[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16184]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    MASSIVE WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to offer one other amendment on 
the Foreign Operations appropriations bill. I will offer it on every 
appropriations bill I get the chance to offer it on. It is legislating 
on appropriations, but it is important to do.
  We have held hearing after hearing on the subject of Halliburton and 
other contractors in Iraq. There is massive waste of the taxpayers' 
money. The most recent hearing talked about a whistleblower who worked 
for Halliburton in a food service enterprise in a supervisory capacity 
in Iraq. He said: We were serving food to American troops that had 
expired and outdated stamps on it by as much as a year. We were told to 
feed it to the troops. There was food in convoys that came under fire, 
and the food was contaminated with bullets and shrapnel. We were told 
to take out the bullets and shrapnel, and feed the food to the troops 
anyway.
  He also said--with respect to when he worked for Halliburton we were 
told if we spoke to a government auditor who came to our base, we would 
be fired or sent to an area to work where there is an active fire zone. 
And this in fact happened to him.
  This isn't just this hearing. It is not just feeding outdated food to 
the troops. It is about people who have testified, whistleblowers who 
have testified at previous hearings and said: We drove $85,000 new 
trucks, and we left them on the side of the road. If they had a flat 
tire or a plugged fuel pump, they got torched. We would just leave them 
behind. It was a cost plus contract, so there was no need to fix these 
little problems. Just buy new trucks, and make a nice little profit on 
the new purchase.
  The stories of waste and fraud and abuse are unbelievable, and nobody 
cares.
  Anybody hear of any oversight hearings by the oversight committees of 
jurisdiction in the U.S. Senate? None, zero. That is why we are holding 
the hearings I am chairing in the Policy Committee, because no one here 
cares.
  I just sent a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld to say please at least 
look into this question of whether we are sending men and women in 
America's uniform to Iraq to fight and serving food that is outdated by 
as much as a year. Unbelievable.
  Bunny Greenhouse testified at the hearing. She is the highest ranking 
civilian official in the Corps of Engineers, and is responsible for 
approving large contracts. She always got excellent scores on her 
performance evaluations. But they didn't like her much when she began 
to interfere with the sweetheart deals given to Halliburton--no bid--
under circumstances she objected to. She said:

       I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to 
     contracts awarded to KBR [Halliburton] represents the most 
     blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during 
     the course of my professional career.

  Will someone investigate? Who will investigate? The answer is no one. 
So I am going to propose, as I have previously, a Truman-type 
committee. Harry Truman, a Democratic Senator from Missouri, when we 
had a Democrat in the White House, said: I am going to investigate 
waste, fraud, and abuse in the military. And he found it.
  We need an investigation here, and we should have a special committee 
of the type of the Truman committee. I will offer that amendment once 
again.
  We cannot sit idly by and suggest nothing wrong is happening. This is 
serious. It ought to be taken seriously. It undermines, in my judgment, 
those who fight the wars, the men and women who wear America's uniform 
and go, when asked by the Government, to fight. The least we can do is 
make certain they are not being fed outdated food, that contractors are 
not shortchanging them in a range of ways, and make sure the taxpayer 
isn't being bilked.
  We have had testimony about how we paid to put an air conditioner in 
a building in Iraq, and then it goes to a subcontractor, and eventually 
goes to another subcontractor, and another one, and pretty soon that 
room gets a fan and we get charged for an air conditioner. The American 
taxpayer just gets shafted, and our troops are ill served.
  There is so much waste, fraud, and abuse that it is unbelievable.
  I will offer these amendments: on the issue of the Truman committee, 
on the issue TV Marti, and also I may offer my amendment on the issue 
of the purchase of Unocal by CNOOC.

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