropriated for
but to do oversight. When we send money out the door, this Congress
needs to do better oversight. What I have discovered and decided is
that oversight is sadly lacking at the Pentagon. There are too many men
and women, including Bunnatine Greenhouse, who gave up their careers
and lost their jobs because they had the courage to speak out and say:
This is wrong, this is fraud, this is cheating, this undermines our
soldiers. There are too many men and women who gave up their careers
because they had the courage to do that. We have whistleblower
protections, but in many cases it doesn't work the way it should. There
is much for us to do.
[[Page S8380]]
I will not be chairing additional hearings because my 30 years in the
Congress will be done at the end of this month. It has been a great
privilege to be here. But as one can tell, I believe passionately in
this issue, about our Federal deficits, about spending, about
accountability, but most especially about doing things that support the
soldiers we ask to go to war.
This has been an abysmal record. In this decade, the amount of money
spent on contractors--in many cases with no-bid, sole-source contracts
that were negotiated under the most abusive conditions and in
violation, in many cases, of rules, according to the highest civilian
official in charge of contracting--has been a disgrace. This country
needs to do much better.
The work I and a number of my colleagues did holding these hearings
has in many ways held up a spotlight and tried to shine it on the same
spot. We have cajoled, embarrassed, and pushed, and I think we have
made some progress. But so much more needs to be done and can be done.
My hope is this work will continue.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________