Truth - Al Franken [107]
But the dimensions of the corruption cover-up were far
greater than the Defense Contract and Audit Agency.
Perhaps the most shocking story
of all about Halliburton is one that involves not just
money, high government officials, and guns, but
sex—and one of today’s top
Iraq had become what one former CPA senior
adviser called a “free-fraud zone.” In its “Global Corruption Report 2005,” the nonprofit group Transparency International warned that “If urgent steps are not taken, Iraq . . . will become the biggest corruption scandal in history.”
Steps, urgent or not, were not taken. No one was surprised that Dick Cheney was reluctant to investigate Halliburton. But that’s why Congress was invented. The nice thing about having multiple branches of government is that they can balance each other, or, when necessary, even check one another. This system of balances and checks is the cornerstone of our democracy. Unfortunately, this Republican Congress sees itself as a rubber stamp.
The body that should have been investigating the corruption in Iraq is the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Maine Republican Susan Collins, who likes to flaunt her supposed independence. Since 2003, that committee has conducted eight hearings on the postal service, two on Defense Department employees’ improper use of airline tickets, and two on diploma mills. They have conducted none on corruption in Iraq.
But maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “This is something they should start looking at in subcommittee to see if it rises to the level of a problem, like diploma mills, that merits the attention of the full committee.” Valid point. In fact, there’s a Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. That seems like the perfect place to investigate Scott Custer and KBR. But I’m afraid, dear reader, you’re once again being hopelessly naive. The subcommittee’s chairman, Minnesota Republican Norman Coleman, is one of the administration’s leading butt boys. He hasn’t held a single hearing on postwar corruption.
If Norm Coleman is serious about realizing his ambition to become vice president in the third Bush administration, he’d do well to follow the example of Harry Truman. In early 1941, Truman took a ten-thousand-mile tour around the United States to look into rumors of defense contractor mismanagement. When he returned, he convinced a Senate and a president from his own party that waste and corruption would impair the nation’s mobilization for war. On March 1, 1941, the Truman Committee was born, launching a three-year marathon investigation into “waste, inefficiency, mismanagement, and profiteering,” saving millions of dollars and the lives of American soldiers.
Truman considered war profiteering “treason.” It still is. And the senators who stand by and allow it to happen must be called to account. Their refusal to act is killing our men and women in uniform.
Jim Leach is a Republican congressman from Iowa. I’ve known him for some time because of his good work as chairman of the House Banking Committee, where he has fought powerful interests in support of the Community Reinvestment Act, which forces banks to lend money to people who historically have been denied access to capital: minorities, women, and the poor. For three years, Leach has been calling for a modern-day Truman Committee to investigate war profiteering in Iraq. I had Leach on my radio show, and although the mild-mannered Iowan avoided the term “butt boy” when describing his Republican colleagues, I could tell he was as mad as I was about the way this Congress is putting party above patriotism.
On the Senate side, Chuck