the Shadow Government is real, rich, powerful...

[barbtries]

Washington's $8 Billion Shadow

this article is so scary to read. so necessary that it be read, and we need to act, i believe. act to bring back our country, a democracy "of, for, and by the people," and get rid of contractors like this one.

i mean NOBODY who did the piss poor job that this company has done, NOBODY who was caught lying and defrauding their best customer,would keep their job in what for most of us is the "real" world. but here they just get more contracts, more money, more influence.

these - people - it's really difficult for me to refer to these thieving murderous greedy soulless motherfuckers as people. If i believe that there is a process of spiritual evolution ongoing, and that humanity is moving toward the good, then i guess i can honestly say that the bushies/neocons/the people who are the "contractors" to which our wealth has been diverted and for which our children are being dumbed down and sent to foreign lands to kill and die....are examples of a lesser evolutionary age.

i mean they really need to be fired, jailed, prosecuted, stripped of the wealth they have stolen from the people, and taken far, far away from access to any real power. as it is they decide to a great extent who lives and dies. and their legacies are so bloodied, so bereft of anything even pretending to a greater good.

some quotes:

Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.

The second development is that several of SAIC's biggest projects have turned out to be colossal failures, failures that have occurred very much in public.

One involves the National Security Agency, America's intelligence-gathering "electronic ear" and for many years SAIC's biggest customer. The volume of telephone, e-mail, and other electronic communications that the N.S.A. intercepts worldwide is so massive that the agency urgently needs a new computer system to store it, sort it, and give it meaning—otherwise it will keep missing clues like the Arabic message "Tomorrow is zero hour," intercepted the day before 9/11 but not translated until the day after. SAIC won the initial $280 million, 26-month contract to design and create this system, called Trailblazer. Four years and more than a billion dollars later, the effort has been abandoned.

SAIC has "settled" numerous suits or quieted investigations or slithered away from paying real consequences for its heinous behavior by shelling out 2.56 million dollars here, 2.5 million dollars there...and it is obvious that these sums put not a dent in the immense profitability of this conglomerate.

lest you think there is anything even a little honestly patriotic about the war in iraq, how it began, who pushed it and why, read this article. please read this article...

Civilians at SAIC used to joke that the company had so many admirals and generals in its ranks it could start its own war. Some might argue that, in the case of Iraq, it did.

There isn't a politically correct way to put it, but this is what needs to be said: 9/11 was a personal tragedy for thousands of families and a national tragedy for all of America, but it was very, very good for SAIC. In the aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration launched its Global War on Terror, whose chief consequence has been to channel money by the tens of billions into companies promising they could do something—anything—to help. SAIC was ready. Four years earlier, anticipating the next big source of government revenue, SAIC had established the Center for Counterterrorism Technology and Analysis. According to SAIC, the purpose of the new unit was to take "a comprehensive view of terrorist threats, including the full range of weapons of mass destruction, more traditional high explosives, and cyber-threats to the national infrastructure." In October of 2006 the company told would-be investors flatly that the war on terror would continue to be a lucrative growth industry.

not only has this company profited regardless of how effective, honest, or budget-constrained any one project with which they have been involved might be, they have broken laws, sneered at the public trust, and just got away with everything, without even becoming a well known company.

this must change....

More important, the company had forestalled a wider investigation. One of Woodlee's lawyers, Glenn Grossenbacher, who has represented other whistle-blowers against other companies, describes SAIC as unlike any other company he has ever confronted. "These guys handle things very differently than other people," he said. "They had better access to the Pentagon than the government's own attorneys. They are so well connected they were able to isolate this one case. This should have been a case. The reason it wasn't was because of their political clout to shut it down and localize it."

