Byron Dorgan: “I will describe very briefly this amendment--I shall come to the floor and talk about it more later--and then I will use…”

“I will describe very briefly this amendment--I shall come to the floor and talk about it more later--and then I will use the remaining minutes that are available to talk about an amendment I have previously offered to the bill. This amendment, very simply, deals with the contracting that our country is paying for, particularly with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan. It especially deals with establishment of a special committee to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse. Now, I indicated yesterday that whenever you speak of the company Halliburton, people think you are coming to the floor to criticize the Vice President. Let me say that is not the case. The Vice President was the president of Halliburton but not during any of the time that any of this has happened. But Halliburton has been, I believe, the largest contractor in Iraq. Halliburton and some other companies have been cited in ways that make my blood boil, and I believe it has the same reaction with the rest of the American people. Let me read some headlines, if I might. Nobody, by the way, seems to want to investigate this, and nobody seems to care much about it. ``Halliburton Has Failed to Account for $1.8 billion in Charges'' for work performed in Iraq and Kuwait. That is from the Wall Street Journal of August 11, 2004. ``Pentagon Auditors Have Recommended Withholding 15% of Payments to Halliburton.'' That is from the Wall Street Journal of December 10, 2003. . . .…”