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

[Robert59]

I watched Greenspan being interviewed by (can't think of the two women's names or her show)about all the missing money the Fed shipped to Iraq (think it was 9 billion dollars shipped and 2 billion went missing).

He kept insisting it wasn't a Fed problem and they had done a bang up job creating a new dinar.

You look at all the money dumped into Iraq and wonder why they aren't a first world country with everyone driving around in Cadillacs lighting cigars with 100 dollar bills.

Greed is why. All that money hasn't gone to Iraqis but to the defense industry making a bunch of fat cats even more corpulent.

[dartagnan]

Actually it wasn't the Fed's job to guard the money; all they did was fill pallets full of bricks of $100 bills and ship them off. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was supposed to keep tabs on it once it got to Iraq. The company that was supposed to oversee the accounting was an outfit called NorthStar Consultants, which turned out to be run out of a house in San Diego which also was listed as the home of a number of other businesses. And it also turned out that NorthStar's mailing address was a post office box in the Bahamas. This is all in the Vanity Fair story by Barlett and Steele.

The stench of this deal rises to the heavens, and my best guess is a large chunk of the missing billions ended up in secret bank accounts owned by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, among others. The whole story probably will never be known.

[outnow]

Bill,

Great Post!

The Abercrombie Bill seeks to take the fraud out of government contraction in war zones.

The larger issue is the profits that are being made by those corporate interest that see the GWOT as their ticket to the largest gravy Train in the history of the world.

None dare call this treason! Well I do. So come arrest me!

The growth of the MIC was warned against by Eisenhower. They brought us the war in Vietnam. LBJ's wife owned KBR stock I'm told.

As Deepthroat said, "Follow the money!" Qui bono - is Latin for who is ripping you off, literally who benefits from a crime.

The peace dividend for using the Jihadists and other religious organizations has been used to build up the financial assets and incomes of the defense establishment at the expense of social services in the the U.S. that promote the general welfare.

This hungry machine needs to be fed the raw meat of our young men and women and Uncle Sam wants your Pocket book to rob. Continuous war is the means.

Two disagreements with you Bill, one, you don't need sexist jokes and, two, Israel and the U.S. do not have a treaty in writing. This allows excursions by the Israelis without the consent of the U.S. We give them three billion per year for a total of over 100 billion yet it remains a mystery as to why they attacked Syria and why we must attack Iran. Finally, what happened to the peace process in the Middle East?

The appearance of favoring one side may be our undoing, not our salvation. Religion and state are not compatible unless you want Fundies running your planet.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Federal Debt

$9 trillion and counting.

No wonder the US dollar is going into the crapper.

[outnow]

How Bush's Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071008/hiro

Greg Palast in "Armed Madhouse" was right about the caging to steal elections and the war to steal oil.

Alan Greenspan, Paul O'Neill (former Secretary o the Treasury under Bush II), and too many other credible sources are just telling the truth.

Iraq's oil fields were being carved up by the neocons before the war in Iraq was begun by Dick Cheney and his oil buddies. Even Big Oil didn't want to steal the oil. But the super-secret energy plans by Cheney were to privatize the oil and sell it off to their cronies. Now you see what changed Cheney's mind about going to Baghdad.

The Klondike in Iraq has turned into the quagmire in Hell.

Would the money men of the Bush administration themselves lie? Rats are running all over the place while the paper trail mounts. The smoking guns are not mushroom clouds but a money trail, soaked in the blood of at least a million people who have been killed, and leading to the door of the White House.

[Fernando]

I'm actually madder at the Democrats for not making this a more pressing issue. One thing that got me excited when Weber came into the Senate was his promise to "put a visor on and go over the accounting for the war", and not much has come of it.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but in light of this disaster and the inaction of congress, I'm beginning to think Democrats are secretly supporting Bush!

[mgloraine]

Not *very* secretly. There are still a few who haven't sold out yet. Henry Waxman is still fighting the good fight (go man, go!). Dodd and Biden voted against the Kyl/Lieberman fiasco. But the ranks of the True Blue are thinning; do you think BushCo is cutting them in for a slice? Or maybe they just figured out which stocks to invest in to make those wars pay dividends.

