It's the Corruption, stupid....

[brindis_desala]

This invasion/occupation has produced a level of war-profiteering unmatched in modern history. Thanks to a corrupt and supine Republican Congress our treasury is being fleeced by gangsters. If BushCo can't do simple accounting how on earth can it rebuild a nation? But then that was never the point of the "War on Terror" or rather, "how we drain the republic dry..." (what follows here is but the tip of the iceberg:)

New Halliburton Whistleblowers Say Millions Wasted in Iraq
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
June 16th, 2004
>snip>
"In testimony submitted to members of Congress, one truck driver explained in detail how taxpayers were billed for empty trucks driven up and down Iraq and how $85,000 vehicles were abandoned for lack of spare tires. A labor foreman said dozens of workers were told to "look busy" while doing virtually no work for salaries of $80,000 a year. An auditor related how the company was spending an average of $100 for every single bag of laundry and $10,000 a month for company employees to stay in five-star hotels.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11373

Follow the Money
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Monday 04 April 2005 Issue

"Watchdogs are warning that corruption in Iraq is out of control. But will the United States join efforts to clamp down on it?
Yet when the two whistle-blowers sued Custer Battles on behalf of the U.S. government-under a U.S. law intended to punish war profiteering and fraud-the Bush administration declined to take part.
<snip>

"The government has not lifted a finger to get back the $50 million Custer Battles defrauded it of," says Alan Grayson, a lawyer for the two whistle-blowers, Pete Baldwin and Robert Isakson.
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37...

Associated Press
Audit: $9 Billion Unaccounted for in Iraq
01.30.2005,
"The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.
http://www.forbes.com/business/manufacturing/feeds/ap/2...

Journalist Mark North, who covered the invasion for National Public Radio and was employed by the CPA to train Iraqi journalists to report for the US-founded Iraq Media Network (IMN), told the hearing that CPA officials regularly directed and censored the activities of the TV news station. < >while private American contractors were lavishly wasting CPA funds on five-star hotels in Kuwait and unnecessary supplies in Baghdad, the Iraq Media Network lacked even basic equipment.....<snip>
While the committee members and witnesses repeatedly affirmed their support for the US mission in Iraq < > <snip> each witness testified that the corrupt activities were carried out as a matter of policy,
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1484

U.S. Officials Suspected of Embezzlement in Iraq
US officials "were under the impression that it was more important to quickly distribute the money to the region than to obtain all necessary documentation," the audit report says.
"We're not saying the money is lost. We're saying they can't account for it," Mitchell said.

One U.S. official told auditors that he was given $6.75 million on June 21 and told he had to spend the money by June 28, the day the U.S.-led administration in Iraq turned over sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.
<snip> It has argued privately that the occupation government, known as the Coalition Provisional Authority, was a multinational institution, not an arm of the US government. So the US government was not technically defrauded. Lawyers for the whistle-blowers point out, however, that President George W. Bush signed a 2003 law authorizing $18.7 billion to go to US authorities in Iraq, including the CPA, "as an entity of the United States government." And several contracts with Custer Battles refer to the other party as "the United States of America."
http://iraqieconomy.org/home/macro/corruption/20050505

US 'failed to control' Iraq oil
By Mark Gregory, BBC World Service business correspondent
"US-led authorities failed to deal with widespread oil smuggling
<snip> A United Nations panel has found that the US-led occupation authority failed to exercise proper controls over Iraq's oil industry and could not say how much oil had gone missing since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The International Advisory and Monitoring Board report also said there were "important weaknesses" in the management by occupation officials of up to $20bn in Iraqi funds, mostly from oil sales.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4098729.stm

"Funds to Rebuild Iraq Are Drifting Away From Target"
October 6, 2004 - As little as 27 cents of every dollar spent on Iraq's reconstruction has actually filtered down to projects benefiting Iraqis, a statistic that is prompting the State Department to fundamentally rethink the Bush administration's troubled reconstruction effort.
Between soaring security costs, corruption and mismanagement, contractors' profits, and U.S. governmental costs, reconstruction funding is being drained away, leaving little left to improve the lives of Iraqis, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. Senior administration officials and congressional experts on the reconstruction effort called the analysis credible. One senior U.S. official familiar with reconstruction suggested as little as a quarter of the funding is reaching its intended projects.
http://iraqieconomy.org/home/macro/corruption/20041006

[Wapsie B]

1. $9 Billion Unaccounted for .........

good lord, just give you and me a small slice of that and we'd be set for life. It's just a feeding frenzy at the hog trough as the repugs raid the government's coffers.

[babylonsister]

2. That's exactly what it is, a feeding frenzy, but at the

expense of young souls and blood, forget about the horror that is Iraq. And while I've heard of that missing $9 bil which I'm sure the whereabouts are known (but not to us), I would love to see the accumulation of funds that Halliburton aka Cheney has made.
I hate to use the term boggles the mind again, but there it is.

