Someone was trying to provide oversight of Halliburton

While Sen. Norm Coleman was busy not providing oversight of the Bush Administration's occupation of Iraq, Charles Smith was. Was he rewarded for his diligence? Of course not. This is the Bush Administration. No good deed will go unpunished and no crook will go unrewarded.

The official, Charles M. Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Smith said that he was forced from his job in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the Army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations.
(NY Times)

Here was someone trying to save American taxpayers billions of dollars -- something Norm claims to be a champion. All the while Norm was busy cheerleading a war we were lied into and an occupation planned by idiots and executed by political hacks with no experience.

As chief of the Field Support Contracting Division of the Army Field Support Command, he was in charge of the KBR contract from the start. Mr. Smith soon came to believe that KBR’s business operations in Iraq were a mess. By the end of 2003, the Defense Contract Audit Agency told him that about $1 billion in cost estimates were not credible and should not be used as the basis for Army payments to the contractor.

“KBR didn’t move proper business systems into Iraq,” Mr. Smith said.

Along with the auditors, he said, he pushed for months to get KBR to provide data to justify the spending, including approximately $200 million for food services. Mr. Smith soon felt under pressure to ease up on KBR, he said. He and his boss, Maj. Gen. Wade H. McManus Jr., then the commander of the Army Field Support Command, were called to Pentagon meetings with Tina Ballard, then the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for policy and procurement.
(NY Times)

What was Norm investigating when he could spare a moment from his cheerleading?

• United Nation's Iraq Oil for Food program
• FEMA Chief Michael Brown
• Doctors owing back taxes but still collecting medicare and medicaid payments.
• Civil servants who travel business or first class instead of coach
• Safe importation of prescription drugs (protecting the pharmaceutical industry)
• Human Rights Council of the UN
• Music industry's battle with computer downloading
• U.S. companies setting up sham offshore tax shelters

Of course, The Mustache of Justice had something to say about this.

When told of Mr. Smith’s account, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said it “is startling, and it confirms the committee’s worst fears. KBR has repeatedly gouged the taxpayer, and the Bush administration has looked the other way every time.”
(NY Times)

Where was the responsible oversight by the Republicans who also want to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility like Norm? It was overridden by Norm's three golden rules of oversight:

1. When it is someone or some institution that conservatives hate. Norm relentlessly pursued corruption in the United Nations Iraq Oil for Food program.
2. When conservatives have thrown one of their own under the bus to avoid answering bigger questions. Heckuva Job Brownie is the perfect example.
3. When conservatives will not be targeted or in any way harmed. For example, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s (SIGIR) oversight of U.S. efforts in Iraq.

Finally, here's the laundry list of what Norm has ignored:

• Intel reports on WMD's
• Dispersal of the Iraqi Army
• NSA's secret wiretapping program
• Cronyism in appointments in Provisional Govt
• Torture at Abu Ghraib
• No bid contracts
• Billions of dollars of State Department cash disappearing in Iraq
• Corruption among contracting companies in Iraq
• Poorly constructed facilities built by contractors
• Contaminated water drunk and used by troops
• Abuses committed by contracting companies in Iraq
• Production problems for MRAP vehicles
• Wrong or not enough armor for troops and their vehicles
• Death of Pat Tillman
• Lies surrounding abduction and rescue of Jessica Lynch
• Overcharges among contracting companies in Iraq
• Guantanamo
• Jack Abramoff's influence at the White House
• Forced prostitution and forced abortions in the Mariana's Islands