Steep Price Paid by Those Who Blew Whistle on Iraq Fraud
One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.
Or worse.
For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods. 
There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.
He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers - all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.
The seller, he claimed, was the Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co.
“It was a Wal-Mart for guns,” he says. “It was all illegal and everyone knew it.”
So Vance says he blew the whistle, supplying photos and documents and other intelligence to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he didn’t know whom to trust in Iraq.
For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside Baghdad that once held Saddam Hussein, and he was classified a security detainee.
Also held was colleague Nathan Ertel, who helped Vance gather evidence documenting the sales, according to a federal lawsuit both have filed in Chicago, alleging they were illegally imprisoned and subjected to physical and mental interrogation tactics “reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants.”
Corruption has long plagued Iraq reconstruction. Hundreds of projects may never be finished, including repairs to the country’s oil pipelines and electricity system. Congress gave more than $30 billion to rebuild Iraq, and at least $8.8 billion of it has disappeared, according to a government reconstruction audit.
Despite this staggering mess, there are no noble outcomes for those who have blown the whistle, according to a review of such cases by the Associated Press.
“If you do it, you will be destroyed,” said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
“Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes people ask me, ‘Should I do this?’ And my answer is no. If they’re married, they’ll lose their family. They will lose their jobs. They will lose everything,” Weaver said.
They have been fired or demoted, shunned by colleagues, and denied government support in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms.
“The only way we can find out what is going on is for someone to come forward and let us know,” said Beth Daley of the Project on Government Oversight, an independent, nonprofit group that investigates corruption. “But when they do, the weight of the government comes down on them. The message is, ‘Don’t blow the whistle or we’ll make your life hell.’
“It’s heartbreaking,” Daley said. “There is an even greater need for whistleblowers now. But they are made into public martyrs. It’s a disgrace. Their lives get ruined.”
Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse knows this only too well. As the highest-ranking civilian contracting officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she testified before a congressional committee in 2005 that she found widespread fraud in multibillion-dollar rebuilding contracts awarded to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.
Soon after, Greenhouse was demoted. She now sits in a tiny cubicle in a different department with very little to do and no decision-making authority, at the end of an otherwise exemplary 20-year career.
People she has known for years no longer speak to her.
“It’s just amazing how we say we want to remove fraud from our government, then we gag people who are just trying to stand up and do the right thing,” she says.
In her demotion, her supervisors said she was performing poorly. “They just wanted to get rid of me,” she says softly. The Army Corps of Engineers denies her claims.
“You just don’t have happy endings,” said Weaver. “She was a wonderful example of a federal employee. They just completely creamed her. In the end, no one followed up, no one cared.”
But Greenhouse regrets nothing. “I have the courage to say what needs to be said. I paid the price,” she says.
Then there is Robert Isakson, who filed a whistleblower suit against contractor Custer Battles in 2004, alleging the company - with which he was briefly associated - bilked the U.S. government out of tens of millions of dollars by filing fake invoices and padding other bills for reconstruction work.
He and his co-plaintiff, William Baldwin, a former employee fired by the firm, doggedly pursued the suit for two years, gathering evidence on their own and flying overseas to obtain more information from witnesses. Eventually, a federal jury agreed with them and awarded a $10 million judgment against the now-defunct firm, which had denied all wrongdoing.
It was the first civil verdict for Iraq reconstruction fraud.
But in 2006, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III overturned the jury award. He said Isakson and Baldwin failed to prove that the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-backed occupier of Iraq for 14 months, was part of the U.S. government.
Not a single Iraq whistleblower suit has gone to trial since.
“It’s a sad, heartbreaking comment on the system,” said Isakson, a former FBI agent who owns an international contracting company based in Alabama. “I tried to help the government, and the government didn’t seem to care.”
* * *
One way to blow the whistle is to file a “qui tam” lawsuit (taken from the Latin phrase “he who sues for the king, as well as for himself”) under the federal False Claims Act.
Signed by Abraham Lincoln in response to military contractors selling defective products to the Union Army, the act allows private citizens to sue on the government’s behalf.
