WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- A bi-partisan coalition of senators, led by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Larry Craig (R-ID), offered a resolution to establish a special Senate committee to provide critical oversight of government contracts awarded to support the war on terrorism, including the lucrative contracts awarded to Halliburton. The committee would be modeled after Sen. Harry Truman's "Truman Committee," established during World War II as a means to protect taxpayers from unscrupulous war profiteers and flawed contracting procedures that artificially inflate costs.

"In calling for this new oversight, Durbin and Craig cited the extraordinary levels of spending for these wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan], the unprecedented use of private contractors, and the speed with which contracts have been issued � often without open competition," Sen. Durbin said in a press release.

According to the nonprofit Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Truman Committee was launched with just $15,000, but may have saved in excess of $15 billion during the wars with Germany and Japan. The Truman Committee is often described as the most successful government investigation effort in U.S. history because of the billions of dollars it saved.

The senators request for a special investigative committee comes as the cost for the war in Iraq approaches $200 billion. "Special commissions have long been employed to monitor the massive outlays of public money that inevitably accompany the run up to and the aftermath of a war," said Taxpayers for Common Sense in a prepared statement titled "Bring Back the Truman Committee." It said the Truman Committee "is both the most famous and the most successful; having held hundreds of hearings and conducted exhaustive investigative missions that laid bare the machinations of America's military industrial complex and saved taxpayers billions of dollars."

More Information:

Senate press release announcing resolution calling for new Senate committee

Taxpayers for Common Sense: Bring Back the Truman Committee