And the revolving door never stops spinning. One of the biggest contracts ever for SAIC is in the works right now. It's for a Pentagon program called Future Combat Systems, which is described as "a complex plan to turn the U.S. Army into a lighter, more lethal, more mobile force" and also as "the most difficult integration program ever undertaken by the U.S. Department of Defense." The contract runs into the billions of dollars. The man who helped craft this program at the Pentagon was Lieutenant General Daniel R. Zanini. Zanini recently retired from the army, and he now has a new job. Can you guess where it might be?

[Erika]

1. Eisenhower's feared military industrialized complex

for real. Brought to us by W who has not one family member involved in the military. We fight, they profit.

[Karenina]

3. Yup! K&R!!!

[Fridays Child]

2. K and R

Still reading it....

[Faux pas]

4. I posted this story yesterday, it should be repeated and posted

and passed on as much as possible. K and R from me. :thumbsup: :kick:

[barbtries]

5. i caught it after i had posted this

yesterday was when i read the article. i agree with you - this is huge, absolutely. and outrageous. good gawd i want my country back

[Larry Allen]

6. $8B = 0.18% of the Leo Wanta money

[AnOhioan]

7. K&R

[ixion]

8. very informative. it would be great to see this piece grow a pair of legs

and run. :applause:

The amount of waste and fraud and incompetence in our government is staggering.

k'd and r'd.

[Le Taz Hot]

9. But who will fire them?

The Democrats? I'm sorry, but there is a reason impeachment is off the table and its not the reasons they're giving you. We need to stop looking to the Democrats for salvation and elect people who will represent US. Remember US? We the People? US?

It's not up to political parties to pull us out of this shit. It's not up to the MSM. THEY'RE in for the piece of the pie. They have no interest in changing the status quo. No, that change is up to us. The Founding Fathers handed us a perfectly good form of government and we have managed to lazy and apathetic ourselves into a dictatorship. WE need to wake up and take action. WE need to wake up the American people to the realities of what true patriotism is. WE need to take our country back. (Thank you, Howard Dean for putting it so succinctly.)

[barbtries]

10. that is right

i am terribly discouraged by this new congress. it seems obvious that they have only a surface dedication to the principles the cornerstones of what made this country the shining light for so many for so long. IF they truly were intent on returning this nation to its people the administration would already have been brought up on charges - their big show of legislating the 911 commission report recommendations basically sickened me. if they could do that, they need to get to work answering - severely and unequivocally - all of the skanky, slimy, anti american moves that have been gotten away with since gw strongarmed his way into the white house.

they need to reopen the investigation into 911 - and staff it with non-partisan activists for the people of this country, and allow it to subpoena any person to whom the information points, and have them testify under oat, and they need to make the process comprehensive and transparent.

they need to get rid of gonzales and his specious bullshit rationalizations and made up arguments - unitary executive powers my ass. we need the judiciary back in its traditional role free of ideology and not beholden to political lords no better than mafia bosses.

they need to get rid of cheney, rice, gw bush, on and on, all the goddamned liars!

and the only way that is ever going to happen is if somehow, someway, enough people get political enough to put congress on notice that we mean it.

i personally will not vote for a candidate who has not taken a stand on the issue of the war: it is illegal, it is wrong, it is deadly, and it has to end - and the outrageous and practically numberless violations of the principles of our government, by the government. i will not vote for a candidate who appears to hold politics more important than the rule of law and i will not vote for a candidate who does not advocate for the proper treatment for the bastard rogues who have brought us to the brink of world war stealing us blind lying to us spying on us making us poorer and poorer...dumbing us down killing us, neglecting and absconding from their vows with felonious intentions and results.

peace. amen

[halobeam]

22. I read it last night.

Words fail me. I do wonder how you/I will know WHO/which candidate to vote for that isn't crooked? After reading this, I believe both sides are so deep in this. How do we find out who's involved in SAIC?? That is the BILLION dollar question IMO.

[90-percent]

11. I agree with Le taz

But, my question is:

Who's the most influential person in the democratic or political establishment we should be drafting to make impeachment JOB ONE?

Right now there is a tremendous GRASSROOTS OVERTHROW THE BASTARDS movement at the local level all over the country. If we could assimilate into one hugh blok in stead of the fractious state we're in now, something would happen.

I remember watching Ramsey Clarke down in DC Jan 2003 talk openly about impeachment - he even has an impeach bush website.

I want to be part of the ten million man and woman and children impeachment march on Washington DC this April!

-85% jimmy

PS - I went to a town hall meeting with my congressman john larsen a few weeks ago. I told him that the current administration runs like the Mafia runs. Only diff is at least the MAFIA has smart people in it. I go to a lot of these and generally do my best to convey how angry us citizens are.

[Gryphons Eyre]

14. But how to organize the outrage is the key!

Born into a Democrat home; voted Democrat all my life but for the first time last year thought about third party solutions; there are no viable ones!

So what do progressives suggest? Netroots has provided some hope for political action outside the one party government we have disguised as a two-party system. Moveon.org has had some results. Howard Dean is a reformer as are many within the Democratic Party. Do we press reform within the party to effect change in the nation?

Inquiring minds truly want to know.

g

[Doremus]

17. "Do we press reform within the party?" Absolutely!

We must be organized under one organization or we have nothing.

It's our responsibility to pressure our elected representatives to REPRESENT US.

As you point out, we have some genuine, caring leaders. We need more!

Let's go out and get them elected!

BTW, Welcome to DU!!

[SaneInSC]

19. Amen!

We should elect citizens who will work for us all--NOT PARTIES. A party never did anything for me. People on the other hand...

[anitar1]

32. Yes, Le Taz Hot, YES. n/t

[donsu]

12. kick

nt

[Morereason]

13. Incredibly disturbing - Truly details what is really a "shadow government"

[Joanne98]

15. SAIC wikipedia

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) NYSE: SAI was the largest employee-owned research and engineering firm in the United States. It was founded by Dr. J. Robert "Bob" Beyster in 1969 in La Jolla, California, as Science Applications Incorporated. As of 2006, SAIC employed over 43,000 employees and reported $7.8 billion in revenue,<1> making it number 285<2> on the Fortune 500 list.

Although SAIC is a large technology firm with numerous federal, state, and private sector clients, its traditional expertise has been supporting the United States Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, including the National Security Agency. In fiscal year 2003, SAIC did over $2.6 billion in business with the United States Department of Defense, making it the ninth largest defense contractor in the United States. Other large contracts include their lead on a contract for information technology for the 2004 Olympics in Greece<3> and from 2001 to 2005, SAIC was the primary contractor for the FBI's failed Virtual Case File project.<4>

Dr. Beyster founded SAIC on the principles of employee ownership: that those who care about the value of a company (the shareholders) should be the same as the people responsible for producing that value (the employees). On November 3, 2003, Kenneth C. Dahlberg was named the CEO of SAIC, ending Beyster's 30+ years of leadership. In May 2005, under the new CEO, the company changed its external tagline from An Employee-Owned Company to From Science to Solutions, retaining the former for internal communications.


Initial Public Offering
On September 1, 2005, SAIC announced that its Board of Directors had decided to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) of common stock worth in excess of US$1.7 billion. After the proposed IPO, existing employee-owners would retain between 80 percent and 90 percent of the new company, meaning that the employee ownership would be substantially preserved.

On September 27, 2006, during a special meeting of stockholders, employee-owners voted by a margin of 86% to proceed with the IPO. The initial stock price is estimated at $13-$15 per share, with a public offering of 75 million shares. If the underwriters, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley, exercise overallotment options, an additional 11.25 million shares will be offered. The company also plans to pay a special dividend to existing stock holders upon completion of the IPO of $1.6 billion to $2.4 billion.

On October 11, 2006, MarketWatch reported that "IPO is expected to price late Thursday and trade on Friday." The IPO date would fall on 13 October 2006.


References
^ Company Overview. SAIC Web Site. Retrieved on August 13, 2006.
^ SAIC Ranks Among Highest Revenue Businesses. SAIC Web Site. Retrieved on August 13, 2006.
^ After Olympics contractors leave behind IT legacy. Washington Technology. Retrieved on August 13, 2006.
^ The FBI's Upgrade That Wasn't. Washington Post. Retrieved on February 8, 2007.

External links
Official website
IPO Information
IPO Approval Press Release
SAIC's SEC filings
National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO)
Project for Government Oversight Report on SAIC Lobbying records and lists of ex-government SAIC employees.
Coverage of SAIC Iraq Single-source contracts
Barlett, Donald L. & James B. Steele (2007), Washington's $8 Billion Shadow (March 2007 ed.), Vanity Fair
v • d • e

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Applications_International_Corporation

[Joanne98]

16. The politics of contracting (report)

http://www.pogo.org/p/contracts/c/co-040101-contractor.html

[barbtries]

20. thanks for posting this

apparently wikipedia doesn't mention it, but the vanity fair article does:

Not every SAIC client is as forgiving as the United States government. When SAIC failed to deliver a highly touted security system for the 2004 Athens Olympics, the Greek government refused to make a final payment. SAIC had proposed the most extensive security shield in Olympic history: more than 100 command posts, vehicle-tracking devices and sensors everywhere, 1,600 video cameras, and a blimp loaded with "sensitive equipment" floating "silently overhead acting as an airborne surveillance center." As video feeds flowed to a central command post, SAIC's state-of-the-art software would link all these capabilities. The system was to remain in place as an anti-terrorism tool in Athens for years to come. But turmoil within SAIC plagued the effort from the start. Project managers came and went. On the eve of the games a source close to the Olympic planners stated that "the entire Committee without exception believe that the … system doesn't work."

The Olympics started up on schedule. SAIC's security system did not. A newspaper in Athens described the system as "operationally useless," and Greek officials improvised simply by adding more guards. Before the games began, SAIC and the Greek government had quietly come to an agreement that called for continued testing of the system and "final acceptance to occur no later than October 1, <2004>"—one month after the games ended. A payment of $23 million would follow. SAIC missed this deadline, too. After more wrangling the two sides, according to an Athens newspaper, reached an understanding that calls for SAIC to complete work by May 2008, almost four years after the Olympics. As of last fall, SAIC's losses on the project totaled a staggering $123 million, and the company acknowledges "our poor performance on the Greek Olympics contract." SAIC is trying to recoup some of its losses in an arbitration and so far has managed to keep the lid on potentially embarrassing revelations about the competence of a company whose operations are built on claims of technical expertise.

i just find it so outrageous that a company that fails so egregiously is even still in business - and this one, well, it's making money hand over fist. taxpayer money. makes me sick.

[femrap]

18. Thank you for posting this.....

A Must Read...I sent it out and asked them to forward.

The Corporations are one of the main reasons our nation is collapsing. People need to know who to blame....and it ain't the gays and feminazis!

[Laurab]

21. K & R - Articles like this are the reason I subscribe to Vanity Fair

this should be read by everyone.

More than half of the SAIC employees have clearances for the CIA, military and government officals go back and forth with their employment, and so many contracts were just trashed because they didn't know what they were doing. Paid for, of course, by us, the taxpayers.

Warmongering is very profitable for some...