The government has the option to sign on, with all plaintiffs receiving a percentage of monetary damages, which are tripled in these suits.
It can be a straightforward and effective way to recoup federal funds lost to fraud. In the past, the Justice Department has joined several such cases and won. They included instances of Medicare and Medicaid overbilling, and padded invoices from domestic contractors.
But the government has not joined a single quit tam suit alleging Iraq reconstruction abuse, estimated in the tens of millions. At least a dozen have been filed since 2004.
“It taints these cases,” said attorney Alan Grayson, who filed the Custer Battles suit and several others like it. “If the government won’t sign on, then it can’t be a very good case - that’s the effect it has on judges.”
The Justice Department declined comment.
Most of the lawsuits are brought by former employees of giant firms. Some plaintiffs have testified before members of Congress, providing examples of fraud they say they witnessed and the retaliation they experienced after speaking up.
Julie McBride testified last year that as a “morale, welfare and recreation coordinator” at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR exaggerate costs by double- and triple-counting the number of soldiers who used recreational facilities.
She also said the company took supplies destined for a Super Bowl party for U.S. troops and instead used them to stage a celebration for themselves.
“After I voiced my concerns about what I believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion,” she told the committee. “My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country.”
Halliburton and KBR denied her testimony.
She also has filed a whistleblower suit. The Justice Department has said it would not join the action. But last month, a federal judge refused a motion by KBR to dismiss the lawsuit.
* * *
Donald Vance, the contractor and Navy veteran detained in Iraq after he blew the whistle on his company’s weapons sales, says he has stopped talking to the federal government.
Navy Capt. John Fleming, a spokesman for U.S. detention operations in Iraq, confirmed the detentions but said he could provide no further details because of the lawsuit.
According to their suit, Vance and Ertel gathered photographs and documents, which Vance fed to Chicago FBI agent Travis Carlisle for six months beginning in October 2005. Carlisle, reached by phone at Chicago’s FBI field office, declined comment. An agency spokesman also would not comment.
The Iraqi company has since disbanded, according the suit.
Vance said things went terribly wrong in April 2006, when he and Ertel were stripped of their security passes and confined to the company compound.
Panicking, Vance said, he called the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, where hostage experts got on the phone and told him “you’re about to be kidnapped. Lock yourself in a room with all the weapons you can get your hands on.”‘
The military sent a Special Forces team to rescue them, Vance said, and the two men showed the soldiers where the weapons caches were stored. At the embassy, the men were debriefed and allowed to sleep for a few hours. “I thought I was among friends,” Vance said.
The men said they were cuffed and hooded and driven to Camp Cropper, where Vance was held for nearly three months and his colleague for a little more than a month. Eventually, their jailers said they were being held as security internees because their employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents, the lawsuit said.
The prisoners said they repeatedly told interrogators to contact Carlisle in Chicago. “One set of interrogators told us that Travis Carlisle doesn’t exist. Then some others would say, ‘He says he doesn’t know who you are,”‘ Vance said.
Released first was Ertel, who has returned to work in Iraq for a different company. Vance said he has never learned why he was held longer. His own interrogations, he said, seemed focused on why he reported his information to someone outside Iraq.
And then one day, without explanation, he was released.
“They drove me to Baghdad International Airport and dumped me,” he said.
When he got home, he decided to never call the FBI again. He called a lawyer, instead.
“There’s an unspoken rule in Baghdad,” he said. “Don’t snitch on people and don’t burn bridges.”
For doing both, Vance said, he paid with 97 days of his life.
© 2007 The Associated Press.
certainly says something when the same government that is being ripped off will ruin your life if you let them know.
way to go, bushco.
well done, indeed.
Donald Vance thank you for your courage. We need more real heros like you.
Given the amount of US weaponry “lost” in Iraq, one wonders who’s really arming the “terrorists” there. Methinks Osama’s best pals are living and “working” in Washington, DC.
veive, I’ve been thinking that for years
Justice…would be to fill up the Halliburton Concentration Camps with Halliburton employees and corrupt government officials.
