ABC News reports that Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected El Pasoan Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) as the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, the committee on which he has served for the past six years. Prior to his election to the House in 1996, Representative Reyes was a border patrol agent for more than 26 years.

But it isn't Representative Reyes' border patrol experience, or his service in the military during Vietnam, his vote against the Iraq war, or his experience on House Select Intelligence and Veterans Affairs Committees that makes his selection so intriguing. After all, Reyes was instrumental in leading opposition to the WI Republican Jim Sensenbrenner's House immigration proposal and is credited with keeping Fort Bliss and White Sands military bases open, as well as previously chairing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Representative Reyes has been a strong critic of the administration's border security failings. "The Republican House leadership spent the entire month of August holding media events and hearings on the border, and the message from those who work on the border every day is that we don’t need 700 miles of new fence. We need a comprehensive plan that addresses the three main priorities of the Border Patrol: manpower, technology, and infrastructure. After six years of controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House, their ‘signature achievement’ on border security is a 700 mile fence along a 2,000 mile border. This fence doesn’t come close to solving our problem."

Nor did he shrink from criticizing the White House. "This is yet another example of the lack of checks and balances in our current political climate. Libby's indictment and the continuing investigation into White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove demonstrate that Congress needs to take increased action exercising its oversight responsibilities. Congress has rightfully been criticized of its lack of oversight, and current events certainly warrant that we take a more active role.

Any action exposing an undercover agent is not only against the law, but against the best interests of our nation. This is a political bombshell for the Bush Administration, but has the potential to be very positive for the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community. This sends a strong signal that we as a nation respect their sacrifices and will stand up for them. President Bush must keep his word, hold the wrongdoers accountable and make it clear that no one in his White House is above the law."

So, why then will Speaker Pelosi's selection of Reyes to Chair the House Intelligence Committee be controversial? It won't be for the 94 votes he missed in the House, the ninth most of any member. Instead, ironically, it will be for the part he denies playing in the award to International Microwave Corporation (IMC) of a $239 million dollar, no bid contract for 12,000 border security sensors and cameras installed between 1998 and 2004 to cover a few hundred miles of the 6,500 mile Canadian and Mexican borders.

Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) official Walter Drabik launched the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS) in 1996, a few months after Rep. Reyes, a strong proponent of placing cameras on the border arrived in Washington. Drabik chose the Alaska-based Chugach Development Corp. to install the system. Later, in 1999, Drabik helped select IMC for a $2 million contract to succeed Chugach.

"Over the objections of Border Patrol officials, INS official Walter Drabik chose cameras distributed by a firm called ISAP. U.S. officials and contractors said IMC had bought the ISAP firm without disclosing it to U.S. officials. This allowed IMC to buy cameras from its own subsidiary, substantially increasing profits. Undisclosed self-dealing could be illegal."

Drabik said in an interview that he recommended that first Chugach, then IMC, hire Rebecca Reyes, the congressman's daughter, as liaison to the INS. Both did so.

Reyes' daughter, Rebecca, became IMC's vice president of contracts, and ran the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS) for IMC. Her career path continued to trace the movements of the ISIS program as IMC was sold to L-3, a mid-level upstart company that aimed to be the "Home Depot" of advanced electronics, making their products available to all. In 2005 alone, L-3 won $4.7 billion in Pentagon contracts.

According to a Washington Post article reporting the number of contractor in Iraq at close to 100,000: "MPRI, a unit of L-3 Communications, has about 500 employees working on 12 contracts, including providing mentors to the Iraqi Defense Ministry for strategic planning, budgeting and establishing its public affairs office. Titan, another L-3 division, has 6,500 linguists in the country."

The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's office issued a scathing report criticizing the implementation of the program, "A Review of Remote Surveillance Technology Along US Land Borders" in December of 2005, noting that official inattention to the system "placed taxpayers' dollars and . . . national security at risk."

Among the problems cited:

• "A GSA inspection of eight Border Patrol zones found that $20 million had been paid to IMC for work there but that none of its camera systems was fully operating.
• Near Buffalo, IMC billed the government for 59 cameras but only four were installed, and in Naco, Ariz., unassembled high-tech gear was found lying in the desert, the report said. "No IMC personnel had been on-site since the equipment was delivered" in 2003, the report added.
• The most troubled part of ISIS was in Washington state, where the more than 64 cameras fogged up in cold and rain and sometimes broke down completely, according to Border Patrol officials and the GSA report. IMC-hired workers had done such shoddy wiring of fiber-optic cable at junction boxes that Border Patrol operators couldn't control the cameras, according to the officials and documents. Electrical wires were found corroding under water in supposedly sealed concrete vaults, they said.
• The GSA report found that IMC was paid about $1 million up front to install 36 poles to hold multiple cameras in Washington state, but in fact had installed only 32. Contract documents executed by both GSA and the company "misrepresented the work that was actually furnished," it said.
• It was common, the GSA report said, for the government to pay IMC "for shoddy work . . . [or] for work that was incomplete or never delivered."
• IMC's Acri said the Washington project was "a nightmare" but blamed it on miscommunications with Border Patrol officials. L-3 has fixed many of the problems there recently, but Border Patrol agents still complain of malfunctions and blind spots.
• The GSA inspector general's report also sharply criticized operations at a Border Patrol repair center in New Mexico staffed by two Border Patrol officials and 19 IMC employees. Many Border Patrol agents complained that repairs on the ISIS equipment they sent there took months to complete.
• The GSA report said "little or no work" was done at the center in the previous year, even though IMC billed the government for $500,000 during that time. The report said millions of dollars in IMC overcharges might have occurred there.
• The Border Patrol official who ran the center, David Watters, acknowledged he had a brother and a niece who worked for IMC. But he said his relatives' jobs did not affect his dealings with the company.
• Watters said that the GSA report was unfair and that the center's slowdown in repairs was caused by the halt in ISIS work. IMC's Acri disputed some of the GSA's findings, saying it failed to accept his assertions that IMC did not profit improperly.
• The GSA report and numerous government and industry executives said Border Patrol, INS and GSA officials -- most of whom lacked experience on complex contracts -- often deferred to IMC in deciding what equipment to buy and how much IMC should be paid. The GSA report said IMC's contracts with the government lacked detail, "thereby leaving interpretation of the government's needs up to the contractor."
  "Government officials failed miserably to do their job," said Tim Golden, an IMC subcontractor on the program who later had a falling out with IMC. "It's incomprehensible how inept they were."

• Many ISIS documents were drawn up in such a way that IMC was paid up front, and escaped financial liability if its performance was disputed, said the GSA report and U.S. officials.
• Inspectors visited three sites in 2004 - Nogales, Naco and Tucson - and found none of the remote surveillance systems was fully operational, despite payments of more than $5.2 million since 2001."

According to the Washington Post, "Many -- but not all -- of the system's problems have been resolved in the past year by repair work done by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., a New York firm that bought IMC in 2003, officials said." However coincidentally, Rebecca Reyes is employed by L-3 Communications in their Washington Government Services Office.

For his part, Representative Reyes campaign contributors include key defense industry companies.

Campaign Contributions, 2005-2006:

Echostar Communications Corporation PAC Inc $2000

L-3 Communications Corporation Political Action Committee $3000

General Dynamics Voluntary Political Contribution Plan (GDVPCP) $6000

Lockheed Martin Employees' Political Action Committee $6000

Boeing Political Action Committee $6000

Raytheon Company Political Action Committee $9000

Campaign Contributions, 2003-2004:

L-3 Communications Corporation Political Action Committee $5000

Echostar Communications Corporation PAC Inc $5500

Boeing Political Action Committee $7000

Employees of Northrup Grumman Corporation PAC $7500

General Dynamics Voluntary Political Contribution Plan (GDVPCP) $9000

Lockheed Martin Employees' Political Action Committee $10000

Raytheon Company Political Action Committee $10000

Speaker Pelosi, are you really the woman to clean up the House? Come on, show us!