The Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC), the political arm of the Democrats in the Senate, has been holding a series of investigatory hearings concerning contracting problems during the Iraq war. The series of hearings has been aimed at increasing accountability and oversight of the federal contracting process, particularly related to the reconstruction of Iraq and the increased outsourcing of key military functions during the war. The committee held two hearings at the end of 2007 and has followed those with two more in 2008 in a 14-hearing series dating back to the 109th Congress. The most recent hearing was held May 12, and focused on waste, fraud, and abuse in reconstruction contracts and the failure of anti-corruption efforts by the United States in Iraq. The committee heard testimony from two former State Department officials from the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT) — an office designed as the federal government's premier effort to combat corruption in the Iraqi government. Arthur Brennan, the former head of OAT, and James Mattil, the former chief of staff for OAT, testified that the U.S. government repeatedly ignored warnings and recommendations from OAT about corruption in the Iraqi government and kept secret many pieces of information that could embarrass the Iraqi government.

The DPC hearings during the 110th Congress started in the fall of 2007 with two hearings investigating problems with contracting in Iraq. The first hearing, held on Sept. 21, delved into abuses by private security firms operating in Iraq and the lack of protections for whistleblowers who report corruption or waste in reconstruction contracts. The hearings saw two panels of independent witnesses, the first focusing on private security contractors, particularly BlackwaterUSA, amid reports of misconduct by that and other security companies. The second panel heard from witnesses who have been demoted, fired, threatened, and even detained for speaking the truth about Iraq contracting practices.

The DPC held a second hearing in 2007 on Dec. 7, where two additional former contractor employees who had witnessed and reported waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting in Iraq shared their experiences. These witnesses reported a similar pattern of retaliation by their companies after reporting problems. In addition, two defense policy experts, Phillip Coyle of the Center for Defense Information, and Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress, testified about wasteful spending practices within the Department of Defense.

The first DPC hearing of 2008 took place on April 28 and focused on waste and abuse in contracting in Iraq, hearing from two former employees of KBR, Inc., a large defense contractor operating in Iraq, and another witness who was employed by a subcontractor of KBR. The witnesses discussed rampant theft and destruction of military equipment and materials, billing fraud, and contract fraud, including awarding contracts to subcontractors for work that was never completed. The witnesses also reported being retaliated against for reporting misconduct or corruption. Specifically, they suffered threats and detainment.

The recent hearings in the DPC have been particularly timely, as there have been a variety of legislative initiatives introduced in both the House and the Senate in 2008 that would help to bring greater accountability and transparency to the federal contracting process, especially in Iraq. The House has passed a number of these reforms in recent months, but the Senate has not yet taken up those proposals. The proceedings in the DPC hearings continue to confirm the need to enact these reform proposals as a first step in reforming the federal contracting system.

However, these bills have not been enacted, and there continues to be a need to expose wasteful and corrupt practices and hold contractors and others responsible for abusive behavior. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), the chairman of the DPC, stated that one of the themes that has emerged from these hearings is the level of impunity contractors in Iraq operate under.

What's more, continued and repeated reports of corruption and waste in federal contracting show there are still significant and consistent problems in the federal procurement process, particularly in defense contracting. In addition, federal government employees who are supposed to oversee contracting are overworked and undertrained. While this workforce has increased 6.8 percent since President Bush took office, federal contracting dollars have increased close to 100 percent (from $219.8 billion in FY 2001 to $430.1 billion in FY 2007).

It is clear more oversight is needed, and the DPC hearings are making an important contribution to that effort. Yet because the hearings are being held in a political setting (the DPC was established by an act of Congress but operates to promote Democratic Party policies), they will be less effective in building momentum for enactment of reforms than traditional Senate hearings. The DPC is filling an oversight void left in the Senate by inaction from the usual, bipartisan committee structure on corruption and waste in federal contracting. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) has held only six hearings since the beginning of 2007 related generally to federal procurement, and only one hearing during that period covered contracting in Iraq. The House counterpart, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, held 13 hearings related to federal procurement, and 11 of those hearings were directly related to the Iraq war.

Unfortunately, the DPC hearings are unlikely to further contracting reform efforts in the Senate because of the partisan perception of the hearings. The HSGAC needs to focus more attention on the federal contracting process, an apparatus in need of immediate and drastic reform, in order to advance any number of common-sense reforms.