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Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) is trying to revive efforts to set up a standing Senate committee to investigate billions of dollars worth of contracts in Iraq.
“There is so much waste and fraud and abuse that I think the only way to deal with it is to continue to put a spotlight on it,” Dorgan said at a briefing Wednesday. “All of the authorizing committees are doing some work in this area, but … they just don’t have the capability to do the work that has been done in many cases in previous wars.”
Dorgan said he would not offer his measure as an amendment to the wartime spending bill. Instead, he is trying to woo Republicans by assuring them that the panel would not begin work until after the November elections and so could not color the presidential campaign.
As chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, Dorgan has held 13 oversight hearings to examine war contracts, including ones issued by the Defense Department to Halliburton Energy Services, whose chairman used to be Vice President Cheney.
With war costs projected to exceed $1 trillion, Dorgan wants a new bipartisan panel to resemble the World War II committee that examined war profiteering and was spearheaded by Sen. Harry Truman (D-Mo.). That panel, Dorgan said, held 60 hearings a year for seven years and saved an estimated $15 billion.
“That’s what should happen during wartime,” Dorgan said.
The Senate has rejected several efforts by Dorgan to establish the commission. Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is also ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, told Dorgan some time ago that investigations by the committees of jurisdiction were adequate. |
