Iraq

Floor Speech

IRAQ

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to make a few comments this morning about a hearing we just completed in the Democratic policy committee, but I am waiting for some charts. While I am waiting for those charts, I want to talk a moment about what is happening with respect to the debate here in this Chamber dealing with the war in Iraq. It relates to some things I said on the floor of the Senate yesterday but I think really bear repeating.

We are talking about the war in Iraq, the need to attempt to change course in Iraq, and yesterday I described again what the latest National Intelligence Estimate tells us. Now, all of us have access to this. There is a classified version, a top-secret version, and a nonclassified version, but all of us have access to this information. Here is what it says in the context of protecting this country and providing security and safety for this country. Here is what the National Intelligence Estimate says:

Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the homeland. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan federally administered tribal areas, operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.

Here is what it says. It says the greatest terrorist threat to our homeland is al-Qaida and its leadership, who even now are plotting attacks against our country and who have a safe haven in the Pakistan region. Now, if that is the case, it is quite clear that the central fight on terrorism is not going door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war. Yet that is what we are doing.

I have asked this question, and I have repeatedly asked it: Why should there be 1 square inch on the planet Earth that is secure or safe for Osama bin Laden and the leadership of al-Qaida? Yet our National Intelligence Estimate says they are in a safe haven. A ``safe haven.'' These are the people who boasted of killing Americans on 9/11. They boasted about engineering 19 terrorists aboard airplanes full of fuel and passengers, and they ran them into buildings, killing innocent Americans. And 6 years later, our National Intelligence Estimate tells us that those who engineered that attack have regrouped, are developing new training camps for terrorists, and are in a safe haven and developing new plans to attack America. That is unbelievable to me.

We are debating the war in Iraq, which our National Intelligence Estimate also says is largely sectarian violence, or a civil war. Yes, there is some al-Qaida in Iraq, but that is not the central front, and that is not the central war on terrorism. If, in fact, our role as a responsible country is to protect our citizens, then it seems to me we would change course and change strategy so that we are taking the fight to the terrorists and fighting the terrorists first.

We have been bogged down--longer now than in the Second World War--in what has become a civil war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the greatest terrorist threat to our homeland is in a safe haven. Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others, the leadership of al-Qaida, in a safe haven.

What are the consequences of that safe haven? Let me show a newspaper report from last week. All of us understand this because we heard about it. They picked up terrorists in Denmark, they picked up terrorists in Germany. The terrorists in Germany were plotting attacks against the largest U.S. military base in Europe. Where did those terrorists train? In Pakistan. In terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

We are now seeing the fruit of what has been allowed to happen--the leadership of al-Qaida in a safe or secure place, operating or developing new training camps, training new terrorists to launch attacks against our country. Meanwhile, we are going door to door in Baghdad in the middle of sectarian violence. If ever there is a description of a need for a change of course, that is it. I do not understand why some fail to recognize what has happened.

You can go back to February, you can go to June, you can go to the disclosures and read them. This one is June:

``Al-Qaida regroups in new sanctuary in Pakistan border.''

While the U.S. presses its war against insurgents linked to al Qaida in Iraq, Osama bin Laden's group is recruiting, regrouping and rebuilding in a new sanctuary along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, senior U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officers said. The threat from the radical Islamic enclave in Waziristan is more dangerous than from Iraq, which President Bush and his aides called the central front of the war on terrorism, said some current and former officials. Bin Laden himself is believed to be hiding in the region guiding a new generation of lieutenants and inspiring allied extremist groups in Iraq and other parts of the world.

I don't, for the life of me, understand the failure to recognize a set of facts. This reminds me of the period prior to the invasion of Iraq--a set of information that on its face later turns out to have been wrong.

We don't need to be told what is right or wrong in terms of the set of facts--read the facts, understand the facts. If the central threat to our country, the greatest threat to our country, according to National Intelligence Estimates, is al-Qaida and its leadership and its reconstruction of its system of terror and the development of new terrorist camps, if that is the case then, that is where America has to be to wage the fight against that kind of terrorist group. Instead, we are in the middle of a civil war. That is why we need a change in course, a change in strategy.

It is not as some of my colleagues talk about, a plan for surrender. It is simply deciding we are going to attack and launch an effort to destroy that which represents the greatest threat to our country. It is surprising to me that 6 years later there is anyplace on the planet Earth that should, by our national intelligence officials, be declared safe or secure for the leadership of al-Qaida. Yet that is exactly what we read and what we hear and what we see in official reports. That is not something we should accept.

