Measure to fight war profiteering moves to full Senate
Bill would impose prison sentences and fines on those found to have knowingly defrauded or overcharged the government.
Legislation to nab unscrupulous businesses and people scheming to make exorbitant profits from the Iraq or other wars and reconstruction efforts sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
The bill (S. 119), which adds a new war profiteering and fraud section to the U.S. criminal code, was approved on a voice vote for Senate consideration.
"Last month this committee held a hearing on war profiteering in which we learned that rampant fraud and abuse undermines our troops in Iraq and threatens the reconstruction and relief activities," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "According to our witnesses billions of dollars spent in Iraq remain unaccounted for, and the fraud and abuse we face in Iraq amounts to a 'second insurgency,'" he said.
Leahy recalled that witnesses told of schemes to steal millions of dollars from taxpayers through false invoices and bribing officials.
The bill does not have a successful history. Leahy, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, managed to attach the war profiteering bill to an appropriations bill that passed the Senate in 2003. But he said it was stripped out in a House-Senate conference, "torpedoed by the White House and the House Republican leadership."
This year Leahy seemed a bit more confident under Democratic rule of Congress. One-fifth of the Senate has co-sponsored the bill, he said.
The measure carries prison sentences of up to 20 years plus million dollar fines for anyone who knowingly and willfully hatches a scheme to defraud the United States in connection with a war or reconstruction effort. Imprisonment up to 20 years and fines also could be levied against anyone who "materially overvalues" goods or services with the intent to defraud and capture excessive profits.
In the only amendment offered, Leahy succeeded by voice vote to make it clear that war profiteering violations can be the basis for money laundering or anti-racketeering prosecutions.