Portland Press Herald - "Collins Lax on Oversight of Iraq Work, Allen Claims"

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Portland Press Herald - "Collins Lax on Oversight of Iraq Work, Allen Claims"

Democratic Rep. Tom Allen is faulting Republican Sen. Susan Collins for holding a single hearing on alleged corruption and mismanagement of civilian contractors in Iraq.

Allen, who is running for Collins' seat, is trying to turn her tenure as chairman of the Senate's chief investigative committee into a political liability as she campaigns for a third term.

Collins served as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairman from 2003 until early 2007, when Democrats took control of the Senate. She held her first and only Iraq contractor hearing in August 2006 on a report issued by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction titled: "Iraq Reconstruction: Lessons Learned in Contracting."

"The war in Iraq the last five years has been the biggest issue. She chaired the committee that had oversight of that issue," Allen said. "She just didn't do the job. She had this enormous power, but she never held a hearing. It is incomprehensible."

Collins challenged Allen's characterization, saying the committee has undertaken important work under her leadership.

The committee investigated government contracting abuses related to Hurricane Katrina and endorsed legislation to create and save the position of special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, she said. The special inspector general has prosecuted and won convictions against contractors who accepted bribes, rigged contracts or performed poor work.

"No one could ever accurately say that I ever hesitated to take on tough oversight responsibilities," Collins said. "This is a page out of the Democratic playbook."

At issue is whether corruption among civilian contractors in Iraq hampered the reconstruction effort and exacerbated the insurgency in the months after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein.

Executive branch agencies and government watchdog groups have uncovered cases of waste, fraud and abuse, some of which have led to prosecution and conviction.

"There was an extreme lack of congressional hearings at a time when Collins' committee should have been at the front of the pack," said Charles Tiefer, a government contracting expert at the University of Baltimore Law School who has been critical of the Bush administration and favors aggressive congressional oversight.

"During the years 2003 to 2006," said Tiefer, a former solicitor and deputy general counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives, "negative information about Halliburton would come out from either the Defense Department's auditor reports or the occasional whistleblower."

Collins' chief antagonist during her years as chairwoman was committee member Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey. Now 84, Lautenberg urged Collins to investigate Kellog, Brown & Root, which is now KBR.

Allen's campaign provided the letters as evidence that Collins failed to conduct proper oversight. Lautenberg had asked Collins to investigate whether KBR overcharged various government agencies; Halliburton's relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney, the company's former chief executive officer; Halliburton's dealings with the Iranian government; and its accounting practices.

Collins responded twice to Lautenberg, writing that legislation passed by the Senate would fix problems cited by Lautenberg and that she did not "want to duplicate work already being conducted by the appropriate authorities."

She said in an interview Friday that if senators feel passionately about an issue, they should have personal conversations with their colleagues as Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., did in 2004 when he asked Collins to hold hearings into the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to hurricanes that ravaged his home state.

Collins held a hearing for Nelson, something she did not do for Lautenberg.

"I continually tried to get the issue of Halliburton and Iraqi contracts before the committee. She simply refused to do it," Lautenberg said in a written statement. "I asked her for hearings both verbally and in writing. How else are you supposed to make a request?"

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who does not serve on the governmental affairs panel but is the Democratic Policy Committee chairman, took matters into his own hands. He staged faux hearings into contractor fraud in Iraq to highlight Collins' and the Republicans' unwillingness to conduct more oversight.

At the same time, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., held six hearings on contracting in Iraq, said David Marin, Davis' spokesman.

In June 2006, five months before the mid-term elections, Lautenberg and six other senators asked Collins to "exercise more oversight ... and to hold accountable those who misused Iraqi funds entrusted to U.S. government management."

On Aug. 2, Collins held the hearing on the inspector general's report on the lessons learned in Iraq contracting.

"Neither Collins' committee nor its House counterpart would use its subpoena power to get the full story out. Neither committee tended to hold much in the way of hearings," Tiefer said.

For her part, Collins challenged Allen's assertions by providing a detailed account of hearings held, subpoenas issued and legislation passed during her tenure as chairman.

Collins said she shepherded legislation that reformed the structure of the U.S. intelligence community through the Senate in 2005, as well as laws that upgraded security at chemical plants and seaports. She issued 25 subpoenas related to investigations into Katrina, so-called college diploma mills and terrorist financing, although none was directed at civilian contractors in Iraq.

Collins also said that Stuart Bowen, the top watchdog for corruption in Iraq reconstruction programs, conducted 11 briefings for her and the committee and that the committee's staff kept informed of ongoing investigations.

"I wanted to avoid duplicating investigations," she said, adding that the Defense Department, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Government Accountability Office, House and Senate committees and other agencies conducted hearings. "There was nothing to be gained by splashy public hearings, duplicating hearings when that work was already being done."

Bowen, however, who praised Collins' record during an editorial board meeting this month with the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, has oversight of only reconstruction contracts. Most of the allegations of corruption involving Halliburton have been about its logistical work for the military.

KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary, has earned more than $25 billion for work performed in Iraq, but it has come under fire from various government investigations for overbilling the government $67 million to provide fuel to U.S. troops there. It was forced to repay the government $27 million for overbilling the Army for meals for troops.

Whether Allen can translate his critique into electoral gain is unclear. A recent poll conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that 59 percent of respondents said that toppling Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the cost in lives and taxpayer dollars, but voters are more concerned about the economy than Iraq by 15 percentage points, according to the same poll.

"Is the critique less effective today than it was a year ago? Yes," said Mark Brewer, a political scientist at the University of Maine. "Is it completely unimportant? No, but maybe a year ago Iraq could have been the only issue."

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