[cosmicdot]

23. might Mitre be similar?

another possible "SAIC"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MITRE_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MITRE

sample trustees:

Schlesinger serves as a Consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense; is a member of the Defense Policy Board; is a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century / Hart-Rudman Commission; is a member of the Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile; a member of the Threat Advisory Committee, Department of Defense; is a member of the Global Position System Independent Review Team, U.S. Air Force; is a member of the Advisory Committee, National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Energy; and, most recently, on June 11, 2002, was appointed by President George Walker Bush to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Richard J. Kerr is an international consultant. From 1989 to 1992, Mr. Kerr was the deputy director of Central Intelligence. As such, he had responsibilities in the Intelligence Community and assisted in the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

From September 1991 to November 1991, he served as acting director of Central Intelligence.

http://www.mitre.org


re SAIC ... (as someone pointed out, that's CIA spelled backward) its headquarters is in La Jolla, California ... must be nice

c. 1984 SAIC was involved in building Saudi Arabia's telecommunications infrastructure

SAIC is a member of the US-Saudi Arabian Business Council (as is others)
http://www.us-saudi-business.org/MembersUS.asp


we the people are way out of the power loop

[barbtries]

29. http://www.mitre.org/

MITRE. it's a not for profit organization.
The MITRE Corporation is a not-for-profit organization chartered to work in the public interest. As a national resource, we apply our expertise in systems engineering, information technology, operational concepts, and enterprise modernization to address our sponsors' critical needs.
MITRE manages three Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs): one for the Department of Defense (known as the DOD Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence FFRDC), one for the Federal Aviation Administration (the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development), and one for the Internal Revenue Service (the Center for Enterprise Modernization). MITRE also has its own independent research and development program that explores new technologies and new uses of technologies to solve our sponsors' problems in the near-term and in the future.

i read up on the board of trustees.
the CV's for the most part read something like this:

Board Member Since 2006
Mr. Alfred GrassoMr. Alfred Grasso is president and chief executive officer of The MITRE Corporation. In addition, he is director of MITRE's Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) operated by MITRE for the Department of Defense (DOD). In this role, he is responsible for leading all of MITRE's C3I work, and ensuring integration across its various programs to achieve national security objectives.
From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Grasso was senior vice president and general manager of MITRE's Washington Command, Control and Communications (WC3) Center, responsible for the management and direction of work conducted for the Army, Navy, Defense Information Systems Agency, Missile Defense Agency, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other members of the national security community.

or this:

Board Member Since 1999
Admiral David E. Jeremiah, U.S. Navy (Ret.), is president of Technology Strategies & Alliances Corporation, a strategic advisory and investment banking firm engaged primarily in the aerospace, defense, telecommunications, and electronics industries. In addition to his corporate responsibilities at ATK, ManTech, Todd Shipyard, Wackenhut Services, In-Q-Tel, and Geobiotics, Admiral Jeremiah is a member of the Defense Policy Board, the National Defense Panel, and a Defense Science Board task force on human resources. He also headed an external panel that reviewed the organizational structure of the National Reconnaissance Office.

i think it would be reasonable based on what i read to believe that MITRE would have been demonstrative in developing our country's defense systems. as in the ones that failed on 9-11-01. they must have about a thousand years worth of advanced degrees and experience in the public and private sectors, cutting edge shit. and based on the observation that each trustee apparently serves on multiple boards, my best guess is that although MITRE is not for profit, the white men running it almost certainly are.

and even though MITRE is not for profit, it looks to me as if the persons involved would be moving around through the same sort of revolving door, from the public to the private, as with SAIC. many were military.

interesting. they mostly boast a slew of awards. i don't know which way they all swing politically but somehow i bet it's mostly rebubs

(regardingDr. Ashton B. Carter):A longtime member of the Defense Science Board and the Defense Policy Board, the principal advisory bodies to the Secretary of Defense, Dr. Carter continues to serve DOD as an adviser to the Secretary of Defense, a consultant to the Defense Science Board, and a member of the National Missile Defense White Team. In 1997 Dr. Carter co-chaired the Catastrophic Terrorism Study Group with former CIA Director John M. Deutch, which urged greater attention to terrorism. From 1998 to 2000, he was deputy to former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry in the North Korea Policy Review and traveled with him to Pyongyang. In 2001-2002, he served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism and advised on the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. In 2003 he was a member of the National Security Advisory Group to the U.S. Senate Democratic Leadership, with William Perry, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, Madeleine Albright, and others.

