Senator McCaskill thinks the Bush administration use of contractors in Iraq has had Harry Truman revolving in his crypt for the last five years. She has met with a special commission she helped create to challenge it to uncover corruption she says has been underway for years.
McCaskill and Senator Jim Webb of West Virginia pushed through Congress the creation of the special Commission on Wartime Contracting. It’s to look into abuse, fraud, and waste by contractors hired by the Bush administration to help conduct the war.
The commission is modeled on a special Senate Committee headed by then-Senator Truman during World War Two that uncovered millions of dollars in defense contracting waste. She says those discoveries pale to insignificance compared to the billions stolen by contractors in Iraq.
“If we do not find accountability…we have added to the problem of wasting taxpayers’ money,” she tells the commission during its first meeting..
McCaskill quotes one officer she met in Iraq who told her he wanted three kinds of ice cream in the mess hall regardless of the cost. She says that kind of attitude let contractors operate without oversight. She says the mission was so important to military leaders that they did not see contract oversight as part of that mission–letting the problem grow exponentially and scandalously.