Senate rejects oversight of military contractors

As loyal readers of Facing South know, the Institute has long supported the creation of an independent oversight body to watchdog military contracts, modeled on the highly successful Truman Commission set up during World War II.

For the last two years, Congress has had before it bi-partisan legislation to set up such an oversite committee to bring some basic level of accountability to the billions of dollars being shoveled to Bechtel, Halliburton and other war contractors. Each time it has voted it down.

This week, they had another chance to ensure taxpayer dollars are being used responsibly -- and again voted "no" on a largely party-line vote. As The Nation reports:

After all the reports of corporate crimes and contract abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan -- including the recent revelation by Halliburton Watch that Halliburton and its KBR subsidiary knowingly exposed thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq to hazardous levels of unhealthy water from the Euphrates River, including human fecal matter -- the Senate was offered an opportunity on Tuesday to restore a measure of Congressional oversight to the process by which tax dollars are distributed to private corporations and the activities of those corporations in regions of the world that are supposed to be of critical importance to the United States.

As part of the Senate debate over the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 -- the Pentagon budget -- North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan proposed a simple amendment "to establish a special committee of the Senate to investigate the awarding and carrying out of contracts to conduct activities in Afghanistan and Iraq and to fight the war on terrorism."

The amendment was rejected.

Fifty-two senators voted "no" -- all of them Republicans, including supposed "straight-shooters" such as Arizona's John McCain and Nebraska's Chuck Hagel.

Forty-four senators voted "yes" -- all of them Democrats, except Rhode Island Republican Lincoln Chafee.

Washington's culture of corruption just got another little boost.

UPDATE: For a reminder of just how badly such oversight is needed, check out this in-depth report from Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office, "Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration." You can read the full report here (pdf).