[WolfLarsen]

This corporate war is like a fish, it stinks from head to tail. When we started retailing and exporting military imperialism and becoming hired guns for Saudi Arabia and Israel than we made warfare a commodity. For sale to the highest bidder except where no-bid contracts are concerned. When you assume the mantle as the Merchants of Death it is hard to be the Beacon of Freedom at the same time. Irony like most subjects are lost on Bush and Cheney.

[Oldtimer]

Thanks once again Bill for pointing the spotlight on the Iraqi Enron debacle. It
amazes me just how lame the MSM is when it comes
to the massive fraud that is Iraq, that is
the Bush administration for that matter.
It seems to me that previous generations would have seen these incredible fraud whistlebowers
on the front page headlines. I can see witnesses
being sworn in before Truman during Word War II.
The whole country had to scarifice and fraudsters were exposed and villified.
The Watergate generation was told the facts
and dealt with an egregious Nixon Administration (where is Sam Ervin when you need him?). Today, the corporate media feeds
us Britney, O.J., the irrelevant minutae of
phony candidates. Todays generation will never see front page indignation about fraud in Iraq,
about lies to get in and then lies to stay in Iraq. Now we're gonna get front page spook stories about the threat of Iran. The corporate
media sells more newspapers with war headlines.
Wordl War III would be a boon to newspapers and
the cable news and broadcast networks would
love another trifecta - a new war (Iran), a
presidential election, and a White House wedding. Meanwhile the fraud and lies go on
and they are covered on page 18 in a small box
next to the latest TV ratings.

[stlrfan]

Bill, keep the heat on, this neo-con mantra of privitization is degrading our country daily. Watch you every week, keep bringing up the inconvenient truths so often ignored by the MSM.

[wisechild]

OMG Bill, I thank you so much for putting these nasty bits out there, so to speak!

I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK and I want these criminals prosecuted. I know it's a slim to none but maybe, maybe we will recover our American soul and take action.

Where is the MSM? Not even the courage of a whistleblower but with so much less to risk and yet, silence.

Bill, I must say as I was watching your last show I thought how engaging it is and that there is NOT anywhere on TV a show like yours where people speak truthfully. Even shows that purport to be 'progressive' enough to allow ideas have the same tired mouthpieces and rhetoric on display.

I salute you, Keith O and Jon Stewart for the efforts you make to bring the real story to viewers through humor and satire.

I salute the contributors to this post [and Arianna for providing a forum] for your continued vigilance in expressing your thoughts despite the pain we feel over this Clusterf@ck we call the war on terrorism and this facist, cruel and unjust administration led by chief chimp and his nefarious ass-kissers.

[imadf]

Absolutely. Thank you for speaking out. Boy do we thirst for an ounce of truth in media-land. At least you are courageous to speak out the truth. Other media herd are just that and have nothing to do with real journalism whatsoever.

Indeed I learned about these whistle blowers issues from you, and can't thank you enough!

Please know we are a big section of America that values tremendously your work, and look forward to your unrelenting breath of honesty.

Matt

[racetoinfinity]

"I salute you, Keith O and Jon Stewart for the efforts you make to bring the real story to viewers through humor and satire."

And don't forget Stephen Colbert.

[TheHandyman]

Isn't it amazing how Americans can buy that "socialized medicine" can't be trusted and would cost too much while at the same time their money is being squandered in Iraq at a prodigious rate? How long before they buy that they should give up eating so they can "be protected" from terrorists? Isn't is amazing how humans can be convinced that what is in their own self best interests isn't by some really evil greedy people and even when they are told about what is going on they just keep grazing and moving relentlessly toward the precipice!

