War-profiteering = #7 Grounds for Impeachment - One of six talks, 18 Oct 2007

[LeftDemocrat]

Six out of nine councilors stayed to hear us out, again, this week.

Here's one of the six 5-minute presentations made today, 18 Oct 2007:

My name is Steven Pither and I've lived in the City of Tulsa since 1980.  I remember during the first days of the Bush administration that Dick Cheney had an enormous electric bill at his home from before he took office in 2001.  I am not certain of the exact amount but it was around $134,000, and he did not want to pay it.  He said it was too much.  He wanted the government to pay his personal home electric bill, and they did.  With taxpayer monies.  Since then there has been story after story after nefarious story about this man and his doings in our government.

In the past six years we have all become accustomed to a government of deceit, of cheating, of hiding so many things, of lying, of obfuscation, of outrageous and unfair accussations, of favoring the rich every time -- with Cheney at the center of it all.  This man mocks the constitution, like when he outrageously claimed that he was not part of the Executive Branch!  Well, I do not want my children growing up - or anyone's children growing up - thinking that this is the American way.  It is not.  Bur if we go on silently without voicing our opinion, then Cheney will finish out his term and everything he has done and everything he has said will go down into the historical record as through he were a statesman.  If Cheney is allowed to finish out his term, all his meddling and illegal activities will be accepted by future generations as fine and satisfactory and I for one cannot accept that.

I hope you cannot accept Dick Cheney as Vice-President either.  This is why I am asking you tonight to vote for a Resolution of the City Council of Tulsa stating that we stand with the many other cities and citizens of the nation who believe that Dick Cheney should be impeached and removed from power.

Thank you.

[LeftDemocrat]

Clinton Proposes Military Contractor Ban
Feb 29, 2008

Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent and author, reported that Democratic presidential candidate Obama would not “rule out” using private military companies like Blackwater in Iraq. Hours later, rival candidate Clinton called for a ban on the use of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. On her website, Clinton said she would co-sponsor a measure to ban the use of Blackwater and other private military firms.

"Obama’s Mercenary Position"
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/scahill

In Nov 2007 Illinois Democrat Schakowsky and Vermont Senator Sanders introduced the Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act, which mandates that US military personnel undertake all diplomatic security in Iraq, rather than Blackwater or companies like it.

Blackwater is fighting fierce local opposition to its attempt to open a new camp--Blackwater West--on 824 acres in the small rural community of Potrero, just outside San Diego.

There is an upcoming screening of the anti-war documentary "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" in Tulsa

WHAT: ""Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers"

WHEN: March 24th, 2008, at 6:30 pm

WHERE: Hardesty Public Library, Tulsa

COST: FREE

HOST: TULSATRUTH.ORG

Doors open shortly after 6pm and movie starts at 6:30pm.  There will be open discussion and Q and A following the movie, the library closes at 9pm.  On a seperate note March 19th is the anniversary of the war and there will be a Tulsa Peace and Impeachment Candlight Vigil.

Acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq (Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR, CACI and Titan) and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

More info: http://www.tulsatruth.org/events?e=14

There is good reason to put an immediate stop to the obscene profit-takings of the three or four criminal corporations profiled in this documentary: Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR, Titan and CACI. They, and other companies like Bechtel, are exploiting U.S. servicemen in Iraq merely for the sake of company profit margins and company executive salaries.

The "war on terror" and "patriotism" have nothing to do with the American presence in Iraq. This film will disabuse you of any notions of idealism, mission, or 'we have a job to do' in Iraq. The American taxpayer is being exploited, and the U.S. military is being sacrificed for the sake of crony capitalists.  Hmmm...bet we have one or two of those in office right here in Tulsa.  At minimum we could stop electing the SOBs, no?

Impeach the Executive for making these obscene companies profitable on the backs of taxpayers.

You can purchase the DVD here: http://iraqforsale.org

[LeftDemocrat]

Army Colonel committed suicide to alert other commanders to disgraceful mission, profit-motives, in Iraq

The scourge of suicides among American troops in Iraq is a serious and seriously underreported problem. One of the few high-profile cases involves a much-admired Army colonel named Ted Westhusing -- who, in his 2005 suicide note, pointed a finger at a then little-known U.S. general named David Petraeus. Westhusing's widow, asked by a friend what killed this West Point scholar, had replied simply: "Iraq."

