Truman's ghost: contractors must prepare for a different kind of war.

• Author: Harvin, Christopher
• Position: VIEWPOINT

* It has been said that no public figure ever reaped greater political reward from chairing a special investigative congressional committee than Harry S. Truman. His personal crusade against waste, fraud and abuse in defense contracting throughout World War II is credited with saving countless lives and more than 15 billion dollars.

When the Truman Committee was first created in 1941--in response to allegations that $10 billion in defense funds were being widely mismanaged--it wasn't expected to bear much fruit. After all, an investigative committee with a $15,000 budget and led by a member of the president's own party is the near definition of political window dressing.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But what resulted from Truman's initial 10,000-mile tour of military bases across the country changed the landscape of defense contracting forever. Between 1941 and 1948--three years after victory was declared in the Pacific theater--1,798 witnesses were called, 432 hearings were held and 51 independent reports were issued. As a result, contractors caught in the crosshairs underwent rampant housecleaning or shut their doors altogether. Complicit military and Defense Department personnel were jailed.

The investigations garnered significant media coverage both during and after the war--sullying the good names of more than a few industry moguls and putting Truman on the fast track to the White House.

Today, with reports of contractor waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan making for nightly newscast leads and above-the-fold front page stories, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are looking to resurrect Truman's legacy and make a few headlines of their own.

When President Bush signed the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act into law in January, he also established the Webb-McCaskill Commission on Wartime Contracting. This bipartisan congressional body is modeled after the Truman Committee, and seeks to "help the taxpayers of this country get their money back," according to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. But like the Truman Committee, the commission is off to inauspicious start.

The provision that created the commission was one of just four out of 2,887 whose constitutional legality was questioned in the accompanying signing statement issued by the president. As of this writing, more than seven months after the commission was established, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has yet to appoint the commission's eighth and final member. And...