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

[jpshotwheels]

George W. Bush was a friend of the Enron CEO's, where do you think they learned how to do it. The FBI should endict all of them, go to the White House, take all the computers, paperwork, ramsack everything, put them in handcuffs, and take them to the nearest Federal Prison. No bail, no lawyer, no habeaus corpus, transfer them to Gitmo and let them rot in the prisons they built. Make them listen to loud music, no sleep, put them in uncomfortable positions, hey how about some waterboarding. Thats what they would do to me if I was doing this. They have robbed their own Country, their own people, and I honestly don't know how they sleep at night.

Bill, I know you don't believe in God, but could you make an exception this time, and believe that there is a hell.

[GH]

jp up shot... He sure was. And Bill Clinton and his admin. was a friend of Enron. So was Gray Davis (D) gov. of CA. In fact - almost every single bit of the corporate corruption and greed that we all got so damn angry about - occurred during the Clinton admin.

Now, look. The only blaming I'm doing here is in pointing out the fact, that blaming it all on Bush, and putting the D's back in office is a sucker bet to guaranteeing that nothing changes.

One can despise Bush's version of economics - as I do - and still understand that the entire economic downturn of late 2000, and the fallout from it, including millions of jobs lost, several hundred $billion in annual tax revenue and millions of Americans loosing their life savings all happenned for events which ocurred long before Bush was elected.

That does not necessarly mean that one should blame Bill Clinton either - but rather the lot of them all. But Enron - It was Clinton who did the most for them. Had Bush been president then, one could assume, he'd done even more for them - but he was not.

There is much parity here.

[jezuzhchryst]

The Enron energy scam in California cost Gray Davis his job. He should have flown to Houston and punched Kenny Boy in the face. Davis hated them as we all did for stealing billions of dollars from California and because they had the backing of Bush/Cheney nothing could be done to stop it. Enron finally imploded of their own lies and greed but everyone in California is still paying off the debt with our electric bills. Every god damned month I pay for that scam and curse Bush/Cheney for backing Enron and fucking California. Because Republican Corporate thieves didn't all behave when there was a D in the Whitehouse it is the D's fault and not the Republican's fault for backing up the greedy liars??? And dragging their feet on reforms and softballing existing laws??? What bizzaro planet are you on? Clinton's fault ....hahaha­hahahahaha­h!!!!

[Professor73]

A lot of emotion but not much on the facts.

[joebaggadonuts]

Bill, I think you are getting it now. It's all about the money. I wish it were all about what's good for America or what's good for the world or the future of our children, but it's not.

The reason it doesn't all go pear shaped is that they pull the strings on money too, while Enron couldn't manage that. Things seeming to fall apart as the credit markets and housing and related markets go south? Goose the economic engine with fresh low interest rates and bail outs, and the stock market goes up for awhile. If things get bad enough to where even that won't work, they can start another war, nationalize the police, call curfews and keep us penned up at home. Then they can round up the trouble-makers and make examples of them.

My older relatives told me to never forget. But they didn't tell me it would be the Muslims this time that would be the scapegoat.

[joebaggadonuts]

Speaking about money and war. Read this article by Krugman about how the war is being fought. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/opinion/28krugman.html?em&ex=1191124800&en=fbd6620b19b9d4cd&ei=5087%0A (The NYT now allows Krugman to be read for free.)

If the Administration can destroy our government military they will have these mercs to fall back on, they think. Wait until the head merc decides to initiate regime change.

Interesting coincidence that a Marie Antionette pearl necklace http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070927/en_nm/arts_marieantoinette_dc is on sale just now, eh?

[ConnieInCleveland]

Thanks for the link. Krugman is a good writer. I usually appreciate his point of view.

[morris1030]

dear joe,

Yes. Mercs are also intended to use against the American public to keep them in line. Mercs are the private armies all fascist and totalitarian regimes use to control the public. Hitler,Stalin and Mussolini along with Franco used this well.

Private armies paid with taxpayer money without congressional oversight is a crime against the American people.

Their behavior in Iraq is a tip of the iceberg. No accountability and there are over 100,000 of them being paid way more than our brave soldiers.

This is high crimes, and we must stop it by voting this horrendous GOP out on every level possible.

[HelenIsaacson]

What we call or name something can, indeed, be very important. Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress who voted against giving George Bush a blank check to go to war, says that the July 19 letter to the President that will soon be resent to him with additonal signatures of members of Congress (as of now 83) speaks of "only voting for money to fully fund redeployment of our troops." The letter does not use the term "cut the funds," a term which supporters of the war claim is equal to leaving our troops without support.
Click on http://www.speaker.house.gov/contact to ask Nancy Pelosi to sign on to the letter and to rally the rest of the Democrats to sign on to a commitment to only vote to" fully fund redeployme­nt." DO IT NOW WHILE YOU ARE SITTING IN FRONT OF YOUR COMPUTER.

[ConnieInCleveland]

A recent book by former Prosecutor, Elizabeth de la Vega’s book, “U.S. v. Bush”, asks the question; What if there was a fraud worse than Enron and no one did anything about it? The book presents a hypothetical indictment to a hypothetical grand jury. The indictment and grand jury are hypothetical, the evidence is not. She prepared the case, just as she would have done for any other case as a prosecutor, by reviewing all the available relevant information. The defendants are President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war – in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Introduction: A FRAUD WORSE THAN ENRON
Day one: She presents the indictment in the morning and in the afternoon she explains the applicable law.
Days two through seven: She provides witness testimony, presented in transcript form, with exhibits.
Elizabeth de la Vega’s book is well worth the read for anyone who thinks this administration is setting it’s self above the rule of law and the constitution for a reason. Have crimes already been committed with no investigation?