This report appears on DailyKos with much more detail. Names of U.S. citizens and high up military officers. Many from the Great State of Texas. What a bunch of ASSHOLES.
Long before I was a nurse, I tried to blow the whistle on the nursing home abusing my great aunt, but almost got her killed instead. And as a nursing student, my ethics class went to great lengths to show how whistle blowing ruins your life. It detailed the divorces, lost homes, lost careers, and suicides of whistle blowers. Message: don’t rock the boat. Rarely do whistle blowers achieve their goals of exposing and correcting wrongs. And their own lives always become a hell. A law protecting whistle blowers was passed some years ago, and overturned when the Republicans took control of Congress, and upheld by the Supreme Court. They don’t like whistle blowers either.
The Democrats aren’t addressing this one. Fancy that.
I find this truly frightening and astonishing. This is not the United States I thought I knew. Although nothing surprises me anymore under the Bush regime. We really do have a dictatorship where anything perceived as dissent is punished. What happens to this country when no one feels safe to speak the truth or criticize the party in power? We’re finding out and it’s not a pretty picture. Americans better wake up, and wake up fast. It may be too late already.
Haven’t you heard? America doesn’t torture.
Now, thanks to George W. Bush, we have National Security Presidential Directive 51.
Anyone that is deemed to interfere with the rebuilding of Iraq in the NeoCon’s immage (aka plunder) by pointing out corruption and waste will have their assets seized to face starvation alone. Ditto for anyone offering aid and comfort (food, water, money etc.) to the poor banished bastards.
And so it goes. Democracy on the move.
God bless America. You portray whisle blowers as criminals rather than whistle blowers who blow on those who as they are criminals, or in legal terms alleged. US of A - one of the most respected nations in the World once upon a time. You have descended to the depths of Fascism’s and are now a stinking corpse of once you were. Shame on you and your pseudo Judeo/Christian excuses for the Death and Destruction your Government has wrought on this World, in particular the Middle East.
THIS STORY HAS DISAPPEARED FROM THE AP ARCHIVE.
Yahoo had it up on it’s homepage for a moment and then it vanished.
Can somebody else try to find it?
This is the one I love:
“Then there is Robert Isakson, who filed a whistleblower suit against contractor Custer Battles in 2004, alleging the company - with which he was briefly associated - bilked the U.S. government out of tens of millions of dollars by filing fake invoices and padding other bills for reconstruction work.
He and his co-plaintiff, William Baldwin, a former employee fired by the firm, doggedly pursued the suit for two years, gathering evidence on their own and flying overseas to obtain more information from witnesses. Eventually, a federal jury agreed with them and awarded a $10 million judgment against the now-defunct firm, which had denied all wrongdoing. It was the first civil verdict for Iraq reconstruction fraud. But in 2006, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III overturned the jury award. He said Isakson and Baldwin failed to prove that the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-backed occupier of Iraq for 14 months, was part of the U.S. government.”
Must be a Cheney-aide — “Ha, look, I’m part of Congress, Congress doesn’t oversee itself” — “Ha, I’m part of the executive, I claim executive privilege, can’t catch me!”
No surprise here, and the fact is that the Iraq adventure is synonymous with fraud. Why else go to war? Business as usual in the Fed means that people’s careers will be destroyed if they don’t purchase from Microsoft, or Raytheon, or Perot Systems et. al. No need for some sensationalist metal washer or wrench, $1000 a seat is the way to scam your way to profit.
The goods and services are sometimes imaginary, a well documented fairy tail. If you interfere, you threaten people’s livelihoods, fraud becomes irrelevant.
We’ve all read about packs of public servants who will savage a colleague who displays a shred of integrity in the face of thousands and thousands of fatalities. Who can survive standing in front of a freight train? Even the British Government must yield to BAE Systems, and similarly you must play nice with volatile power for your own survival.