[eliandbo]

Shut up and go shop!
that is what we are told by the speech-a-day pet monkey.
Thanks to bill Clinton's trade deals and Cheney's Haliburton, we are headed down the road to be a third world country. We are in a dangerous position with our military, if we or one of our protected countries is attacked, we only have nuclear weapons, and we will never use them.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Fort Knox is next.

If the gold is still there.

Or theirs.

[OckhamsElectricRazor]

Enron? Nah... Bush had it right early on in the war before his handlers banished his use of the word: CRUSADE!

Iraq is an invasion to 'liberate' the population and invoke a fundamentalist doctine. (Radical Capitalism). Mideval thinking on the part of the leaders also fits.

Enron? Well that is the Repub vision for healthcare.

[Rexxx]

Bill -- YOU ARE AWESOME! Love Real Time. Great blogs. Hope Arriana isn't working you too hard.

Also, you should have Matt Taibbi on the show. He wrote that great Rolling Stone article on this subject last month.

[nancytheragingliberal]

Rexxx, Yes, don't you just love Bill? No, Arianna is not working him too hard. He loves making his audience happy. I would be interested in seeing Matt Taibbi on Real Time. Bill, are you listening? Can't wait until Fri. night for my Bill fix.

[Loonie]

Iraq is an entirely unique and new fuck-up, bringing fuck-up straight into the 21st century.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Nope, its all going to plan.

Grand theft Treasury.

What's another trillion?

No one is concerned. Not even Bernanke.

[Bobzmcishl]

What's going on now in our country is truly scary, and if you believe the revelations made in Naomi Kleins new book "Shock Doctrine", we used Iraq as a free market capitalism experiment run by 22 year old MBA's in their first job. What we have are an extremist group mostly made up of policy wonks form the Heritage foundation trying to reshape every facet of our society, in some sort of Ayn Rand frankenstein world. And if you're looking for the Democrat's to restore any sanity, we could be in for another letdown. Their performance in the debates last night was very disturbing. To not even be able to promise to get us out of Iraq by 2013 is the height of lack of leadership. Eisenhower would have had us out of their in less than a year like he did in Korea. What kind of Democratic leadership wimps are we producing nowadays. Hillary may be the worst of all, actually voting to give Bush the authority to declare some Iranian group terrorists so we can go in and bomb the hell out of them. What the hell is she thinking? She got fooled by Bush once and now she is walking down the same path paved by neocons who got us into the Iraq horror movie. And to top that off, too many House Democrats voted to condemn Moveon.org, the only Democratic friendly group that has taken a serious anti-Iraq war stance and supported the Democrats in the election last year. What the hell are the Democrats up to? It is very discouraging right now to follow politics.

[PADDYWHACK]

Great post Bill,you're preaching to the choir but it needs to be said.I didn't know Kristol was such a wanker but it fits.Cheney/shrub are profiting but in the long run they'll get theirs,probably more money.The likely end is they[war profiteers]will bleed us to death.The media are silent and Maher is one of the few talents willing to speak out,he outshines the likes of Dennis Miller who must be playing gas stations by now or should be.The media are silent and no one will ever pay.I think the economy will be the next big victim and with no opposition in DC there's no way to prevent it.The dollar can only go so low before people dump it.Paying for oil in Euros gets expensive,but that's where we're headed.

[OckhamsElectricRazor]

Hey nic-nac, Paddywhack, give the dog a bone! Although I disagree with his ideas, Kristol is in a different league than those other dogs of war.

[SkepticTank]

Vietnam? Enron?

Hell, I'd call it the Battle of The Network Stars if it would help get us the f*ck out of there.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

I don't believe Ken Lay killed anyone.

C'est la difference.

A million Iraqis dead ?

[Izadora]

Bill, you're so "a d o r a b l e."
Good luck tomorrow night.
Lots of love Bill.

[Plowboy]

Ken Lay and Enron gave us GWB. They bankrolled his campaign, and if only they could have kept alive a bit longer, they would be rich like Halliburton now from good old crony bucks.
Close but no cigar!

Yet, without them, we might now be complaininng about President Gore! If not, then he is even better that those dreaming he will run think he is.