Pressure grows on Warner: investigate war profiteers

As evidence of contracting scandals in Iraq and beyond proliferate, a campaign is mounting for Sen. John Warner (VA) to call for a thorough investigation:

Two leading Senate Democrats are asking Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) to investigate allegations of Iraq contracting abuses highlighted by Democratic Policy Committee hearings.

"These matters fall clearly within your committee's jurisdiction, and they have a direct bearing on our troops' mission and safety in Iraq, as well as on the use of taxpayer dollars," Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan (N.D.) and Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) wrote yesterday in a letter to Warner. "In the alternative, we would hope that you would support the creation of a special committee of the Senate - modeled after the Truman Committee during World War II - to conduct oversight hearings on Iraq contracting."

Democrats have long complained that the Republican-controlled Congress is not conducting proper oversight of the administration's prosecution of the war in Iraq and its awarding of reconstruction contracts.

Dorgan and Durbin attached an 18-page "findings" document detailing what they say are a pattern of abuses related to contracting in Iraq.

It's time for a new Truman Commission to investigate war profiteering and contracting scandals.