I wish briefly today to talk about the results of a hearing that the Democratic Policy Committee held this morning. The hearing was about the subject of contractors in Iraq and also the subject of what are called whistleblowers, those are people who are, in many cases, very courageous people who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse on behalf of the taxpayers of America; to say this is wrong and it must stop.

We had some very disturbing testimony this morning. We had eight witnesses. Four of them were whistleblowers. They have paid dearly for having the courage to come forward.

Let me read the testimony of a Donald Vance, U.S. Navy veteran; 30-year-old U.S. Navy veteran. When leaving the Navy, he chose to go to Iraq as a civilian to help American efforts to rebuild the country. He worked for a couple of private military contractors in Iraq. Here is what happened to him.

What he saw with respect to the last contractor he worked with was the sale of weapons, the sale of stolen weapons to interests who should not have weapons, insurgents and others. So he began to report it. It was something he believed very seriously. He reported it to his superiors. He reported it to the FBI. He reported it to U.S. military officials.

As a result, this U.S. Navy veteran found himself in big trouble. Here is what he said.

Because of the information I possessed and because of my unwillingness to condone the corruption in the company that I saw, I became a target within the company. They took measures to ensure that I could not leave their compound in the Red Zone in which [they] were located. When I called the United States government for help, [the U.S. Government] came to the compound to rescue me. But what started as a rescue ended up as a nightmare.

That night I was taken to the United States Embassy and debriefed. I told the agent that questioned me everything I had witnessed [about the sale of illegal guns and illegal activity that had gone on.] I also told him that I was informing for the FBI. Instead of contacting the FBI to verify the information I provided, these U.S. government officials blindfolded me, handcuffed me, and took me into detention. According to the Department of Defense spokesperson, they did not bother to contact the FBI until three weeks into my detention. To this day [he said] even though the Freedom of Information Act requests [have been made] no government official has explained what was asked of the FBI regarding myself and what the FBI said in response.

I spent 97 days in ..... isolation. I was denied food and water. I was denied sleep. I was also denied requested, and much needed, medication. There was intolerably-loud heavy metal and country music blaring into the cells. The lights in the cells were always on. The guards would threaten me and physically assault me. For example, the guards would walk me into walls while I was blindfolded and handcuffed, ``shake down'' my cell for contraband, threaten to use excessive force if I did not obey all of their orders. Finally, for the first few weeks I was [in this prison] I was denied a phone call. No one in my family knew where I was, if I was alive or if I was dead.

During [that] time I was interrogated constantly. Before each session, I would ask for an attorney. The request was invariably denied. Instead, I was interrogated by a host of United States government personnel, including FBI agents, Navy Criminal Investigative Service officers, as well as possibly CIA and DIA agents. .....

According to the government, I was being held as a security internee because of my affiliation with [the private security firm], certain members of which the government believed were selling weapons to insurgents. .....

Three months after I was detained, and after alleged subsequent ``re-examination'' of my case, the government released me. Before I was released, however, I had one final interrogation. The main focus of that interrogation was what was I going to do when I got home: Was I going to write a book? Was I going to tell the press? Was I going to get an attorney?

When they released me, he said, they ``gave me a $20 bill and dumped me at the Baghdad airport to fend for myself without the documentation I needed to return to the United States.''

A whistleblower who saw illegal activity, saw the selling of improper guns in Iraq, some to insurgents, he felt, went to authorities. His country, the United States of America, held him prisoner for 97 days. No habeas corpus--which is in the Constitution, by the way. No right of habeas corpus for an American citizen here. No right to contact an attorney. If this doesn't disturb the American people, I don't know what will disturb the American people.

We heard today from other witnesses talking about two things. One was the abuse of the taxpayer by contracting firms in Iraq--waste, fraud, and abuse that represents I think some of the worst waste, fraud, and abuse in the history of this country. I have held, I believe, 10 or 12 hearings on this subject as chairman of the Policy Committee over the last 3 years. The evidence is unbelievable: $40, $45 for a case of Coca-Cola. It doesn't matter, the taxpayer is going to pay for that. You order 50,000 pounds, 25 tons of nails, and they deliver the wrong size, it doesn't matter, throw them on the sand of Iraq, the taxpayers will pay for it. Or a $7,000-a-month lease payment for an SUV.

