Senators Debating Iraq Measure By KATE ZERNIKE and CARL HULSE
Published: June 20, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 20 — Republicans defeated a Democratic measure calling for an investigation into waste and fraud in military contracts today as the Senate engaged in an emotional debate over the Iraq war.
By a 52-to-44 vote, the Senate rejected the proposal by Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, calling for a panel like the one led by Harry Truman when he was a Senator, which uncovered many abuses in military spending during World War II.
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The senator focused on Halliburton, the huge company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, which has become a favorite target of Democrats alleging favoritism and waste in the awarding of Pentagon contracts in Iraq. But Mr. Dorgan said there was plenty of blame on both sides of the aisle. Supervision of military spending, he said, is "the one area where all of us have failed."
In urging defeat of Mr. Dorgan's proposal, made in the form of an amendment to a military-spending bill, Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said that supposed abuses like those cited by the Democrat could be investigated by the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, by various inspectors general or by the Government Accountability Office, without setting up a Truman-style panel.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/washington/20cnd-cong.html?ex=1308456000&en=09b84bc82f790b49&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rssThis just pisses me off. They don't care if troops have enough armor, enough food, clean water, uparmored Humvees, etc. Nor do they care if Halliburton is screwing us all over, especially these troops that the republicans "support" so much. I wish I had the article about Halliburton/KBR serving the filthy water and expired food.
There's much more in this article about a troop pullout deadline but I wanted to highlight the fact that the republicans do not want Halliburton investigated for these abuses. And it irritates me to no end. Do they vote against this shit to protect Cheney's profits or do they do it just because a democrat proposed this amendment?
:grr: