Mike Levin: “Our committee, as the Senator knows perhaps better than any other Member of this body, has a huge responsibility month…”

“Our committee, as the Senator knows perhaps better than any other Member of this body, has a huge responsibility month after month, year after year, on the authorization bill. Most of our focus is on that bill in terms of staff assignments. We also from time to time do have oversight hearings. We have had a couple on Iraq, but in terms of what is needed with the immense fraud and abuse and waste that has gone on in Iraq, we could assign our committee nothing else and still not catch up to what needs to be done relative to the waste and the fraud and the abuse that has taken place in Iraq contracting. We have perhaps three or four staff members assigned to investigation. They are in the middle of an investigation now. They could not possibly--with the very small number of staffers assigned to that responsibility--take on the breadth of work which needs to be done relative to Iraq. Also, this amendment not only has a contracting commission, but it also is going to amend the Special Inspector General Act relative to Iraq to fill in a number of gaps which exist in the inspector general's jurisdiction.”