Now there is a disturbing update on this case.

Before putting a bullet through his head, Westhusing had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis. His suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on "corruption, human right abuses and liars." One of those commanders: the future leader of the "surge" campaign in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus.

Westhusing, 44, had been found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad airport in June 2005, a single gunshot wound to the head. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq. The Army concluded that he committed suicide with his service pistol. Westhusing was an unusual case: "one of the Army's leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor," as Christian Miller explained in a major Los Angeles Times piece.

"In e-mails to his family," Miller wrote, "Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military." His death followed quickly. "He was sick of money-grubbing contractors," one official recounted. Westhusing said that "he had not come over to Iraq for this." After a three-month inquiry, investigators declared Westhusing's death a suicide.

When his body was found on June, a note was found nearby addressed to Petraeus and Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil.  It reads:

"Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]--You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff--no msn [mission] support and you don't care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied--no more. I didn't volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more.

"Trust is essential--I don't know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it."



Gen. Petraeus and a High-Level Suicide in Iraq
Posted April 1, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/gen-petraeus-and-a-high_b_94458.html

Whereas the muckracking press might like to use this story to tar Petraeus, a general widely regarded as misleading Congress about the violence levels in Iraq for the sake of Bush's continued occupation of Iraq, the real story is Cheney's direction, that is enabling the war-profiteering in Iraq and destroying the idea of honorable military service.

Note that it's only the Pentagon that is worried about falling military recruitment numbers; the White House duo doesn't care a fig.  The less regular G.I.'s there are to send to Iraq/Afghanistan, the better for mercenary war-profiteering friends of Bush-Cheney, hired at exorbitant rates for their "wars of choice" (crimes against peace and slurs on American military honor).

So just when do the honorable U.S. soldiers/flyboys/navies become American Revolutionaries once again and kick out King George and his Prime Minister Cheney?  Sadly, Congress is doing nothing on impeachment, if not obstructing the U.S. constitutional remedies outright.

[LeftDemocrat]

Bush-Cheney ties to major war-profiteering company:  Hunt Oil & Hunt Refining (Alabama)
70 years ago this nation contemplated making war-profiteering illegal

The Oil Deal Nobody Wants to Talk About
by Nick Turse

Last year, according to Department of Defense (DoD) documents, the Pentagon paid more than $70 million to Hunt Refining, an oil company whose corporate affiliate, Hunt Oil, undermined U.S. policy in Iraq. Not that anyone would know it.  Despite the staggering levels at which the Pentagon guzzles fuel, it's a chronic blind spot in media energy coverage.

Let's consider the Hunt Oil story in a little more detail, since it offers a striking example of the larger problem.

...For the Times, however, the hunt for the story ended with Hunt Oil. No attention was paid to its corporate twin, Hunt Refining, with its own major financial ties to the Pentagon, the President, and the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. This despite the fact that the company proudly promotes itself as "a significant supplier of jet fuel to the U.S. Department of Defense" in the Southeastern United States.

And why not be proud? Ever since the President's Global War on Terror revved up and Iraq was invaded, Hunt Refining has quietly reaped major rewards. While the company was a defense contractor back in the 1990s, according to DoD documents, Hunt did not receive any funds from the Pentagon in 2000 or 2001. From 2002-2004, however, the company began garnering contracts and collected an average of just over $15.5 million a year. And only then did the good times begin to roll. In the last three years, records show that Hunt has taken in increasingly larger sums of taxpayer dollars from the Pentagon – $39.6 million in 2005, $52.2 million in 2006, and, in 2007, a whopping $70 million. (Hunt Refining did not return telephone or email messages seeking comment for this article.)

Hunt's largest 2007 Pentagon contract was for the delivery of both aviation turbine fuel and JP-8 jet fuel – the latter a product used by the Army and Air Force that is very similar to commercial jet fuel. That deal was awarded just months before Hunt Refining and its affiliate Hunt Southland Refining agreed, according to Department of Justice documents, "to pay a $400,000 civil penalty and spend more than $48.5 million for new and upgraded pollution controls at three refineries" as part of a settlement to resolve "alleged violations of the Clean Air Act."

In addition to its Pentagon connections, Hunt Refining, too, has tight ties to President Bush. Ray Hunt's son Hunter Hunt, the senior vice president of Hunt Oil Company, is, according to his corporate biography, "also involved in special projects that occur at Hunt Refining Company." The younger Hunt, however, took a leave of absence from the family businesses, from 1999-2001, to work for the Bush presidential campaign "as the primary Policy Advisor responsible for energy issues" and chief architect of Bush's national energy policy.

While Hunt Oil is finally making headlines and garnering press attention for its Bush administration connections and dealings in occupied Iraq, just as it should, Hunt Refining's complex ties to the force in charge of occupying that country aren't considered news at all. Despite the obvious financial relationship and network of curious ties that extend from the White House and the Pentagon to Texas, Alabama, and Iraq, this part of the story is just considered business as usual.

Flush with regularly increasing taxpayer dollars from the DoD, Hunt Refining is now embarking on an ambitious expansion program to increase its output. Currently, Hunt's Tuscaloosa, Alabama refinery processes 52,000 barrels of crude oil per day, according to a recent article in the trade magazine South Central Construction. The company aims, however, to increase its production to 65,000 barrels per day, resulting in "an approximate doubling of gasoline and diesel fuel production." According to a report in the April issue of Hydrocarbon Processing, the first of Hunt's new processing units will "come online in late 2009. The revamp is scheduled for completion in 2010." All of this is, of course, occurring as the Pentagon needs increasing quantities of fuel to carry on its wars.

In 2008, Hunt Refining has already received a $65.4 million aviation-fuel deal from the Pentagon that has a "performance completion" deadline of April 30, 2009. If recent contracts are any guide, this is an indication that it stands to take in record amounts from the U.S. military before year's end.

The DoD is, as national security expert Noah Shachtman notes, "the world's largest energy consumer." With no end in sight for its current wars and occupations, which have driven its fuel consumption sky-high, and ever increasing oil prices (undoubtedly, in turn, affected at least modestly by the Pentagon's ravenous need for fuel), ever more taxpayer dollars are going to be funneled to the many oil companies on its – and so America's – payroll.

This is how the government now works and it should be a story – and Hunt Refining should be part of it. But don't count on that. It's taken the mainstream media five years to make it to the oil story in Iraq. How many more before it notices that everyday oil operations in Washington are worth a look?

With its increasing contracts from the DoD, its soon to be ramped up capacity, and the toe-hold its corporate partner possesses in Pentagon-occupied Iraq, Hunt Refining is likely to be a player in Washington and a major beneficiary of DoD dollars long after George W. Bush has gone back to Texas. But until the mainstream media begins to tease out the close-knit relationships among Hunt, other energy corporations, and the Pentagon that enable our military to function on a daily basis, key aspects not just of major scandals but of how our world works will remain hidden, even if in plain sight.

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=13155

The op/ed writer has a book out.  His first book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, is an exploration of the military-corporate complex in America, recently published by Metropolitan Books.

[LeftDemocrat]

The privatization of U.S. intelligence, during the so-called 'war on terror' (there is no such war)

Just how lucrative has the intelligence "business" become, under Bush-Cheney?  Enough for both of them to be the subject of inquiries by U.S. Congress now actively considering impeaching them both.

Tom Engelheart writes:

According to the latest estimate, the cumulative 2009 intelligence budget for the 16 agencies in the U.S. Intelligence Community will be more than $55 billion. However, it's possible that the real figure in the deeply classified budget may soar over $66 billion, which would mean that the U.S. budget for spooks has more than doubled in less than a decade.

