Letter to Chairman Hunter
Dear Chairman Hunter:
We are writing to encourage you to take immediate action to reestablish the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Armed Services Committee.
We do not believe this committee has done sufficient oversight or serious investigative work given the magnitude of the problems facing our nation and our military. We have ongoing problems in Iraq as the meeting with General McCaffrey pointed out, corruption and incompetence have significantly hampered our reconstruction activities, DoD accounting systems continue to be so disorganized that we cannot even tell how much money we lose every year, and the acquisition process continues to result in fewer and more expensive weapon systems.
Our committee still has not looked into the procurement scandals associated with the proposed 767 tanker lease, even though former Defense officials are now in jail. We have seen a number of media reports about problems in providing security clearances for defense contractors, a problem that could increase the expense of many programs and hamper our ability to build and operate the next generation military. In the face of these, and many more, problems, we do not believe we can continue to sit calmly and hope the problems solve themselves.
We encourage you to take immediate action to reestablish the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. This experiment, begun under the Republican Majority, to do away with this Subcommittee has failed. In the face of ongoing and serious problems, our committee requires some way of conducting effective and real investigations, and it is clear that acting through the full committee is an unwieldy and ineffective way of conducting business. We hope that you will agree and take immediate steps to reestablish the O&I subcommittee. The Subcommittee would then have almost seven months in this year to conduct oversight, and we must not let this time go to waste.
Thank you for your kind attention. We are willing to put forward the time and commitment. The American people expect and deserve this oversight.
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