A COUPLE OF REPUBLICANS TAKE A LONG HARD GULP AND AGREE TO FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL IN IRAQ

Making the millions stolen by Republican pipsqueaks in Congress like Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Jerry Lewis, Richard Pombo, Bob Ney, John Doolittle, et al, look like really small potatoes, untold billions of dollars have disappeared down the maw of the Bush-Cheney war profiteer network. Sometimes it almost seems like BushCo told the Republican congressmen that they could steal all they wanted as long as they left the Regime alone to do what they want with the hundreds of billions of dollars allocated for "Iraq."

Today Bryan Bender of the BOSTON GLOBE is reporting that 2 House Republicans are co-sponsoring a Democratic proposal to create a committee to investigate Iraq war spending. "The stalled proposal to create a modern-day ''Truman Committee'-- modeled after the oversight board run by then-Senator Harry Truman to root out contracting abuses during World War II-- has been blocked from consideration by GOP leaders for more than a year. But after new reports about malfeasance involving reconstruction contracts in Iraq, the bill for the first time has begun to attract the support of rank-and-file Republicans."

The two Repugs? Gil Gutknecht (MN) and Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones (NC), who has already publically stated that he regretted voting to authorize Bush's attack on Iraq. Jones is one of the very few Republicans who has been acknowledging-- as they become aware of Bush's plummeting approval ratings-- that voters are unhappy with how the Republican rubber-stamp Congress has utterly ignored its constitutional duty to watch how taxpayer dollars are spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. ''Whether you are Republican or Democrat, people back home are asking, 'Are you watching carefully how our money is being spent?'"

Jim Leach of Iowa, who joined 3 Republicans (including Jones) yesterday in calling for the passage of Resolution 543 forcing Boehner, Blunt, Pryce and Hastert to stop blocking a debate on the war, stated that "many [in the GOP] have concluded that significant mistakes have been made, although they remain of a belief that the war is justified. Others have increasing doubts about the wisdom of the decision itself."

The proposal calls for a new committee with 15 House members and it would have the power to subpoena witnesses to testify. Boehner, Blunt, Pryce and Hastert, guardians of GOP rubber-stampness in post-DeLay D.C. have pretty much said that this proposal will be enacted over their dead bodies. In that spirit I would like to remind DWT readers that Hastert is being challenged for re-election by John Laesch and Pryce is being challenged by Mary Jo Kilroy and that both of these races are winnable. If Laesch and Kilroy win the reverberations in Washington would directly cause American troops to start leaving Iraq within months.