As David Bromwich, a political critic and Yale professor of literature, observed in the New York Review of Books:

"The separate bookkeeping and accountability devised for Blackwater, DynCorp, Triple Canopy, and similar outfits was part of a careful displacement of oversight from Congress to the vice-president and the stewards of his policies in various departments and agencies. To have much of the work parceled out to private companies who are unaccountable to army rules or military justice, meant, among its other advantages, that the cost of the war could be concealed beyond all detection."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21199

Meanwhile, Chalmers Johnson writes in an article entitled "The Military-Industrial Complex: It's Much Later Than You Think" (Jul 2008):

It is important that the intrusion of unelected corporate officials with hidden profit motives into what are ostensibly public political activities not be confused with private businesses buying Scotch tape, paper clips, or hubcaps.

The wholesale transfer of military and intelligence functions to private, often anonymous, operatives took off under Ronald Reagan's presidency, and accelerated greatly after 9/11 under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

After 2001, Bush and Cheney ... were enthusiastic supporters of "a neoconservative drive to siphon U.S. spending on defense, national security, and social programs to large corporations friendly to the Bush administration." (pp. 72-3)

The end result is what we see today: a government hollowed out in terms of military and intelligence functions. The KBR Corporation, for example, supplies food, laundry, and other personal services to our troops in Iraq based on extremely lucrative no-bid contracts, while Blackwater Worldwide supplies security and analytical services to the CIA and the State Department in Baghdad. (Among other things, its armed mercenaries opened fire on, and killed, 17 unarmed civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad, on September 16, 2007, without any provocation, according to U.S. military reports.) The costs – both financial and personal – of privatization in the armed services and the intelligence community far exceed any alleged savings, and some of the consequences for democratic governance may prove irreparable.

These consequences include:

the sacrifice of professionalism within our intelligence services;
the readiness of private contractors to engage in illegal activities without compunction and with impunity;
the inability of Congress or citizens to carry out effective oversight of privately-managed intelligence activities because of the wall of secrecy that surrounds them; and, perhaps most serious of all,
the loss of the most valuable asset any intelligence organization possesses – its institutional memory.

The essence of professionalism for a career intelligence analyst is his integrity in laying out what the U.S. government should know about a foreign policy issue, regardless of the political interests of, or the costs to, the major players.

The loss of such professionalism within the CIA was starkly revealed in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. It still seems astonishing that no senior official, beginning with Secretary of State Colin Powell, saw fit to resign when the true dimensions of our intelligence failure became clear, least of all Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet.

A willingness to engage in activities ranging from the dubious to the outright felonious seems even more prevalent among our intelligence contractors than among the agencies themselves, and much harder for an outsider to detect.

As numerous studies have, by now, made clear, the abject failure of the American occupation of Iraq came about in significant measure because the Department of Defense sent a remarkably privatized military filled with incompetent amateurs to Baghdad to administer the running of a defeated country. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates (a former director of the CIA) has repeatedly warned that the United States is turning over far too many functions to the military because of its hollowing out of the Department of State and the Agency for International Development since the end of the Cold War. Gates believes that we are witnessing a "creeping militarization" of foreign policy – and, though this generally goes unsaid, both the military and the intelligence services have turned over far too many of their tasks to private companies and mercenaries.

It is time for ordinary citizens to pay attention. In my 2006 book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, with an eye to bringing the imperial presidency under some modest control, I advocated that we Americans abolish the CIA altogether, along with other dangerous and redundant agencies in our alphabet soup of sixteen secret intelligence agencies, and replace them with the State Department's professional staff devoted to collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence. I still hold that position.

Nonetheless, the current situation represents the worst of all possible worlds. Successive administrations and Congresses have made no effort to alter the CIA's role as the president's private army, even as we have increased its incompetence by turning over many of its functions to the private sector. We have thereby heightened the risks of war by accident, or by presidential whim, as well as of surprise attack because our government is no longer capable of accurately assessing what is going on in the world and because its intelligence agencies are so open to pressure, penetration, and manipulation of every kind.

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=13214

[LeftDemocrat]

Last-minute deals to their cronies, because the Democratic Congress failed to impeach Bush and Cheney.  More taxpayer dollars wasted in DoD blackhole.

