mr. speaker , i thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time .  let me simply say that i intend to support this legislation when we actually get to it , but that does not mean i am happy with the contents of it .  there are clearly more than seven or eight items , major items that i find very problematic .  but what i want to do at this time is to alert the house to the contents of the motion that we would make on the rule if the previous question is not adopted .  if the previous question is not adopted , we would be offering a request to establish a select committee such as the truman committee back in world war ii to investigate and study the awarding and carrying out of government contracts to conduct activities in afghanistan and iraq .  i would simply point out , all one has to do is to read the newspapers daily to understand how badly this is needed .  the washington post this morning has the most recent story : `` audit of iraq spending spurs criminal probe , '' and then it talks about opening a criminal inquiry into millions of dollars missing in iraq after auditors have uncovered indications of fraud and nearly $ 100 million in reconstruction spending that could not be properly accounted for .  the article goes on to say , the audit of u.s. funds found that the contract files were `` unavailable , incomplete , inconsistent and unreliable. '' other than that , they were terrific .  and the article points out that as a result , auditors have said the u.s. government may have trouble making a case against contractors who overbill or do not do what they are supposed to do .  now , we have been virtually begging on bended knee to get this congress to establish a committee with teeth to look into this problem .  we met with no success .  i would point out that stands in stark contrast to what happened in 1941 when then senator harry truman became aware of similar stories , and he saw to it that a committee was created in the congress to investigate that situation .  that committee held 432 public hearings and 300 executive sessions and issued 51 reports and saved the taxpayers a load of money .  i would also point out , that was a case where a democratic congress was investigating a democratic administration , and no great harm was done to the republic in the process .  a lot of good was done .  so i just want to urge members to vote against the rule because , in my mind , this congress is derelict in its duty and , in my mind , any member of congress who refuses to recognize how the taxpayers ' dollars are being siphoned off every day by these operations , by these sloppy operations in iraq , they are contributing to the fact that the taxpayers are being fleeced .  they may not be wanting to do that , but that is the practical effect of their actions .  so i would suggest , mr. speaker , sooner or later , we are going to have this committee , because we are going to be stuck in iraq for another 5 years , and we are going to see stories like this headline every week .  it is about time we got around to setting up a cleanup brigade to deal with the problem before we are all acutely embarrassed by it .  so with that , mr. speaker , i simply want to say that while i would urge support for the underlying bill , i would urge that the rule not be supported until we have had an opportunity for this house to meet its oversight responsibilities .  we ought to be acting like a watchdog in this case .  instead , we are acting like puppy dogs .  that is not going to help the taxpayer very much .  