Henry Bunting over in Kuwait, working for Halliburton--KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton--he had a job as a purchaser. He said, as a small example, I was supposed to order hand towels for the American troops so I filled out an order to order white hand towels. My supervisor said: No, we don't want those white hand towels. We want hand towels with KBR, the logo of our company, embroidered on the towels. Henry says: But it will triple the cost. The supervisor says: It doesn't matter, the American taxpayer is paying for this. It is a cost-plus contract; don't worry about it.

These are small items, but there are large items. It is unbelievable the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse we have uncovered. The fact is, there seems to be an attitude in some parts of this Government to sleepwalk through it all. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

Can you imagine a circumstance where a contractor, in this case Halliburton, KBR, is charging us for 42,000 meals a day it is providing American troops, American soldiers--42,000 meals a day, and it turns out they are only giving 14,000 meals a day? They overcharged by 28,000 meals a day, according to Government estimates. How do you miss 28,000 meals a day?

The evidence is unbelievable when you go through this. This morning we had a hearing about contracting abuse. We had testimony. I read some from Donald Vance, who worked for a contractor in Iraq and was imprisoned by his Government for 97 days, not given the right to an attorney, not given the right to contact anybody on the outside at any time during the early stages of that confinement. That is unbelievable.

Bunnatine Greenhouse testified once again this morning, the highest ranking civilian official in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She said the abuse related to the awarding of contracts--here is what she said exactly. This is the highest ranking civilian official in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to the contracts awarded to KBR--

that is a subsidiary of Halliburton--

represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.

Do you know what happened to this woman for that? She lost her job. That is unbelievable, when you think about it. I talked to Secretary Rumsfeld about this case. I talked to Secretary Gates about this case. I talked to Deputy Secretary England about this case--nothing. Oh, we are all looking at it, we are all investigating. They have been doing that for 2 years.

I called the commanding officer of the Army Corps of Engineers when Bunnatine Greenhouse was given this job. This is a woman with three master's degrees, judged by everyone from outside the Government who deals with contractors as outstanding, given outstanding references on her performance reviews all along, until somehow she got into a situation where she said: I saw things going on with sole-source contracting, awarding big contracts, billions of dollars of contracts and doing it improperly, abusively. ``I blew the whistle,'' she said, and all of a sudden she got into trouble and they demoted her.

I called her former commanding officer, General Ballard, now retired. I called him at home one night and I said: Tell me about Bunnatine Greenhouse, because she has paid for her courage to speak out with her career. Here is what her boss said: ``She did an outstanding job.'' This is an outstanding employee. But because she had the courage as a whistleblower to stand up and report things that were wrong, abusive behavior, behavior that abuses the American taxpayer, she paid for it with her job.

We can't let that continue to happen. That is why I held this hearing. The best disinfectant for bad behavior is sunlight, and I hope, as we continue to expose more and more of this, I hope we can put an end to it. Those who have the courage to come forward and report wrongdoing, to report waste and fraud and graft and corruption--in my judgment, we ought to thank them. There is a story, I don't have a copy of it here, a story in the USA Today newspaper, written by an investigative reporter, that deals with these issues, the issues of oversight of contractors and the oversight of contracts that are let with respect to the war in Iraq. What we have found--Senator Wyden and I have worked on this in the Senate--the Pentagon wants to hire companies to oversee other companies. You can't do that. You can't delegate that responsibility. Who is looking out for the taxpayer here?

We had testimony today from Robert Isackson. Robert Isackson is a patriotic American. He was someone who saw criminal activity with a company called Custer Battles. He reported it. For that, he and others who were with him were surrounded by people with guns, threatened. He came today and expressed profound disappointment at the way the Federal Government has responded or failed to respond. As a person who had the courage to be a whistleblower, who saw something wrong and decided to try to right it, as a person who stood up for the best interests of this country and its taxpayers, we owe him a debt of gratitude.

And yet we see today that what has happened, systematically--the Associated Press wrote a big article about this, exposing it. What has happened systematically under this administration to whistleblowers is they are abused, not protected; not thanked, but abused. I would hope whoever in this administration is responsible and listening and understanding might decide that has to stop.

I will speak more at some point soon about the results of this hearing. My colleague Senator Grassley from Iowa I know has spent a lot of time on whistleblower issues, and other colleagues have as well. It is very important for us that when people come forward to report acts of wrongdoing, fraud, waste, abuse, that this country says thank you and follows up and will not allow those people to be abused and penalized. Yet, all too often, that has not been the case. It has to change.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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