Pentagon prevents military officers from testifying before House panel

[IChing]

Source: Congress Daily

By Megan Scully, CongressDaily

Pentagon lawyers abruptly blocked mid-level active-duty military officers from speaking Thursday during a closed-door House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee briefing about their personal experiences working with Iraqi security forces.
The Pentagon's last-minute refusal to allow the officers' presentations surprised panel members and congressional aides, who are in the middle of an investigation into the effort to train and organize Iraqi forces.

Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Martin Meehan, D-Mass., called the Pentagon's move "outrageous" and left open the possibility of issuing subpoenas. "We have the power and the authority to subpoena whoever we want," Meehan said

."The Pentagon does not make our rules," Meehan said.

Read more: http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0407/042007cdam2.htm

[partylessinOhio]

1. Congress, you have been emasculated. Grow a brain.

[Captain Hilts]

5. Being less "masculine" means being brainless? I don't think so....nt

[endarkenment]

8. Well if you are a dick head then perhaps this is true? nt.

[Captain Hilts]

12. He's suggesting the opposite. nt

[endarkenment]

13. Good point. nt

[damntexdem]

9. Well, if they've been emasculated, a brain is not what they need to grow.

But having a brain still couldn't hurt. ;-)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. This stinks to high heaven.

Will america face a military dictatorship? with help from Blackwater?

What about Haliburton's major construction projects in the US, massive detention centers?

And what of our current military leadership? Pace is a pretty face, but his ideas are totally neocon and religious based. Guess where their loyalties lie? lay?

Heads should roll. Impeachment is a much.

[rodeodance]

3. oh oh, I do not know the chairman but hope he is OUTRAGED

[rodeodance]

4. the committee did not comply with "long-standing" Defense Department policy stipulating that briefin

A Pentagon spokeswoman defended the decision, stating that the committee did not comply with "long-standing" Defense Department policy stipulating that briefings not be recorded.

The committee had agreed not to record the briefing, the spokeswoman said. But, she added, "When we went there, we found out that it was going to be recorded and it wasn't in compliance with our policy."

But Meehan said he only heard about the issue of recording shortly before the meeting. The subcommittee's policy is to record all briefings, he said.

"The Pentagon does not make our rules," Meehan said.

[gratuitous]

7. A long-standing policy, huh?

Like, of about five years' duration? The Pentagon apparently needs to get the news that there are new majorities in Congress. It is, admittedly, a minor little tidbit of news, but it has escaped the notice of several major media outlets, a number of members of Congress, the White House and various cronies and hangers-on.

The people of the United States deserve to know what their tax dollars are doing, how they're being spent, and whether we're getting a sufficient return on that spending to justify more of it. My guess is that the answer is "no." So get up to Capitol Hill, soldier boys, and face the people's elected representatives. This isn't Colombia.

[endarkenment]

6. Houston: we have a situation.

It seems to me that we are now in a state of constitutional crisis that amounts to an attempted coup d'etat by the executive branch over the legislative branch. Across the board the executive is refusing to cooperate with congress. This is not good. The damn USSC cannot be trusted. We may be at the overt end of the republic as we know it.

Sheesh that was paranoid. I must just be having the creeps.

[Vincardog]

10. Weve been in a state of constitutional crisis since the USSC illegally installed the Grinning Chimp

[babylonsister]

11. WHAT ARE THEY HIDING? Time for some subpoenas? nt

[EVDebs]

14. When DOD can't find 25% of its budget, and CIA/GOP $ is being siphoned off...

..."It's all part of a growing ongoing investigation into corruption in defense and intelligence contracts, which already has sent former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham to prison and, legal sources say, may threaten others in Congress and the CIA. "

FBI probes Watergate prostitution allegations
Infamous hotel used by defense contractor to entertain lawmakers?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12634250 /

and the skimming gets TOO BIG to not notice...

""According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service. ""


War on waste: Defense Department Cannot Account For 25% Of Funds — $2.3 Trillion
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

Maybe the GOP knows; and the outsourcing of US security for a few bucks leads to...

Notable clientele
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptech

It makes you wonder just HOW concerned about 'national security' this administration and DOD really are. More like CYA.

[Toots]

15. If the Pentagon is running the country now we in deep do do.

Has there been a Military coup? Does the military only answer to Bush* now or do they even answer to him? Is "By the People" no longer to be? :shrug: