Byron Dorgan: “She is a woman who had a wonderful career for a long time, was given high marks always, clearly someone with a sterling…”

“She is a woman who had a wonderful career for a long time, was given high marks always, clearly someone with a sterling reputation and a great career, who ran afoul of the ``old boy's network,'' it appears to me, in the Pentagon when they decided they wanted to steer certain contracts in certain ways. She said: You are not following regulations. That is the wrong thing to do, and we are going to see waste, fraud, and abuse as a result of it. She would not go along with it all. Guess what. They decided to tell her that, despite all those glowing performance evaluations, they are changing their mind on her if she would not go along, so she was either going to be demoted or fired. She testified yesterday, when she was told by the acting general counsel of the Corps of Engineers that it would not be in her best interest to speak publicly about these things. Oh, really? I thank her for the courage and the others for their courage. I also thank Rory for the courage to speak out. I suppose it would be easier not to speak out. I will read the last sentence of the second paragraph of the statement of Bunnatine Greenhouse: I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR [Halliburton] represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career. I continue to ask the question: Is there somebody here who cares?…”