Banned firms got new U.S. contracts in Iraq
Updated 21h 25m ago
19 Nov 2008

By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — A firm suspended from U.S. government contracts for allegedly bribing Army officers was awarded a new contract in Iraq two days after the suspension was imposed, government investigators found. The Pentagon paid the suspended company more than $1 million under the new contract.

Contracting officers gave Lee Dynamics International a new contract in July 2007 despite warnings from military lawyers, according to a report issued by Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR).

The new, one-year contract allowed Lee Dynamics to continue operating warehouses for the Iraqi security forces. Army Maj. Gloria Davis, who was involved in awarding the company's initial contract in 2005, killed herself in December 2006 after telling investigators that she took $225,000 in bribes from company founder George Lee, federal court records show. Another Army officer, Lt. Col. Levonda Selph, pleaded guilty last year to taking $9,000 in bribes.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-11-17-iraq-contract-inside_N.htm



More military wastrels:

Canceled Iraq contracts cost U.S. $600 million
Posted 1d 11h ago
19 Nov 2008

By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon spent about $600 million on more than 1,200 Iraq reconstruction contracts that were eventually canceled, nearly half of them for mismanagement or shoddy construction, government investigators say.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) found that 42% of canceled contracts were terminated because the contractor either failed to deliver or performed poorly

The rest were canceled for the "convenience of the government," usually for security problems, lack of funding or changing requirements, an inspector general report says.

The report, which analyzed contracts since 2003, detailed seven projects in which the U.S. paid total of $172.2 million for work that was substandard, unfinished or never built.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-11-17-iraqcontracts_N.htm

[LeftDemocrat]

Blacklisting Blackwater.  And not a moment too soon.

Iraq bars Blackwater, mercenary company responsible for civilian deaths

Iraq bars Blackwater after contractors' reputation is irremediably tarnished by 2007 killings of civilians

by Sinan Salaheddin, AP News
Jan 29, 2009 09:39 EST

Iraq said Thursday it will bar Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for U.S. diplomats because its contractors used excessive force, sanctioning a company whose image was irrevocably tarnished by the 2007 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians.

The decision not to issue Blackwater an operating license was due to "improper conduct and excessive use of force," said Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf.

Iraqis are bitter over the September 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. Five former Blackwater guards pleaded not guilty Jan. 6 in federal court in Washington to manslaughter and gun charges in that shooting. A sixth is cooperating with the government.

The Iraqi government has labeled the guards "criminals" and is closely watching the case.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/01/29/iraq-bars-blackwater-tarnished-by-civilian-deaths-2/

Meanwhile, Hilary Clinton is now Secretary of State, under Obama.  Will she follow through with her promise to ban the use of mercenary contractors, at the State Department?

[LeftDemocrat]

We hope this is a sign of the impending ban on the use of Blackwater, and other such mercenary companies

Blackwater under review in Afghanistan
Iraq ousts contractor
by Sara A. Carter
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The State Department's inspector general will review services provided by Blackwater Worldwide in Afghanistan, only weeks after the Baghdad government canceled the embattled security company's contract in Iraq.

Inspector General Harold W. Geisel told the Commission on Wartime Contracting on Monday that his department will begin the performance review in March.

"We are reviewing Blackwater," Mr. Geisel said.

The commission was established in 2008 with a mandate to provide two annual reports to Congress about corruption and other irregularities involving wartime contractors and related issues. An interim report is due to Congress by May 1.

The seven-member commission is bipartisan and independent.

The panel can refer any violation or potential violation of law to the attorney general.

Mr. Geisel told the panel that he was not surprised by Blackwater's expulsion from Iraq. He "had every reason to believe that [the State Department's] Diplomatic Security was planning for a forced departure from Blackwater in Iraq" prior to the Iraqi government's announcement.

The upcoming review of Blackwater's conduct in Afghanistan was requested by the Office of Inspector General's new Middle East Regional Office, which serves as the principal planning and coordinating office for operations from North Africa to the Middle East and Central/South Asia. The office, which has headquarters in Amman, Jordan, called for the review of the security firm last month.