[NoFederales]

15. Some perspective on large #'s

Many people see the words or all the zeros attached to the #'s and don't comprehend the magnitude, for example:

Imagine trying to spend "Nine Billion" dollars. This would represent about

$1,000 per day for 25,000 years, or

$1,000,000 per day for 25 years (I rounded up the years).

In both scenarios that is PER day. Only the greed of these folks exceeds the numerical values, and that is truly staggering. How goddamned much is enough anyway?

NoFederales

[AuntiBush]

3. What a mess.

It will take a generation to sift thru the pile.

[brindis_desala]

9. Of course the Brits want a neck in the trough as well- their system

of government makes Bush-style gangsterism a bit harder to get away with but then what are friends for?
Controversial Commando Wins Iraq Contract
By Pratap Chatterjee*
CorpWatch
June 9, 2004
Occupation authorities in Iraq have awarded a $293 million contract effectively creating the world's largest private army to a company headed by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former officer with the Scots Guard, an elite regiment of the British military, who has been investigated for illegally smuggling arms and planning military offensives to support mining, oil, and gas operations around the world. On May 25, the Army Transportation command awarded Spicer's company, Aegis Defense Services, the contract to coordinate all the security for Iraqi reconstruction projects.

"I am pleased to confirm that we've been awarded a contract to assist the Project Management Office (PMO) in Iraq by the United States Department of Defense," said Spicer, who started Aegis just over a year ago on Picadilly in London, only a short walk from Buckingham Palace. "The contract involves coordination of security support for reconstruction contractors and for the protection of PMO personnel."

Under the "cost-plus" contract, the military will cover all of the company's expenses, plus a pre-determined percentage of whatever they spend, which critics say is a license to over-bill.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/contract/2004/0609spicer.htm

[Karenina]

12. Indeed!

:kick:

[CrispyQ]

4. I can barely fathom these amounts!

I know I don't fathom the greed that motivates them.

~gasp

[shance]

5. I wonder if every American, or most Americans who read these articles

would begin to more fully comprehend all the "corruption" that is being done in our name and seek to stop the insanity.

I do believe (and hope) that would be the case.

Even with the media blackout, many Republicans and apoliticals have become more involved in anti-war issues and activism overall, quite often because it has somehow affected their own personal lives or those they know.

What you posted is a great indicator of how complicit *mainstream* American media is in this debacle by their intentional avoidance and omission of such important information from coming out to those who it will affect most.

Just these few articles reveal how vital honest reporting and information outreach is for every American, Republican or Democrat, as well as the health of our Democracy.

Politics aside, (which is part of the problem being that it intentionally creates division)the truth has nothing to do with political parties, does it? It has to do with life and death for many innocent individuals who are being used and exploited for some in power who have remained (up to this point) totally disconnected from the harm and tremendous damage they are inflicting.

Thanks for such an informative, accurate post Brindis.

[brindis_desala]

8. We know that a some level war has always been a racket

but these guys have made it a venal art form. Every American should read this old article from the Nation.
Risky Business in Iraq
By Naomi Klein*
The Nation
January 5, 2004
It turns out that there is a rather significant hitch in Paul Bremer's bold plan to auction off Iraq while it is still under occupation: The insurance companies aren't going for it. Until recently, the question of who would insure multinationals in Iraq has not been pressing. The major reconstruction contractors like Bechtel are covered by USAID for "unusually hazardous risks" encountered in the field. And Halliburton's pipeline work is covered under a law passed by Bush on May 22 that indemnifies the entire oil industry from "any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process."

A US government agency, OPIC provides loans and insurance to US companies investing abroad. And while Lempres agrees with earlier speakers that the risks in Iraq are "extraordinary and unusual," he also says that "OPIC is different. We do not exist primarily to generate profit." Instead, OPIC exists to "support US foreign policy." And since turning Iraq into a free-trade zone is a top Bush policy goal, OPIC will be there to help out. Earlier that same day, President Bush signed legislation providing "the agency with enhancements to its political risk insurance program," according to an OPIC press release.

The news, as yet unreported, appears to take even the highest-level delegates by complete surprise. After his presentation, Lempres is approached by Julie Martin, a political risk specialist at Marsh & McLennan. "Is it true?" she demands. Lempres nods. "Our lawyers are ready." "I'm stunned," Martin says. "You're ready? No matter who the government is?" "We're ready," Lempres replies. "If there's an expro on January 3, we're ready.... I don't know what we're going to do if someone sinks a billion dollars into a pipeline and there's an expro."
<snip>
Lempres doesn't seem too concerned about these possible "expros," but it's a serious question. According to its official mandate, OPIC functions "on a self-sustaining basis at no net cost to taxpayers." But Lempres admits that the political risks in Iraq are "extraordinary." If a new Iraqi government expropriates and re-regulates across the board, OPIC could be forced to compensate dozens of US firms for billions of dollars in lost investments and revenues, possibly tens of billions.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2004/0105risky.htm

[stickdog]

6. And the House is about to rubberstamp another $45 billion for Iraqoruption

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5079346,00.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House is poised to give the Pentagon an additional $45 billion for wars next year, even as public support for combat in Iraq wanes and lawmakers press for an exit strategy.