where were all these mofos on 9-11? how come they all have jobs? one video regarding the events of 911 discards the theory of incompetence - this regarding the failure of the defense system to intercept even one of the hijacked jets - because if that had been the case, somebody somewhere would have had to take a fall for what happened. in the case of the worst terrorist attack on the US mainland, they all got awards, promotions, medals, and shit.

also regarding Richard J. Kerr:

in Cuba during the 1962-1963 missile crisis, he analyzed information on Soviet forces and was the CIA representative to the commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Command. He also headed a task force planning for the use of new collection systems. Mr. Kerr also served as the deputy and chairman of the committee responsible for imagery requirements and exploitation and later as the executive officer for the Intelligence Community Staff.
In 1960, Mr. Kerr joined the CIA serving as an intelligence analyst primarily working on issues related to the Soviet Union. which makes me wonder if he knew lee harvey oswald....

stinks. i don't want to turn away with so much of my thinking tainted and twisted but i don't think i can study them no mo. least not tonight.

[happydreams]

24. Wanna see some eerier shadows....bwwwwaaa....

Inspector Kay, Hatfill, anthrax, Iraq WMD's....


Kay worked as the UN Chief Weapons Inspector from 1991 to 1992. Following that, he was Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) from 1993 to 2002. While at SAIC, he worked alongside Steven Hatfill until March 2002. Then, he was appointed as a Special Advisor for Strategy regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Programs. He received the International Atomic Energy Agency's Distinguished Service Award and the U.S. Secretary of State's Commendation. (SAIC was contracted by the U.S. to build prototype Mobile Weapons Laboratories in fall of 2001)


Dr. Steven Jay Hatfill is an African-trained American physician, virologist and bio-weapons expert. The US Department of Justice identified the former government scientist as a "person of interest" in its investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks but has not sought charges. FBI raids on his home were well attended by journalists and consequently, several news outlets have speculated that Hatfill was the likely suspect for the attacks.


After the 1991 Gulf War, Kay led teams of inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq to search out and destroy banned chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he returned to the country, working with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. military in 2003 and 2004 to determine if Saddam Hussein's regime had continued developing banned weapons. (See Iraq Survey Group)

......
On January 23, 2004, David Kay resigned stating that Iraq did not have WMD and that "I think there were stockpiles at the end of the first Gulf War and a combination of U.N. inspectors and unilateral Iraqi action got rid of them." <2> Kay was replaced in his role by Charles Duelfer and spent the following days discussing his discoveries and opinions with the news media and the United States political establishment. He testified on January 28, 2004 that “t turns out that we were all wrong” and “I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed, militarized chemical weapons there.” However, Kay defended the Bush administration, saying that even if Iraq did not have weapons stockpiles, this did not mean the nation wasn't dangerous. Kay also blamed faulty intelligence gathering for the prewar WMD conclusions. On February 2, 2004, Kay met with George W. Bush at the White House and maintained that Bush was right to go to war in Iraq and characterized Saddam Hussein's government as “far more dangerous than even we anticipated” when it was thought he had WMDs ready to deploy.


Testimony Before House and Senate Committees
In testimony on the progress of the Iraq Survey Group on October 2, 2003 he revealed to House and Senate committees that the ISG had found that Iraq had a network of clandestine laboratories containing equipment that should have been (but was not) disclosed to the UN inspectors. He also said that the ISG found an undeclared prison laboratory complex and an undeclared Unmanned Aerial Vehicle production facility. The Iraq Survey Group also found out that a UAV had been test-flown out to a range of 500 kilometers even though the agreed upon limit was 150 kilometers. Iraq lied to the UN about the range of that particular UAV, Kay said..........

more......


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kay

Then we have the death of a dozen or more bioscientists in the last 5 years...