The fate of Blackwater's contract in Afghanistan will depend on the findings of the acquisitions office within the State Department as well as recommendations from the FBI and the U.S. ambassadors to Afghanistan and Iraq, the State Department official told The Times.

The Defense Department's principal deputy inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, and U.S. Agency for International Development Inspector General Donald A. Gambatesa also testified Monday before the panel. They said serious problems plague U.S. contracting in both Afghanistan and Iraq because of corruption, inadequate resources and lack of oversight.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/03/blackwater-under-review-in-afghanistan/

Stop hiring mercenaries.  Stop wasting taxpayer dollars. 

[LeftDemocrat]

First step in banning the use of mercenaries is successful in Iraq.

Clinton bans Blackwater from Iraq

The Washington Post reported this week that Blackwater, the for-profit military company contracted by the Bush administration to provide securities services in Iraq, will not have its Iraq contract renewed.

Go here to video segment with journalist Jeremy Scahill, to see why this is only the beginning of the fight to rid the U.S. taxpayer of these mercenary war-profiteers:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090216/scahill_video?rel=hp_currently

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, discusses the legacy and future of Blackwater Worldwide

In a hearing about the firm in 2007, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings gave voice to critics' concerns when he questioned whether Blackwater has "created a shadow military of mercenary forces that are not accountable to the United States government or to anyone else."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/government-inc/2009/01/state_department_to_blackwater.html?wprss=government-inc

So the fight against terrorism has, eo ipso, unleashed an American terrrorist Corp. onto the world.  Well done, wastrels of defense, you've become your enemy!

[LeftDemocrat]

Blacklisting war-profiteering corps, starting with the fraudsters

Except they still get contracts, the way the government works.

Firms defraud government but get new US contracts

Companies that defrauded the government slip past exclusion list to get new federal contracts

LARRY MARGASAK
AP News

Feb 27, 2009

Companies that defrauded the United States and jeopardized American lives received new government work despite rulings designed to stop them from receiving federal contracts, government investigators report.

The companies were on a government database of 70,000 individuals and businesses suspended or barred by various U.S. agencies from receiving government contract work.

The Government Accountability Office blamed some of the mistakes on faulty computer searches by officials who left out commas or periods. But it also said the search engine for the database often failed to identify any of the entries on the exclusion list.

A hypothetical suspended company named XYZ Corp., Inc. — with a comma — would escape detection if one searched for XYZ Corp. Inc. — without the comma — the report said.

The investigators found a staggering list of offenses by companies awarded new contracts. They included use of fictitious Social Security numbers, massive tax fraud, delivery of faulty parts for the military, false filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, use of insider information to bid on federal contracts, and Medicare fraud.

Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked in a hearing Thursday, "What is the point of having suspension and debarment regulations if our own agencies disregard them?"

Most contracts were awarded to excluded companies by mistake.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/02/27/firms-defraud-government-but-get-new-us-contracts/

[LeftDemocrat]

Wartime contractors were feeding greedily at the trough under Bush-Cheney.   Congress didn't seem to think this warranted impeachment.  The gravity of the situation is being made public in a report.

Major problems found in war spending

APNewsBreak: $30 million wasted on building project in Iraq symbolizes inefficient spending

by Richard Lardner, AP News, Jun 07, 2009

This is one Christmas gift U.S. taxpayers don't need. Construction of a $30 million dining facility at a U.S. base in Iraq is scheduled to be completed Dec. 25. But the decision to build it was based on bad planning and botched paperwork.

The project is too far along to stop, making the mess hall a future monument to the waste and inefficiency plaguing the war effort, according to an independent panel investigating contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In its first report to Congress, the Wartime Contracting Commission presents a bleak assessment of how tens of billions of dollars have been spent since 2001. The 111-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, documents poor management, weak oversight, and a failure to learn from past mistakes as recurring themes in wartime contracting.

KBR Inc., the primary LOGCAP contractor in Iraq, has been paid nearly $32 billion since 2001. The commission says billions of dollars of that amount ended up wasted due to poorly defined work orders, inadequate oversight and contractor inefficiencies.

