Mr. President, this country recently marked the 5-year anniversary of the war in Iraq--a war that the Bush administration refuses to end. The losses in this war have been staggering. More than 4,000…
Mr. President, this country recently marked the 5-year anniversary of the war in Iraq--a war that the Bush administration refuses to end. The losses in this war have been staggering. More than 4,000 American soldiers have been killed and nearly 30,000 wounded. Hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars has been spent to fight this war, money which could have been--and should have been--used to help American needs here at home. Estimates for the cost of the President's adventure in Iraq are now into the trillions.
Through it all, the Bush administration has chosen essentially to ignore one of its primary obligations during wartime--to protect American taxpayers from losses due to fraud, waste, and abuse of military contracts. Sadly, these problems are all too common in times of war, and have been particularly pervasive in Iraq.
Over the past year, I have chaired hearings in the Appropriations and Judiciary Committees focused on the billions that have been lost to contracting fraud, waste, and abuse during this war. The testimony at those hearings has exposed the Bush administration's failure to take aggressive action to enforce and punish wartime fraud. It has also shown how difficult it can be for investigators to uncover and prosecute fraud amidst the chaotic environment of war.
These problems have been exacerbated time and time again by the Bush administration, as tens of billions of dollars in ``no-bid'' and ``cost-plus'' contracts have been awarded with little, if any, oversight or accountability. Billions in cash--physical, paper money-- have been flown to Iraq and handed out in paper bags, often without records of who received what, and when. Billion dollar contracts for training services cannot be audited because the records are incomplete, lost, or in disarray. The Government has been billed for defective products, like faulty ammunition, unsafe bulletproof vests, and even unsanitary drinking water for the troops.
Too often we do not learn about serious fraud until years after the fact. What we do know is that tens of billions of dollars are unaccounted for, and potentially lost to fraud, and little has been done to hold anyone accountable and recover the lost money.
This problem is not entirely new. Our nation has faced challenges in past wars. During World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke out against ``war millionaires'' who made excessive profits exploiting the calamity of war. President Harry Truman, when he served in the Senate, held historic public hearings to expose gross fraud and waste by military contractors during the war.
Unlike the current President, however, Presidents Roosevelt and Truman took action to ensure that wartime fraud could be successfully investigated and prosecuted despite the difficulties presented by an ongoing war.
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act, which made it possible for criminal fraud offenses against the United States to be prosecuted after the war was over. President Truman signed a bill making that law permanent in 1948.
Everyone understood then that it was unrealistic to believe that all contracting fraud could be tracked down immediately in the midst of a war. The law provided for the suspension of the statute of limitations until the war was over. Congress supported this law overwhelmingly, as they had with a similar provision during World War I. President Roosevelt wrote: ``The crisis of war should not be used as a means of avoiding just penalties for wrongdoing.''
While the provision for post-war enforcement against fraud is still the law today, the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are exempt from its requirements. This Roosevelt-era law only applies ``when the United States is at war.'' The military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were undertaken without Congressional declarations of war. In recent decades, Congress has
considered authorizations for the use of the Armed Forces, rather than formal declarations of war. I voted for the authorization to strike back at Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. I voted against the ill- conceived authorization to go into Iraq.
Today we introduce the Wartime Enforcement of Fraud Act of 2008, which updates President Roosevelt's law for our times. This will allow us better to protect American taxpayers from contracting fraud today, just as we did during World War II. I thank Senator Grassley for his co-sponsorship of this important legislation. He has been a leader in Congress on efforts to investigate and combat fraud against the United States.
This bill would make current law suspending the statute of limitations during wartime applicable to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In doing so, we would allow investigators and auditors to continue their efforts to uncover criminal fraud and for those who commit fraud to be brought to justice after the conflicts end. If left unchanged, under the current statute of limitations, each passing day of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan could amount to immunizing fraudulent conduct by war contractors that has gone undiscovered during the Bush Administration or during the conflicts.
This legislation would make three simple changes to current law. First, it would suspend the statute of limitations not only to when the United States is technically engaged in a declared war, but also when Congress has enacted a specific authorization for the use of the Armed Forces consistent with the War Powers Resolution. In doing so, this language would apply the existing World War II-era law to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to similar actions in the future. It would not apply, however, to international peacekeeping missions under the auspices of the United Nations or to military actions not specifically authorized by Congress.
Second, the legislation would extend the statute of limitations for five years after the end of the conflict. The statute of limitations today for criminal fraud offense is five years from the time of the offense, and this bill would just toll the running of the statute during the conflict itself and not a day longer.
Three, the bill would make clear that a Presidential proclamation ending hostilities, and thus ending the tolling of the statute of limitations period, must be a formal proclamation with notice to Congress. Secret proclamation by the President or a self-serving ``mission accomplished'' speech will not do the trick.
The statute of limitations is an important check on the proper use of government power, and we should not act to suspend it except in extraordinary circumstances. Wars provide exactly such circumstances, and current law recognizes this common sense reality by suspending the statute of limitation for fraud offenses during wartime. It would be wrong to exempt the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from this law and to allow war profiteers immunity for their illegal and unpatriotic conduct during wartime.
President Roosevelt called upon Congress to act on this important matter during World War II. Today, I echo his concerns and call upon the Senate to pass this legislation to protect the American taxpayers from war contracting fraud. This Congress should pass--and the President should sign--the Wartime Enforcement of Fraud Act of 2008 without delay.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