[racetoinfinity]

Impeachment of Cheney should have been initiated directly after the Dems got control of the Congress. There has never been anything as reactionary as this administration. It's unbelievable - maybe some time in the 19th century there was an admin. almost as rotten as this one, but I doubt it.

[ConnieInCleveland]

Impeachment would remove them from office. I want them to be examples of what happens in America when leaders circumvent the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Laws have been broken. FISA laws are real. Rules were set in place to protect Americans and make CRIMINALS of leaders who choose to ignore laws. Instead of enforcing laws that were broken, this Congress has given this administration time to change the law and escape accountability for laws already broken. I watched John Conyer’s basement hearings. It was great! One would have thought if they were given the majority and brought out of the basement, they would pursue with vigor to right the wrongs of the Republican Congress. One would be wrong. Instead they just put on their rose colored glasses and started drinking the kool-aid. How could they ignore the Downing Street Minutes? I think it’s time America faces it, we have no leadership willing to hold anyone accountable. It’s an “Assault on Reason”.

[Professor73]

For those of you that keep screaming impreachment, you need to read the Constitution.

[sa]

the bush administration is all:

he who smelt it dealt it.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Grand Theft Treasury

and you worry about Rush Limbaugh

You are being side tracked

[pigsatthetrough]

Bill, the problem is the voters no longer care. The netizens may think they do, but they don't. There is nothing more you can do. So go back to being funny, live a good life and die quietly. I've got to run, there is another car chase on MSM and I just have to watch!

[IzaakSzerman]

George W. Bush is a spoiled 60 year old. His parents are proving themselves every day as illegitimate.

One point to keep in mind: WHENEVER you see this Inarticulate Conception on TV, no matter how serious or angry or whatever he appears to be, THIS SON OF A BITCH HAS, WITH HIS EVERY ACTION, WORKED TO DESTROY THIS COUNTRY!

Don't believe a word of ANYTHING that this maggot says!

[richw23]

I'd agree, except we have to keep pointing out that these idiots are not learning the lessons of previous wars, or ignoring them. Either way, it's criminal in and of itself, or it should be.

Of course the bureacray doesn't lessons on anything. An incredible number of weapons go missing, and we're going to "look into our procedures", so, that solves that.

Or could it be they just don't give a shit.

[huntros malaka]

yeah, and bush has the balls to call out iran for selling weapons to a neighboring country that has been invaded and occupied. a country which is also threatning to invade them. we freaked out when the soviets wanted to install missles in a sovergn nation near us (even though we had and have missle sites all over them) and we don't expect iran to freak out when we take over two of their neighbors and start throwing up millitary bases and threatning invasion. it is truly pathetic. maybe the best way to stop all this is to detain every employ of companies like Lockheed-Martin from the CEO to the janitor...­..if you can get past security at the White House to get to them.

[Niblick]

Thank you again for excellence in reporting, Bill. Comics are my most trusted news source these days. Here I get in-depth, corroborated analysis with a mime joke thrown in! Ba-da-bam! I advocate a 24/7 cable news channel for you, Stewart, Colbert, the whole merry band, so we finally get our facts straight, and can laugh through our tears. Call it CBDN (for Comedy Bulls#@xt -Detection News). Speaking of initials, you probably realize that the "BR" in KBR/Halliburton stands for "Browne & Root" the giant, Texas, oil construction outfit of the 1960s-70s that made billions from sweetheart deals to build all those huge American military installations in Vietnam during that war. BR (now part of Halliburton) was prime patron of another Texas politician, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who cooked the books on the phony Gulf of Tonkin "incident" to get a spineless Congress to authorize open-ended, blank-check escalation of that bloody trumped-up war. It starts sounding Biblical here with all the "begats," but you get the idea. Old Rule: Follow the money.

[Sidewhispers]

I Love Bill, Jon, Steve et al in proper perspective, because what's going on in this country is no laughing matter. We're already laughing all the way to our plundered banks.

[LoriAnn]

Those three are like the light in the darkness, voices of truth in a crowd of lies.....I­t is said how much money has been "misplaced" but how much of the accounted for dollars actually went to projects resulting in useable product...­not many Im sure!! Pouring our tax dollars into a bottomless, illegal occupation is criminal especially when so there are so many real national needs to be met. This country can NOT afford, financially or militarily, one more year of this let alone another 4 or 5.

[realistic2008]

Is more like Charles Manson for his actions have not been only fraudulent but out right criminal and despicable.

[hootie1fan]

Some say the Iraq war was about WMDs (debunked), Saddam Hussein's involvement in 9/11 (debunked) or even oil.

I say it's about $$$$$$$$, always about $$$$$$$. Just ask Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR, Carlyle Group, etc., etc. who their lobbyists support.

[Professor73]

Lots of emotion, but not many facts.

[specmark]

Bill, you're right on the money --wait: that's what this enterprise truly is, an unabashed attempt to outsource blood for money and strategic building blocks of having access to dirt cheap energy and regional control to advance our cause: more greed for our children's children.
Is it any wonder that we are hated?

[karl3200]

When Bush was governor of Texas, he signed the electricity deregulation bill which was supported by Ken Lay. Now deregulated consumers pay more than the consumers in some areas who still buy electricity from a regulated supplier.

I don't think he has ever had a good idea.

[NastyDiaper]

Well said!

Bush is not incompetent, he's the leader of a highly successful kleptocracy.

I'm not sure his AEI handlers have let him in on this secret, but still, bravo!