We are Contacted by US Senate Policy Committee regarding Today's Corruption in Iraq Hearings

It seems that Democrat Senator Byron Dorgan is focusing more on Federal Waste, Fraud & Abuse in Iraq, and has posted several hearing videos by the Senate Policy Committee (DPC) at:

http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-video.cfm?vid=042408dorgan

The DPC office contacted me last week and I spent about an hour giving them background on corruption in Iraq.

TODAY, April 28, at 2pm EST they are having hearings on Iraq Waste, Fraud & Abuse, and feature interviews of three Whistleblowers. See the memo below that DPC sent out:

Note: During the 23 months I was in Baghdad's Green Zone, there weren't any prostitutes. Muslim's really resist any contact with "non-believers". The only time I heard of any was that apparently in 2003 or 2004 a security firm brought in a bunch of them, and it was said that after they left, Iraqi zealots tracked them down and killed them. If it happened at all, it would have been the private security firms, because they had their own camps and equipment.

As for contractors stealing equipment, etc, it hasn't changed since I was in Vietnam in 1969. I was assigned to a computer center in Saigon, and my staff sgt was running a ring of barter in the whole country where he used the military phone system and traded pallets of stolen steak, etc. for captured AK-47's etc. to sell to military officers in Saigon who wanted a souvenir. During Sept-October, 1969, while I was in Saigon, the US Senate was having hearings on "Fraud & Corruption in Management of Military Club Systems AND Illegal Currency Manipulations" in Vietnam. I know, because I later bought the THREE volume set of hearing transcripts and still have them today.
vj
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Memo from DPC:

I was writing to let you know that on Monday, April 28 at 2:00 p.m., the Senate Democratic Policy Committee is holding a hearing on corruption in Iraq reconstruction at 2:00 p.m. that may be of interest to you. Three whistleblowers who have never-before appeared before Congress will be giving eye-witness accounts of corruption by private contractors in Iraq including: the use of government equipment to transport prostitutes from to Kuwait to Baghdad in a contractor-run prostitution scheme, still-useable government equipment worth millions thrown into "burn pits" and KBR employees selling items they looted from Iraqi government buildings on eBay. We'll be live streaming this hearing on our website at http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-video.cfm.

Leslie

Leslie Gross-Davis │ Counsel

U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee

http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/

Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader

Senator Byron Dorgan, Chairman

419 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

(202) 680-2876 (cell)

(202) 224-3571 (phone)
(202) 224-5651 (fax)
leslie_gross-davis@dpc.senate.gov