Oversight? No Thanks

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.

Arguably, it was Chafee who cast the most courageous vote. He faces a September primary by a conservative foe who charges the Rhode Island moderate with failing to follow the party line. Of course, Chafee can counter by explaining that he did not know that, to be a good Republican, a senator must defend the freedom of corporations to provide U.S. troops with water containing fecal matter.

Comments (14)

1. Oversight? We don' need no steenkin' oversight....

   Posted by leftofcenter at 06/20/2006 @ 3:41pm

2. I hate to take the Mask approach, but you could argue that Chaffee also had his eye on the fact that he faces a formidable Democratic challenge, and that that affected his vote.

   Still, the defeat of the measure is a typical example of the corruption of the Republican "K" Street strategy.

   Posted by brunowe at 06/20/2006 @ 3:48pm

3. Maybe if we gave the Iraqis an upper-class tax cut, the resulting trickle-down market forces would clean the feces out of the Euphrates Ruver without any human being having to expend one iota of effort to remedy the situation.

   Posted by bjkron at 06/20/2006 @ 4:06pm

4. River, I mean...

   Posted by bjkron at 06/20/2006 @ 4:07pm

5. Boy the LIBZ sure love to beat up on Halliburton and KBR. Too bad once again is is a losing approach like everything else they touch....but keep it up....I love how you relegate yourselves more and more of a minority status

   THE CRACKUP OF THE LOONY LEFT IS A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD

   Posted by traitorlibz at 06/20/2006 @ 4:13pm

6. TLIBZ:

   Isn't it time for you to refill your OxyContin prescription? Or are you having too much trouble figuring out your Medicare prescription drug plan?

   Posted by bjkron at 06/20/2006 @ 4:19pm

7. Wow. Short article, still I must have missed something..."an amendment proposing the establishment of 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." How exactly does the passage of this extremely broad and vaguely worded amendment translate into protecting soldiers from fecal tainted water? Sure, I understand that this could potentially be one the the myriad of issues addressed by such a committee, but only one of a myriad of issues; and then, at the conclusion of this investigation, there is only a possibility that some action/legislation might ensue that may or may not address the fecal tainted water your article addresses. Slow day or what?

   Granted, the GOP has zero appetite for investigating anything that has occurred on their watch (though they were avid investigators under the previous administration). However, its quite a stretch to imply that if only the Senate would have passed this amendment that somehow troops would have been protected.

   Posted by noparty at 06/20/2006 @ 4:33pm

8. The value of a Republican-controlled Senate investigation into the Republican administration is likely to be very low in any event. Multiparty systems have advantages here -- if you don't like the leadership of one left party, you can vote (this time) for a somewhat different but not totally opposed left party, so there's always some incentive to investigate things like this. Oh well.

   I must admit, TRAITORLIBZ is making me rethink the value of comment spam, which just tries to sell me Viagra. What I want to know is whether leftists hang out on the National Review or Fox News blogs leaving comments as asinine as some of those left here by right-wingers. (Although since to find out I'd have to read them...)

   Posted by aaronrp at 06/20/2006 @ 4:49pm

9. Can the anti-war Democrats be having a worse week?

   Zarqawi is dead. Hundreds of terrorists have been captured or killed in recent days. And now a document that purports to show the enemy weakened, demoralized, and linked to Hussein's thugs. Has a major political party ever been so wrong about so much? I can see it now -- Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi huddled together in some Capitol Hill office trying to figure out how to turn good news into bad news and progress into defeat.

   And to think that just last week, Pelosi had all but ordered a new name-plate for the Speaker's door.

   THE CRACKUP OF THE LOONY TRAITORS IS A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD

   Posted by LibzHateusa at 06/20/2006 @ 4:55pm

10. Posted by BJKRON 06/20/2006 @ 4:06pm

    ...a classic...thanks...

    I raise a glass Halliburton shit-water to you, Aludra!

    Posted by nathanhale at 06/20/2006 @ 5:02pm

11. BJ

    Here, here...

    ...and I see "Traitor" has changed his pants yet again. Must have shit them once more.

    On the upside we get to call him "HatesUSA" which seems very apres.

    Posted by leftofcenter at 06/20/2006 @ 5:28pm

12. "Maybe if we gave the Iraqis an upper-class tax cut"

    ,...I thought thats what the glorious UN did with the food for oil program...gave Saddam a big tax cut.....

    Posted by john maasch at 06/20/2006 @ 6:13pm

13. You mean Saddam didn't fix the sewage problem with the money the UN gave him...? Must be Bush's fault.....

    Posted by john maasch at 06/20/2006 @ 6:14pm

14. Zero

    ...and who needs electricity when they're free...free to wander amongst the looted buildings, the closed shops. Free to happen upon an explosive device or sectarian nut job who puts a AK slug in your belly. Free then to crawl to a hospital only to find that they haven't enough antibiotics to treat you - and ultimately, to die painfully in the 100 plus degree hallway.

    But free! Ain't freedom grand....I'll bet they're all glad we're still there.

    Let's check to maker sure though...an excerpt from Baghdad Burning (6/10)

    "Do they really believe it will end the resistance against occupation? As long as foreign troops are in Iraq, resistance or 'insurgency' will continue- why is that SO difficult to understand? How is that concept a foreign one?

    So now that Zarqawi is dead, and because according to Bush and our Iraqi puppets he was behind so much of Iraq's misery- things should get better, right? The car bombs should lessen, the ethnic cleansing will come to a halt, military strikes and sieges will die down… That's what we were promised, wasn't it? That sounds good to me. Now- who do they have to kill to stop the Ministry of Interior death squads, and trigger-happy foreign troops?"

    Posted by leftofcenter at 06/20/2006 @ 6:22pm