Weird eh! :tinfoilhat: :crazy: :wow:

[barbtries]

27. it's like a

monster that grows limbs from various spots and never dies, never goes away.

just so happens that as i read your post i had just finished watching a video of Scott Ritter being interviewed - must have been not long after the war in iraq began - and he had total contempt for Kay in the interview. At the time he kept reiterating how Kay had wasted 300 million dollars on the wild goose chase (after WMD that weren't there, that I knew weren't there, you know the drill. lies for a war), whereas his UN inspection team had accomplished more on a fraction of that. What's kind of ironic is how now a few years later, it's billions that are being wasted...along with the lives, the many lives.

most DUer's have probably heard this clip: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/03/hardtalk/ritter06oct.ram
but if not, i highly recommend it. he's being interviewed by some brit who sounds like hannity or o lielee with an accent, and scott ritter is just tearing him a new one.

and so it turns out that this "ideologue, not a diplomat," as well as the alleged anthrax terrorist both worked at SAIC? with regard to the Anthrax issue, i have read that the attacks had come from a lab in the pentagon (i'm pretty sure, but i'm not looking it up).

apparently they could just blend in and of course the msm - like this fool being shown for a fool by scott ritter - laid right down for them. shadow government. scott ritter also absolutely blows the spin that david kay had spun out of iraq into popcorn. oh he's good.

peace.

[godless]

25. Well No Shit! Am I the only one that's noticed that the Presidents

change while the guys in the Administration stay more or less the same? Boom Boom Cheney and Rummy Dummy for example. They were there for the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Poppy Presidencies. Corrupt Regimes all of them and that is due, in no small part, to the involvement of the same creepy rich fucks time after time after time. Wake up America and vote 3rd party. At least they haven't been bought and paid for yet!

[Morgana LaFey]

26. Wooboy -- authors are Barlett and Steele

Pulitzer Prize winners, IIRC, from the 80s, Philadelphia. Economic writers.

THESE are heavy hitters, folks. Think: Seymour Hersch. Same league, definitely.

[Jcrowley]

28. It's true

K&R

[slipslidingaway]

30. "Maryland... hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system."

Not sure if the election issue is covered in the article.

Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
by Bob Fitrakis

February 25, 2004

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

snip>>

"Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system.

SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board."

[Dammit Ann]

31. Thank you so much for this.

I used to subscribe to VF, and I have always enjoyed their articles. This is such an important one, I'm glad to recommend and kick.

[Laelth]

33. Excellent essay.

Thanks. K & R

:dem:

-Laelth

[Lasher]

34. Link to Iran-Contra Conspirator Poindexter

John Poindexter was convicted on multiple felony counts on April 7, 1990 for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury, defrauding the government, and the alteration and destruction of evidence pertaining to the Iran-Contra Affair. The convictions were reversed in 1991 on the technical grounds that the prosecution's evidence may have been tainted by exposure to Poindexter's immunized testimony before the joint House-Senate committee investigating the matter.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. From December, 2002, to August, 2003, Poindexter served as the Director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO).

In FY2003 the IAO began funding research and development of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program. As the public became aware of the initiative there was growing concern over what many saw as the potential for the development of an Orwellian mass surveillance system.

House and Senate negotiators included language in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2004, prohibiting the further use of funds for the TIA program and specifically directed that the IAO be terminated immediately.

A $19 million contract to build the TIA prototype system had been awarded by TIA in late 2002 to Hicks & Associates, a consulting firm in Arlington, Va., that is run by former Defense and military officials. Congress's decision to pull TIA's funding "caused a significant amount of uncertainty for all of us about the future of our work," Hicks executive Brian Sharkey wrote in an e-mail to subcontractors at the time. "Fortunately," Sharkey continued, "a new sponsor has come forward that will enable us to continue much of our previous work." This new sponsor is NSA's Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA).

Hicks and Associates is a wholly owned subsidiary of SAIC.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/23/181636/572

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002507.html