Sen. Claire Mccaskill Holds a News Conference On Dod Contracting

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Sen. Claire Mccaskill Holds a News Conference On Dod Contracting

SEN. MCCASKILL HOLDS A NEWS CONFERENCE ON DOD CONTRACTING

JUNE 18, 2007

SPEAKER: SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL, D-MO.

[*] MCCASKILL: Well, thank you all for joining the call tonight. And I will for most of this call answer questions. I believe -- have all of you been given or has my office shared with you the schedule now of what we did while we were here in Iraq, in Kuwait?

I'm assuming you did. (CROSSTALK)

MCCASKILL: Well, let me just, as an overview, we've spent most, I'd say two-thirds of this trip looking specifically at contracting issues. I wanted to come over and, face-to-face, confront some of the problems that I think we all know occurred in the way that contracts were entered into in the Iraq conflict and the lack of contract oversight and really some of the money that has been misspent and lost as a result of those mistakes.

I particularly was interested in seeing what kind of steps have been taken to address those contract failures. We spent two days -- two full days in Iraq, and then I spent all day today in Kuwait visiting with Army personnel about some of the issues as it relates to the support of this theater by the people here in Kuwait that are responsible for moving equipment into Iraq and Afghanistan and making sure that the troops are supplied in Iraq and Afghanistan with everything from Bradley tanks to ice cream.

We -- I learned a lot. I also did have a meeting with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and then also a meeting with the deputy prime minister of Iraq.

Had an opportunity to actually go out into the streets of Baghdad with some of our very brave military and saw from their perspective what their jobs are like right now.

We went out on Haifa Street and an area where there had been a good deal of fire fig...

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