[babylonsister]

7. Here's another issue I have an 'issue' with: because

we're at war we can't say 'no'to piling on money for a war? Why not? Let's get some answers from previous questions before more is spent on this!

[brindis_desala]

10. Kerry would have been forced to"stay the course"...

The Military-Oil-CorporateMedia complex would have compelled it but I suspect JFK would have tackled the corruption and reduced our risks.
Oil Companies in Iraq:
A Century of Rivalry and War
By James A. Paul
Global Policy Forum
The United States and the United Kingdom did not wage war on Iraq for the officially stated reasons. That much is obvious. The world’s superpower and its key ally were not acting because they feared the Iraqi government’s weapons of mass destruction or its ties with the terrorist group al-Qaeda. Nor were they fighting to bring democracy to the Middle East, a region where the two governments had long supported reactionary monarchs and odious dictators, including Iraqi president Saddam Hussein himself.

It is time, then, to set aside the sterile discussions about “intelligence failures” and to consider a deeper reason for the conflict. <snip> The imperial dreams of the neo-con advisors in Washington contributed to the final outcome, as did the re-election strategies of the political operatives in the White House. But the Iraq war did not emerge solely from the Bush administration. As we shall see, it involved both London and Washington, through the course of many governments.
<snip>

All producer companies want to gain control of such lucrative profits, by fair means or foul. Company rivalry typically leads beyond ordinary market-based competition. As many studies show, companies and their sponsor governments do not shrink from backing dictatorial governments, using bribery and corruption, promoting civil violence and even resorting to war, to meet their commercial goals and best their competitors.12 The modern history of the Middle East bears witness to this process. In one notorious example, US intelligence services recruited in 1959 a young Iraqi thug named Saddam Hussein to take part in the assassination of Iraqi Prime Minister Abd el-Karim Qasim.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/2003companiesiniraq.htm

[brindis_desala]

11. They're slick but Ashcroft was too hot to handle so he was dumped

Grand Juries in New York and Washington Expose Major Ashcroft Conflicts of Interest

Cheney’s Task Force Met with Targets of Grand Jury Probes -- Cheney Connected to Investigations -- Served on Kazakh State Oil Board When Reported Bribes Took Place

March 26, 2002, 10:00 AM PST (FTW) ­ Attorney General John Ashcroft’s prompt and public recusal from the Enron investigation because of a conflict of interest arising from Enron’ s donations to his 2000 Senate race has not been matched by a similar recusal in the case of federal grand juries in New York and Washington investigating two additional Ashcroft donors, ExxonMobil and BP Amoco. This, even though ExxonMobil gave more money to Ashcroft’s campaign than Enron did.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RUP203B.html
I'll keep posting this stuff till somebody notices...

[brindis_desala]

13. Even though Rockefellers' Standard Oil merged with British Petrol

to form BP America the Brits were never happy with the apportionment of the IRAQ spoils. Bush may live to regret it...

"Disclosure of the meetings in October in Washington - confirmed by an INC spokesman - comes as Lord Browne, the head of BP, has warned that British oil companies have been squeezed out of post-war Iraq even before the first shot has been fired in any US-led land invasion.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,825103,00.html

[suziedemocrat]

14. kick!

[brindis_desala]

16. It's official: dick cheney has made the US government a wholly-owned

subsidiary of Halliburton.
"Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War
Cheney's Former Company Profits from Supporting Troops
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
March 20th, 2003

Wartime Profiteering

Meanwhile Dick Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure statement, states that the Halliburton is paying him a "deferred compensation" of up to $1million a year following his resignation as chief executive in 2000. At the time Cheney opted not to receive his severance package in a lump sum, but instead to have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.

The company would not say how much the payments are. The obligatory disclosure statement filled by all top government officials says only that they are in the range of $100,000 and $1million. Nor is it clear how they are calculated.