#
spicegal August 25th, 2007 3:36 pm
I find this truly frightening and astonishing. This is not the United States I thought I knew. Although nothing surprises me anymore under the Bush regime. We really do have a dictatorship where anything perceived as dissent is punished. What happens to this country when no one feels safe to speak the truth or criticize the party in power? We’re finding out and it’s not a pretty picture. Americans better wake up, and wake up fast. It may be too late already.
**************************************
How long do you keep trying to awake a nation before you realize,the reason it does not respond is it may already be dead???
When does this tinderbox light up?
Or does it just become an ugly train wreck?
The media, our nightmare–no safety. chaos theory may suggest how this night shift rapidly, phase transition, catching us by surprise: an incident, spreading, something else, a general strike? Or slowly devolving into a totalitarian regime, brutal & corrupt to the vicious end?
Defend whistleblowers:
http://www.nswbc.org/
George Orwell was off by 20 years.
We don’t torture people. Only war criminals torture people. We’re not war criminals.
We don’t terrorize people. Only extremists terrorize people. We’re not extremists.
We don’t engage in fraud, waste and mismanagement. Only tax-and-spend liberals engage in fraud, waste and mismanagement. We just spend (taxes to actually pay for spending are bad), so we’re not tax-and-spend liberals.
We are at war with terrorists in Iraq. We have always been at war with terrorists in Iraq. That’s why the terrorists from Iraq attacked our Homeland on 9/11.
And now this late-breaking update … We are at war with terrorists in Iran. We have always been at war with …
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
I think we are skirting the obvious here. As in Iran-Contra and the arming of the afghan rebels fighting the Soviets, the CIA uses “on paper” legitimate companies to funnel money for black ops. If you make audits of these companies the missing finances and equipment looks like corruption. This is how you can fund operations without even the flimsiest of Senate oversight. The black budget is approved by legislative committee, but the operations that Congress(even the most loyal of partisans) would never approve of because of treason, impeachment, FBI investigations, etc, are funded by bleeding the finances of the “fronts”.
Remember, the strategy of arming sunni insurgents was reported by journalists before it was confirmed by the Defense dept. How long was this strategy really underway?
Poor Donald Vance saw illegal arms sales and reported it as corruption and nefarious collusion with the insurgents? Considering the response he received, holding him incommunicado, it is likely he stumbled upon a black ops and was punished in order to protect it.
spicegal, this abuse of whistle blowers is nothing new and certainly didn’t start with Bush. Although he does take every abusive US action to the extreme. But the US has a long and sordid history in this world (and within our own country), with Democratic as well as Republican regimes. It was FDR who said of a vicious dictator “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”.
The real goal of the Iraqi invasion was to convince Americans that they need a strong military Presidential candidate, i.e. a neoconservative. Therefore they don’t mind if some weapons get diverted to Iraqi nationalists, since every American casualty is further evidence of how much we need miliatry intervention.
This news only confirms that the money that the US congress has allocated for Iraq is NOT FOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION BUT FOR IRAQ DESTRUCTION. This is only to increase the pain and suffering of innocent Iraqi men, women, children and the destruction of their properties, Iraqi state and infrastructure, so that the US congress can reallocate more funds towards it.
What this cycle of events express is: the US government and the Congress are spending the US tax-payers dollars for the destruction of the lives of people, their properties, and their freedom.
What I can’t understand is why there is no mass movement in the US to stop this carnage? Is it because they are not the ones who are suffering? Or is it because they have to pay the price for starting such a movement???? Then why do you make such a big noice about Darfur?? Is it because it is not the US which is involved in the genocide???? It is inconceivable to see such a state of affairs in the US society. Those few who dared and revealed the US ACTIVITIES IN IRAQ, could be punished by the US government and the military leadership, because the former do not have the active public support, except for few articles and congratulatory remarks. Then it is forgotten and the whistleblowers and their families have to suffer for life. They only become a history. As long as the public “support” is limited to few articles and rhetoric, it is inconceivable to see any change in the evil and murderous behaviour of the US political and military leadership.