In one example, defense auditors challenged KBR after it billed the government for $100 million in costs for private security even though the contract prohibited the use of for-hire guards.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/06/07/apnewsbreak-major-problems-found-in-war-spending/

No surprise, its Cheney's spinoff KBR that's the most prominent miscreant involved in war-profiteering.

[LeftDemocrat]

Can you believe anyone still hires this company?  Delusional mercenaries.

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder
By Jeremy Scahill

August 4, 2009
The Nation

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area.

In a separate sworn statement, the former US marine who worked for Blackwater in Iraq alleges that he has "learned from my Blackwater colleagues and former colleagues that one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information about Erik Prince and Blackwater have been killed in suspicious circumstances."

The Nation cannot independently verify the identities of the two individuals, their roles at Blackwater or what motivated them to provide sworn testimony in these civil cases. Both individuals state that they have previously cooperated with federal prosecutors conducting a criminal inquiry into Blackwater.

"It's a pending investigation, so we cannot comment on any matters in front of a Grand Jury or if a Grand Jury even exists on these matters," John Roth, the spokesperson for the US Attorney's office in the District of Columbia, told The Nation.

The two declarations are each five pages long and contain a series of devastating allegations concerning Erik Prince and his network of companies, which now operate under the banner of Xe Services LLC. Among those leveled by Doe #2 is that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe":

    To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.

    Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis, as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs.

Among the additional allegations made by Doe #1 is that "Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq." He states that he personally witnessed weapons being "pulled out" from dog food bags. Doe #2 alleges that "Prince and his employees arranged for the weapons to be polywrapped and smuggled into Iraq on Mr. Prince's private planes, which operated under the name Presidential Airlines," adding that Prince "generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade."

Doe #2 states: "Using his various companies, [Prince] procured and distributed various weapons, including unlawful weapons such as sawed off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers, through unlawful channels of distribution." Blackwater "was not abiding by the terms of the contract with the State Department and was deceiving the State Department," according to Doe #1.

This is not the first time an allegation has surfaced that Blackwater used dog food bags to smuggle weapons into Iraq. ABC News's Brian Ross reported in November 2008 that a "federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating allegations the controversial private security firm Blackwater illegally shipped assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in large sacks of dog food." Another former Blackwater employee has also confirmed this information to The Nation.

Doe #1 states that "Blackwater knew that certain of its personnel intentionally used excessive and unjustified deadly force, and in some instances used unauthorized weapons, to kill or seriously injure innocent Iraqi civilians." He concludes, "Blackwater did nothing to stop this misconduct." Doe #1 states that he "personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force." He then cites several specific examples of Blackwater personnel firing at civilians, killing or "seriously" wounding them, and then failing to report the incidents to the State Department.

Doe #2 expands on the issue of unconventional weapons, alleging Prince "made available to his employees in Iraq various weapons not authorized by the United States contracting authorities, such as hand grenades and hand grenade launchers. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal weaponry in Iraq, unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis." Specifically, he alleges that Prince "obtained illegal ammunition from an American company called LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis." 

Blackwater has gone through an intricate rebranding process in the twelve years it has been in business, changing its name and logo several times. Prince also has created more than a dozen affiliate companies, some of which are registered offshore and whose operations are shrouded in secrecy. According to Doe #2, "Prince created and operated this web of companies in order to obscure wrongdoing, fraud and other crimes."

"For example, Mr. Prince transferred funds from one company (Blackwater) to another (Greystone) whenever necessary to avoid detection of his money laundering and tax evasion schemes." He added: "Mr. Prince contributed his personal wealth to fund the operations of the Prince companies whenever he deemed such funding necessary. Likewise, Mr. Prince took funds out of the Prince companies and placed the funds in his personal accounts at will."

Briefed on the substance of these allegations by The Nation, Congressman Dennis Kucinich replied, "If these allegations are true, Blackwater has been a criminal enterprise defrauding taxpayers and murdering innocent civilians." Kucinich is on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and has been investigating Prince and Blackwater since 2004.

further info:

The private security company, facing charges in a US court for killing and injuring Iraqis, is attempting to silence its victims and their lawyers.