Critics say that the apparent conflict of interest is deplorable. "The Bush-Cheney team have turned the United States into a family business," says Harvey Wasserman, author of The Last Energy War (Seven Stories Press, 2000). "That's why we haven't seen Cheney - he's cutting deals with his old buddies who gave him a multimillion-dollar golden handshake. Have they no grace, no shame, no common sense? Why don't they just have Enron run America? Or have Zapata Petroleum (George W. Bush's failed oil-exploration venture) build a pipeline across Afghanistan?"
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6008

[brindis_desala]

17. Our Fighting Men and Women can't even get basic equipment

but the Republicans continue to reward the malefactors with no bid contracts:

Former Army chaplain says KBR places profits before soldiers
22 July 2004

WASHINGTON, July 22 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- A former Army chaplain who later worked for Halliburton's KBR unit today told Congress about KBR's abuse of U.S. taxpayer funds in the middle east. Marie deYoung, who worked as a logistics specialist for KBR said, "There was no regard for spending limits." In a sharp attack on her former employer, she said, "KBR came first, the soldiers came second." She also lamented that, "Soldiers don't really get treated that well in the Army."

Ms. deYoung is in a position to know about contracting abuses since her duties at KBR included ensuring the troops were properly equipped and supplied. She was an assistant to one of KBR's 350 subcontract administrators in the middle east. Subcontract administrators fulfill Halliburton's duties under the Army's LOGCAP contract to feed the troops, do their laundry, transport supplies around Iraq and Kuwait and construct military housing. The contract was awarded to Halliburton in 2001 after former CEO Dick Cheney became vice president. It is Halliburton's most lucrative government contract and the largest contract awarded by the Army.
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/deyoung.html

[kitkat65]

18. Great phrase!

It's the corruption, stupid!

You should submit that for the DU t-shirt contest

[brindis_desala]

19. Where are our Congressional watchdogs?...getting rich...

Sheryl Tappan has written proposals that have won billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. Government work. In early 2003, she was responsible for the proposal that won Bechtel the Iraq civil infrastructure reconstruction contract from USAID ($1.3 billion).
THE SONS OF RIO CONSPIRACY
By Sheryl Tappan
August 17, 2004

When the secret $7 billion Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract the Pentagon gave Halliburton KBR was revealed in March 2003, Bush administration critics began accusing the Pentagon of cronyism, because of the Cheney-Halliburton connection. In response, the Pentagon began promising to replace that contract by holding a competition for two new contracts as quickly as possible. The irony is the “Sons of RIO” competition turned out to be far more corrupt than the secret sole-source award. Pentagon officials, up and down the chain of command, lied and cheated Halliburton’s competitors and broke federal laws to ensure Halliburton kept all of the Iraq oil work. They include generals and high-level political appointees at the Pentagon, as well as lower-level contracting staff at the Army Corps of Engineers’ Southwestern Division/Fort Worth District, who conducted the Sons of RIO competition.

Another irony is the evidence of conspiracy, corruption, and procurement fraud is contained in official documents posted on the Web by the Corps in July and August of 2003 for the bidders — and the entire world — to see.1
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/tappan.html

[brindis_desala]

20. But we're dealing with experience crooks here...

Cooking the Books

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating allegations reported in the The New York Times that Halliburton committed accounting fraud during the period when Dick Cheney was CEO. According to the Times, Halliburton illegally overstated revenues by $100 million in order to hide tremendous losses the company had experienced due to a recession in the oil industry.

The overstatement of revenues was approved by Halliburton's accountant, Arthur Andersen, the same firm convicted for helping Enron hide illegal accounting practices.
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/cookbooks.html

[brindis_desala]

21. Our troops are pleading for our help and we ignore them...

US Soldiers Asked To Protect Halliburton Profits
Monday, 6 September 2004, 12:00 pm
Opinion: Guest Opinion
Real Stories from Real Americans: A Plea for Help
By Spiros D - Baghdad
Straight Talk

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0409/S00063.htm

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

22. Good golly! We've just misplaced $9 billion!

Where could it be? Maybe it's hanging out with all those WMD's that are still hiding undetected in Iraq. Or maybe it's been used by the Halliburton board to buy up their 15th downtown penthouse. Unbelievable, all of it. Makes Teapot Dome seem like a little white lie by comparison.

[brindis_desala]

23. Not with us? Get lost! "Keeping the SEC on a Starvation Diet"

By William K. Black

Consider these facts about the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):

1. U.S. (and world) stock markets have lost trillions of dollars of capital value.
2. The corporate frauds and abuses are a major cause of these losses.
3. The SEC has been starved for budget and personnel for decades.
4. SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt and the Administration cut key SEC staff in 2001.
5. Congress had to order Pitt and the Administration to rebuild the SEC.
6. The Administration is not complying, it is blocking most of the increase.
7. Why? It claims there's not enough money given the deficit.
8. Why is there a deficit? A massive tax cut and the stock market losses.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/SEC.html

This is all being done PURPOSEFULLY folks. Follow the MONEY!

[brindis_desala]

24. Introducing...the Bush Crime Family...(and they're the small potatoes)

Meet The Carlyle Group
Former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Making Billions in the War on Terrorism
http://www.hereinreality.com/carlyle.html

[brindis_desala]

25. No need to comment but perhaps there are readers who are interested

in the biggest war profiteering racket in human history...