Truman Commission proposal: exactly what we need
Lost in the Lamont victory this week Jim Webb and Tammy Duckworth proposed a new Truman Commission to oversee spending on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Read some of what Tammy's said about the waste she saw while in Iraq and how she and Webb plan to get Bechtel and Halliburton out of our pockets after the flip.
This is exactly the kind of practical legislation we need to rein in Cheney's featherbedding, DOD domestic spying and the sensible political response we need to Rove's edict to the press that Lamont's victory is a sign Democrats are weak on national security. We can't fight an effective war on anything anywhere by blowing our fiscal future on giveaways to private contractors and regardless of where any voter stands on Iraq all Americans want our defense dollars spent wisely. This is a great hardnosed policy proposal by two fighting Dems in uphill races in red territory. Show Duckworth and Webb a little love when you're done reading.
Here's the press release:
Iraq War Vet Duckworth and former Navy Secretary Webb propose a new "Truman Committee" to fight defense waste
Bipartisan joint committee would bring needed oversight, accountability to billions paid to contractors in Iraq
CHICAGO - Two war-time veterans, Sixth District Congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth and former Secretary of the Navy and Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb, said today that, if elected, they will introduce legislation to establish a special committee to investigate the billions of dollars being spent on U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The committee would be modeled on the panel created in the 1940s by Senator Harry S Truman, an Army veteran, which successfully investigated procurement and contracting abuses during World War II. "No matter how they feel about the Iraq War, most Americans want to provide our troops with the resources they need to carry out their difficult mission, but that doesn't mean we should write a blank check," said Duckworth. "As someone who served in Iraq, I saw and heard numerous examples of questionable spending on military operations and reconstruction projects at the same time that our troops were facing shortages in the field." "After serving in Vietnam I spent many years working on military budgets," said Webb. "I worked in the Navy Secretary's office. I worked as committee counsel to the Committee on Veterans Affairs I served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Veterans Affairs and I served as Secretary of the Navy. In these positions I spent years scrubbing budgets and I know where the waste is and how to find it. We need a new set of eyes on the problem." This fiscal year, Congress will appropriate about $116 billion to military operations - a 72 percent increase since 2004. The monthly "burn rate" of spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will average almost $10 billion this year - an 18 percent jump from last year. Much of this amount is attributed to the Pentagon's reliance on contracted services, especially those that resulted from non-competitive bids. As an example of the wasteful spending she witnessed, Duckworth recalled that the cooks in her National Guard Unit were not allowed to cook because a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, had received the contract to provide food at $22 a meal while paying the foreign cooks it hired less than $10 a day. Likewise, soldiers weren't allowed to sandbag their own facilities because KBR had the sandbag contract, paying Iraqi workers five or ten cents per sandbag and pocketing the rest. Duckworth pointed out that at the same time these contractors were profiting handsomely from billions in taxpayer-financed contracts, U.S. troops faced deadly shortages in body-armor and equipment. "Someone should have to answer for the disparity between what the contractors received and what our Soldiers didn't. Someone should be holding those contractors accountable," she said. In 1941, after a huge increase in military spending leading up to World War II, the Senate passed a resolution drafted by Truman to establish the Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. It quickly became known as the Truman Committee. In Merle Miller's oral biography, Plain Speaking, Truman explained: "The minute we started spending all that defense money, the sky was the limit and no questions asked . . . Just the fact that there was such a committee, that there was an investigation going on, caused a lot of people to be more honest than they'd had in mind being." By the end of its work, the Truman Committee was credited with saving taxpayers $15 billion - the equivalent of nearly $200 billion today. More important, the committee's work was credited with saving the lives of thousands of Soldiers by exposing shoddy production and dangerous corner cutting by greedy defense contractors. "Congress is appropriating billions of dollars for our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there have been few - if any - hearings into where these billions are going," Duckworth continued. "We need the equivalent of a Truman Committee in today's Congress, where real and meaningful oversight has taken a back seat to partisan inaction. With the right kind of leadership, Congress can bring greater fiscal discipline and accountability to the billions of dollars we're currently spending - protecting both our troops in the field and taxpayers across our nation." Duckworth and Webb unveiled their proposal today at the Chicago Hilton and Towers, formerly known as the Stevens Hotel, where Sen. Truman was a guest during the 1944 Democratic convention. It was while there that he was selected to serve as President Roosevelt's running-mate.
Cross posted at Daily Kos, Soapblox Chicago, and MYDD.