Federal prosecutors convened a grand jury in the aftermath of the September 16, 2007, Nisour Square shootings in Baghdad, which left seventeen Iraqis dead. Five Blackwater employees are awaiting trial on several manslaughter charges and a sixth, Jeremy Ridgeway, has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempting to commit manslaughter and is cooperating with prosecutors.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill

What is beyond comprehension is that this Blackwater-Xe company is allowed to operate in as tightly-wound a place as Pakistan, among other places overseas.

I hope the Sec'y of State has canceled all contracts with this mercenary company by now.  Blackwater obviously thinks of itself as some kind of mafia, judging by their methods.  You'd think after 5 years of investigation, and egregious evidence of wrongdoing, this company would have been shut down by the U.S. government by now.

[LeftDemocrat]

The Military-Industrial-Congressional complex under the microscope?  A Democratic congressman steps in to use a loophole to bring fraudulent DoD contractors under greater scrutiny and oversight.

Your help is requested.

Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

The language was written by the GOP and filed as a "motion to recommit" in the House, where it passed 345-75.

POGO is reaching out to its members to identify other companies who have engaged in the type of misconduct that would make them ineligible for federal funds.

Grayson then intends to file that list in the legislative history that goes along with the bill so that judges can reference it when determining whether a company should be denied federal funds.

The Florida freshman is asking for direct assistance. He has set up a Google spreadsheet where people can suggest contractors who have been charged with violations and include a link to a media or government report documenting the alleged transgression.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/whoops-anti-acorn-bill-ro_n_294949.html

[LeftDemocrat]

Completely betraying their own mantra of looking forward, rather than backward, the Obama administration has morphed into the latest "sugar daddy" (Jeremy Scahill's term) for the most notorious mercenary company to come out of the U.S. and the Bush-Cheney duumvirate.

The Obama administration, in its infinite unwisdom, has chosen to keep on Blackwater/Xe for more "security detail" (war profiteering), albeit in Afghanistan, not Iraq (the private company is banned by the Iraqi parliament from working in Iraq, due to the Nisoor Square massacre committed by Blackwater/Xe private mercenaries)

American development was supposed to have made it all so much better.  But tales abound of small, successful projects in education or health care, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and then dropped without a single visit from USAID monitors afraid to leave their Embassy fortress in Kabul.  Regularly, USAID now hands over huge hunks of "aid" money to big, impossibly ambitious, quick-fix projects run by the usual no-bid Beltway Bandit contractors whose incompetence, wastefulness, unconscionable profits, and outright fraud should be a national scandal.

This, too, is a process everyone knows but can’t speak about because it’s not part of the official script in which the U.S. must be seen as developing backward Afghanistan, instead of sending it reeling into the darkest of ages.  Despairing humanitarians recall that Hillary Clinton promised as secretary of state to clean house at USAID, which, she said, had become nothing but "a contracting shop."  Well, here’s a flash from Afghanistan: it’s still a contracting shop, and the contracts are going to the same set of contractors who have been exposed again and again as venal, fraudulent, and criminal.

Clinton presides over a fraudulent aid program that functions chiefly to transfer American tax dollars from the national treasury to the pockets of already rich contractors and their congressional cronies.

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/07/01/counterinsurgency-down-for-the-count-in-afghanistan/

Not much has changed, under Obama, compared to the Bush-Cheney duuvirate.  The mercenary companies of the war profiteering ilk are still feeding at the trough, rather than being held accountable for their crimes.

There should have been a moratorium against using companies like this, when Obama promised us "change".  PFFFFtttt!

Also consider reading:

Blackwater's New Sugar Daddy: The Obama Administration
Jeremy Scahill
Posted on June 28, 2010
The CIA says it can't live without Blackwater. The State Department too. Could any of this be related to the big money Blackwater spends on Democratic lobbyists?
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jeremy-scahill

Tomgram: Ann Jones, The Afghan Reconstruction Boondoggle
Posted by Ann Jones at 12:48pm, January 11, 2009
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175019/ann_jones_the_afghan_reconstruction_boondoggle