Interview with Henry Waxman, Chairman of Oversight and Government Reform Committee:
Here’s Doan being questioned about the use of her department for illegal partisan activities and no-competition sweetheart contract handouts:
Sound familiar? How many Bush officials have we heard this line from? Where is the outcry about “character” and “responsibility”?
[quote]REP. HENRY WAXMAN: It’s unusual for me to ever call for the resignation of a federal official. But in your case, I don’t see any other course of action… I would urge you to resign.
BILL MOYERS: But Ms Doan is still in office, isn’t she?
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: She’s still in office, and I think we’ve got to ask that question again of the administration. Why is she still there if she violated the law? And why is she still there if she gave sweetheart contracts, misusing taxpayers’ dollars?
BILL MOYERS: It’s one of the mysteries Waxman hopes to solve this year. There are many more.
BILL MOYERS: You turned over a lot of rocks last year. Was there a pattern to what you kept discovering?
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: I think what we found that was most dramatic to me was that there has been a huge increase in the amount of activities that the government has contracted out. I-
BILL MOYERS: We call that outsourcing?
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Well, outsourcing. And there’s nothing with it if we’re getting a better deal. Often times we can contract out the work and pay a lower price and get good quality. But we’re now at the point of four hundred billion dollars contracted out each year. Two hundred billion dollars of which goes to contractors without any competition.
BILL MOYERS: How can that happen? Why no competition?
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Well, when we first asked that question about Halliburton’s activities in Iraq, they said, “Oh, we didn’t have time to have competition.” We later found out that some of the potential competitors complained that they would have like to have bid. And they could’ve bid for the work. And if we had competition we would have had better price and better quality. But it got to the point where the government was contracting out the-- trying to figure what work should be done. And then they wanted to contract the work itself. Now, they needed to oversee whether the money was being used effectively. So, they wanted to get a private contractor to do that as well. Well, that’s an invitation to a lot of fraud, waste and abuse of–
BILL MOYERS: Did you find fraud, waste and abuse in that process?
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Yes. We found billions of dollars that cannot be accounted for. That cannot be justified. And it’s a scandal.[/quote]
Here’s Waxman drilling Secretary Rice in hearings. Hard to believe she’s one of the most powerful figures in our country!
[quote]BILL MOYERS: Secretary Rice finally appeared to testify under oath last October. After 8 letters of request and a subpoena.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: And it was clear from Sec. Rice’s testimony she didn’t see any reason why she was supposed to keep people honest in her department. Because she didn’t see that as her job. Well it was her job and ultimately became our job to make sure that they’re acting with integrity and with openness and accountability.
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY D-NY: My question, Madame Secretary, is for you to put yourself in my shoes. I’m home in my district; I’m standing in front of a town hall meeting of hardworking American men and women who are paying their taxes. Many of them punch a clock for their time. They’re accountable for their time and for their money. And how do I explain that the IG says that $1.2 billion is missing that was supposed to train the police, the most critical of our missions to help stand up –
SEC. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well –
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY D-NY: And how do I explain $4.2 million –
SEC. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Congresswoman – Congresswoman Maloney –
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY D-NY: – for a swimming pool that has never been used?
SEC. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: You can tell your constituents this is not a matter of having “lost” the money. This is a matter of invoices, as I am told by the people who are doing this. This is a matter of invoices and records that were not solid enough for us to be confident that the goods and services were being billed properly. This was a Department of State audit of its own procedures that came under new management because there were problems with the Bureau of INL. And that’s very often the case with many of the things that have been mentioned here. It is the Department that finds problems and then seeks to fix them.
BILL MOYERS: When Condoleezza Rice came before your committee, she said, “That-- that’s-- the money’s not really missing. It’s an accounting problem.”
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: She’s very skillful. And she is knowledgeable that members have five minutes to ask questions. And if she can stall for five minutes, she’ll get to somebody who might be friendlier in the next line of questioning. But she was evasive
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Secretary Rice, one of my concerns, as we look at Iraq, is that our troops are sacrificing their lives, our nation’s spending hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up a regime in Iraq that looks like it’s fundamentally corrupt. Our committee held a hearing on the corruption in Iraq. And at this hearing, we heard from Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi. Judge Radhi described a rising epidemic of corruption inside the Maliki government that is even funding the insurgency and undermining our – any efforts of political reconciliation.
BILL MOYERS: The Iraqi Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, was appointed by the United States Government to root out fraud and corruption in the Iraqi Government.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: I assume you are aware, Secretary Rice, that Judge Radhi told us his investigators had identified an enormous sum, $18 billion, that corrupt Iraqi officials have stolen. Are you aware of that?
SEC. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I’m aware of Judge Radhi’s testimony to you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Thank you. He also told us that 31 people on his staff were brutally assassinated when they tried to investigate these corrupt officials. Were you aware of that?
SEC. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I’m aware of his testimony to you, Mr. Chairman. .
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Judge Radhi raised He told this committee that Prime Minister Maliki used secret orders to stop investigations of corruption of top Iraqi ministers, including al-Maliki’s own cousin, Salam al-Maliki, the former minister of transportation. Do you know whether this is true?
SEC. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Let me say that everything that has been brought to the attention of either various boards in Iraq, or to our people, is being investigated.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: So you’re aware that – of this allegation and you’re aware that –
SEC. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I am not personally following every allegation of corruption in Iraq, Mr. Chairman. But I am certain that we are tracking these allegations of corruption, because no one is more concerned about allegations of corruption because no one is more concerned about what is, in fact, a pervasive problem of corruption than we are.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: I was so stunned when finally she admitted that somebody at the State Department should have been looking after these things. And I said to her, “But you’re the Secretary. You’re in charge of the State Department. You’re the one who should be making sure that the job is being done.” But I think it was a rare moment of candor. [/quote]
There’s plenty more in the full transcript of the interview - concerning everything from Blackwater to use of slave labor by US contractors! I strongly recommend the streaming video to get the full impact:
If you find yourself going a little stir crazy, you can always split.