New Rule: Stop Saying Iraq is Another Vietnam, it's Another Enron

Iraq is Enron, and President Bush is Ken Lay. He's fighting a war with phony accounting tricks. The Bush administration fudged the numbers to get us into Iraq, and cooked the books to keep us there. "The surge" is simply another in a long series of inflated stock quotes. This past weekend Marcel Marceau passed away at age 84. Doctors say he went quietly. Thus proving that evil thrives when good men stay silent. And just like with Enron, the good men and women who are blowing the whistle on Iraq contractor fraud are being vilified, fired, demoted, and those are the lucky ones.

Last Friday morning the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing entitled "The Mistreatment of Iraq Contracting Whistleblowers," just in time to make the Friday news dump. According to the committee more than $10 billion dollars in Iraq reconstruction and military support contracts is unaccounted for. In other words, for every six dollars spent in Iraq one dollar is in question. And folks, it's a war-zone, you're dealing with a culture known for its haggling skills, so you've got factor in a little skimming, but this is ridiculous. If you stole that much money from the Mafia you'd be dead.

Vicente Fox may have called President Bush a "windshield cowboy," but Bush has certainly turned Iraq into a wild, wild, west. And here's another one from the War in Iraq's this-is going-to-make-you-vomit file. Some Iraq contract whistleblowers have been vilified and fired, others have been detained by the US military and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques.

Donald Vance, a Navy veteran, was working for an Iraqi-owned outfit called the Shield Group Security Company. Vance said he witnessed Shield Group selling guns, land mines, and rocket-launchers to Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry workers. Vance described Shield Groups as "a Wal-Mart for guns." Vance reported this to the FBI, and instead of a pat on the back, he got 97 days at Camp Cropper, a military prison outside of Baghdad. In fact, Saddam's Hussein's old crib. Vance was placed in solitary confinement, subjected to head-banging music blaring from dawn to dusk, and interrogators screaming the same questions over and over again in his face.

Also testifying at the hearing along with Vance was Barry Godfrey, a former KBR employee (KBR+Halliburton=Cheney) who claimed that he was fired after complaining to his supervisors about fraudulent overcharges.

Also testifying was Bunnatine Greenhouse. Greenhouse is the former highest-ranking civilian contracting official at the Army Corps of Engineers, so I'll dispense with the "Greenhouse having gas" joke. But Greenhouse was removed from her position when she tried to crack down on "casual and clubby contracting practices" at the Army Corps of Engineers.

Also testifying was Robert Isakson who was a co-plaintiff in a "qui tam" lawsuit (a whistleblower lawsuit) against Custer Battles. No, "qui tam" is not that stuff that Chinese people do in the park, it's shorthand for the Latin Phrase "qui tam pro domino quam pro seipso," which dates back to 13th century England, and means, "He who is as much for the King as for himself." Today, a "qui tam" lawsuit is one brought under the False Claims Act by a private plaintiff on behalf of the Federal or State Government. Isakson won the first civil verdict for Iraq reconstruction fraud against Custer Battles. However, the verdict was overturned by the judge, who ruled that because the CPA was not part of the US government, the "qui tam" statute did not apply.

Meanwhile the Bush administration has not litigated a single case against a contractor alleged to have defrauded the US Government in Iraq. Apparently, like terrorism, this isn't a law enforcement issue either.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.

Comments

[MDS]

Thanks goodness someone else made a "Marcel Marceau passed away quietly" joke.. I thought I was the only one.. phew.

*moment of silence*

[ParacleteofKavorka]

I wondered what his last words were.

[Rand]

I hear he was at the end of his imaginary rope... And that the burial's in that big box he always had trouble getting out of!

[transendentilist]

Yeah, that was worthy of the late great Groucho.

Hail Freedonia!

[Marlie]

Great post Bill. Now, I'm really looking forward to your show tomorrow - be sure and
talk this up and inform more viewers about
the complete fools these people take us for.
Hmmm... could we possibly get the MSM to
explain things as clearly as you did? I know,
in my dreams.

[diddith]

good stuff keep it up bill

[Clavis]

This is a point that I find incredibly frustrating: the reason the war costs so many millions of dollars per hour isn't because our soldiers are shooting bullets made out of $100 bills, it's because of bloated, no-bid, cost-plus contracts that provide billions to conglomerates that do lousy/no work and pocket the dough! I assume you heard about the defense contractor exec who threw a $10 million bat mitzvah for his daughter (strange how the acts he invited -- Tom Petty, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith -- are all acts he, rather than his daughter, would be excited about)? To me, that's all you have to know.

When a stink was made about this on left-leaning blogs, naturally all the "pro-free-market" right-wingers came out of the woodwork to defend the right of defense contractors to bankrupt America while not actually doing the job.

Funny how not-free the free market is when lobbyists write bills and buy congressmen. Isn't that called fascism? The "free market" concepts works for stereos and widgets. Defense? Not so much.

Keep up the terrific work. You're amongst the most honest and intelligent voices on TV. No gods, no masters!

[emerywood]

The degree of recklessness of this administration is unbelievable, starting with the reason to invade Iraq ----- that Saddam possessed WMD. Lucky that was just a pretext. If Saddam really had WMD and used it against us, the casualties on both sides would have been unimaginable.

[TheHandyman]

Which gives rise to the question, if the Bush Gang really thought that Saddam did have them would they have invaded rather than just drop the big one first?

[emerywood]

That is the 6 million dollar question.
No sane military strategist would approve of mutual annihilation either. But to drop the big one first is inhuman, to say the least. It may even lead to the end of civilization.

[DenverCurmudgeon]

It should be a New Rule that the "war" in Iraq is referred to as a robbery gone bad. We invaded Iraq to steal their oil and privatize their industry. We failed. Now its time to flee the scene.

[Iwouldprefernotto]

Bill you rock.

[Podewumun]

Evil "thrived" four years ago.
I'm not sure there's even a word for what's happening today.

[BurlingtonPol]

Why am I learning all this From Bill Maher? If this were 20 years ago, this information might have actually been on, you know, the news.

[maddogbitesback]

What has happened to America? It sold its soul to the devil when it stopped caring about anything but money. The mafia seems to be a moral force compared to the neocons and their destruction of freedoms and their rape of the taxpayer. So all of you who voted for Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 can ask yourself as you go to buy something that used to be made in America but isn't anymore - who benefitted. Not you and that is for sure.

[BornSkeptic]

"So all of you who voted for Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 can ask yourself as you go to buy something that used to be made in America but isn't anymore - who benefitted."

Uh, you forgot Clinton 1. DLC approved and Alan Greenspan's best buddy.