I like the bullet points, they all make good bumper stickers except:

Political weakness: Republicans refusing to investigate widespread allegations and evidence of illegal activities on the part of these contractors because the heads of these companies are huge Republican donors.

This is important, but "political weakness" sounds inside baseball. I'd call this point "hush money" or "government for sale"

I ordered a copy of this movie because I want to show it to my neighbor who is a die hard Republican but not particularly a Bush fan at this point. He is SF in the army and he says that the biggest problem is the military industrial complex. Do you think he'll enjoy it?

I agree Iraq War Profiteering and your excellent bullet list makes a very strong, clear-cut, winning political issue for Democrats in a generation.

Nice cogent synopsis that every Dem running for office should have and use accordingly.

I will do my part circulating this.

I've ordered the DVD, will do a showing at my house.  Pass the popcorn...

"this is the most the clear-cut, winning political issue for Democrats in a generation"

Exactly.

I'm sure I'm not the only reader eager for the Democratic party to gain Congressional investigative power.

If we do get that power in the upcoming election, the Republicans will do their best to discredit them as the partisan wrangling that ignores the country's needs and disgusts voters.

War profiteering is a perfect initial topic of investigation. The narratives that could come out of that..."while Halliburton's CEO was raking in megamillions from his company's Iraq war profits, the Administration cut funding for research to heal brain injuries like those suffered by GI Joe Monroe of Canton, Ohio."

The key, IMO, is to tie the waste and the fraud to the impact on the troops:
---Misbehaving contractors = increases in attacks on our troops.
---Lack of accountability = troops eating food that a supermarket would be throwing in the dumpster.
---Fraudulent billing for services never performed = troops dying from lack of funding for upgraded body armor.
---Etc. Etc.

If such hearings prove popular with the public, it would be much easier to steamroll GOP opposition to expansion into the many other unexamined deeds of the Bush administration and its pals.

Mirroring the comment above, I'd love a link to the source of the info for the number of subpoenas 1995-2000 and 2000-2005.  If the number in the latter case is zero, it would help if a zero was entered.  

Thanks so much for the reference to this film!  Ordering the 5 pack of DVDs to spread the word.

Thanks again.

I've not seen the film yet...   Can someone comment on what the tone is like?  I'll be interested to see if it has managed to come across as reasonable, well-researched and thoughtful, and thereby less easily dismissed...  I hope so.

Having gone back to the Congressional Record, what seems to have happened is this:

Leahy offered an amendment (SA 3292 - the one the vote on which Chris links to) which would have both provided extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to certain currently existing Federal crimes; and also criminalized the circumstance where a contractor

materially overvalues any good or service with the specific intent to excessively profit from the war, military action, or relief or reconstruction activities in Iraq, Afghanistan, or such other country...

(A further objection was made that the Leahy amendment was a last minute affair - whether that's true or not, I don't know.)

Warner then offered an amendment (SA 3452) which applied extraterritoriality to existing crimes, but did not add a crime of excess profits.

The Senate voted nem con for the Warner amendment, but rejected the Leahy amendment on a party line vote 46-52.

There was in neither amendment anything about a Congressional investigation - nor, I think, would it be normal for there to be a floor vote on initiating such an investigation.

What are the precedents (apart from WW2)? LBJ chaired an equivalent to the Truman Committee during the Korean War. What about the Vietnam era?

My sense would be that, given that government, military and defense contractors have been inextricably intertwined since WW2, administrations of both stripes have been reluctant to curb overcharging.

And ditto for Congress.

I have never understood why this issue hasn't become the #1 talking point for Dems.  I assumed it would take center-stage later in the campaign back when we were still pre-occupied with Plame, Alito, Abramoff, Delay, but this summer it never surfaced.  I assume this had something to do with the GOP trash-talking about how they were going to scare voters by telling them that the Dems wanted to hold investigations, but if that's the case, then the D.C. Dems are as pathetic and weak and unfit to lead as ever, (though, obviously not nearly as unfit as the shitheads who are responsible for all of these crimes and atrocities).  I am still holding out hope that it will surface now that it's high campaign season and candidates are going on air. I mean, $10 billion?  With a "b"?  Are you serious?  It's just gone?  They don't even have an answer to give us?  After how many years, they still expect to  get away with shrugging? "Ten billion dollars" should be the Dem catch phrase of this cycle.  Should be, and so far, isn't.  

We even spent the last year developing an absolutely ideal cast of surrogates to take to the screeching heads shows with this message--the Fighting Dems (Remember them?  Where'd they go, by the way?).  Get Hackett on TV every night saying the phrase "ten billion dollars" at least seven times in his seven minute segment.  Put Tammy Duckworth on TV to tell her story about Halliburton's sandbag contract, and make sure she says "ten billion dollars" many, many times.  And Pat Murphy. And Sestak and Webb and Clark. If we don't win back at least one house, it's b/c we were holding the Ace of trump and didn't have the stones to play it, which is so utterly, depressing, demoralizing and infuriating.

Did you see any indication that KBR put military personnel to work building the installations they had been paid - handsomely - to erect?

I have a letter dated 12 Oct 2003 from a nephew in the 4th ID, who was based in Tikrit. After apologizing for a delay in answering, he described spending the previous four weeks as part of a "company construction crew building semi-permanent buildings in our area." Sure sounded to me like the contractors took the money while the troops sweated and strained.

I think I'll send this info to Sen Dorgan, too.

that if we do go after the books that it will rile up the Republican Base, I don't believe it however so I think it is a good way to go.

Democrats controlled all three branches of government during WWII, and instead of squelching invesetigations of profiteering, they had a Senate committee that saved roughly $10 billion--about $107 billion in today's dollars.

That, in a nutshell, is the difference between one-party rule under the Democrats and one-party rule under the Republicans.

Democrats don't need anyone forcing them to do oversight, because they believe in it on principle.  They take all that stuff about civic responsibility and serving the people seriously.

At least, real Democrats do.  The so-called "New Democrats," not so much.  After all, they are financed by the folks who need watching the most.

It's the difference between, "The buck stops here," and "The bucks stop here!"