ch: Our Values in Action

Ideas: Truman Commission on Contracting Fraud

Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid gave a speech on the Senate floor continuing his call for a Truman Commission to help cut waste and contracting fraud in Iraq. An excerpt from Reid’s speech:

If the Iraq was has taught us anything, it’s that Congress must take seriously its responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable, and it hasn’t happened. For two years Democrats have offered constructive solutions to change course in Iraq, give our troops and the Iraqi people a chance for some type of stability and success. We have said there must be a redeployment of forces this year to transition the mission, to change the mission. We’ve said we must resolve the sectarian difference through a political settlement. That’s called diplomacy. They need to mend their constitutions.

We’ve said they must regionalize the conflict with a contract group or a conference to bring in those countries who have said they will help, to help. We need to revitalize, and we can do that by, as I’ve indicated, getting the countries who have said they will help to come in and help. There needs to be a regional solution. We need to rebuild our badly strained United States military. There is not a single undeployed army unit today that is battle ready. That says it all. And numbers of generals have witnessed this administration’s flawed Iraq policy firsthand.