We should stop blowing whistles and start blowing minds.
newrule7 August 25th, 2007 4:10 pm
THIS STORY HAS DISAPPEARED FROM THE AP ARCHIVE.
Yahoo had it up on it’s homepage for a moment and then it vanished.
Can somebody else try to find it?
I found at a newspaper web site but I could not find it at the AP site either. This on is an annotated version at the link below. I would think the story disappearing from AP would be new in itself. Did any one see it at the AP site?
http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070825/BUSINESS/708250348
Zhongman,
I news googeled it earlier and got a hit that it was on Forbes, followed the link to Forbes front page and couldn’t find it their (I’m not a big fan of Forbes, to slow unless you’re a subscriber, it could have been a link or two away but I didn’t have all day to look for it). It’s on Democratic Underground and Smirking Chimp as well as here and is getting lots of comments in all three places.
“This is not the United States I thought I knew.”
spicegal,
Things are not as they seem, and never have been. Liberty and justice for all is an illusion and always has been. We have been lied to since infancy.
We’re not infants anymore. What will we do with our new-found knowledge?
The article was on MSNBC.com this morning for a while. I do not know where it has gone since then?
Seem quite clear that the government and military in up to their eyballs in this themselves.
The Bush Crime syndicate uses he Justice Department mainly to ensure that their crimes go uninvestigated.
Its like having the Sopranos running the local police.
I had the same thought as Ireneus. It’s likely some of these poor folks ran across a covert operation and got punished for trying to expose it.
The real problem to my mind is war itself. The brutal logic of war justifies every crime — torture, murder, robbery, black ops… Once the Pandora’s box is opened, every crime becomes legitimate provided it’s for the right cause, namely that our side wins. And people with scruples are considered traitors.
Unlike most of the world, most Americans appear comfortable with resort to war and violence to “solve” problems. The US spends as much as the rest of the world on its military. It’s tied with Russia as the world’s biggest arms exporter. The US has bases in over 100 countries.
It’s ironic to me that most Americans also consider themselves Christians. Jesus didn’t say “Blessed are the war makers.” Or did he?
“Curiouser and curiouser” said the White Rabbit as he watched this article disappear down the Memory Hole . . . when did AP become American Propaganda?
I think this is a load of crap . . .
QUOTE Ireneus: Poor Donald Vance saw illegal arms sales and reported it as corruption and nefarious collusion with the insurgents? Considering the response he received, holding him incommunicado, it is likely he stumbled upon a black ops and was punished in order to protect it.UNQUOTE
We’ve also got drugs corrupting government and police enforcement — and deaths/suicides in the military for a good 20 years now when naive people have tried to blow the whiste.
Too many Americans are naive about government corruption which has now led us to full scale fascism.
Additionally, honest government has been substantially demolished — the bad guys now have more and better lawyers than we do!!
Obviously, we also have bad guys on the Supreme Court and one hell of a lot of work to do if we want to reclaim this nation for democracy?????
Are you saying it must all be a lie? Whatfools is that spelled with a “?”? Hows that old saying go? Only believe half of what your eyes see…. Funny, I don’t remember the quote.
Re the article —
I couldn’t find it either on AP —
or a check of Deborah Hastings on the AP website . . .
I finally pulled up something on it by using Donald Vance by Deborah Hastings in Yahoo search . . .
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/67299.html
It’s retitled — I did note she has written about government corruption in Iraq going back to an ‘05 article.
And I guess this is the same story . . .
QUOTE: Former Army Corps of Engineers employee Bunnatine Greenhouse testifies on government contracting practices in Iraq before the Democratic Policy Committee on Capitol Hill, in this June 27, 2005, file photo. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook/FILE)UNQUOTE
Where this testimony faded into oblivion, as well, if I recall correctly???
You also find the Forbes story via this route –
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/24/ap4052736.html
Here’s a link to the Yahoo version . . .
http://in.us.biz.yahoo.com/ap/070824/contractor_whistleblowers.html?.v=1
And the StarTribune which is quoting the AP . . .
http://www.startribune.com/722/story/1382037.html
Also Democratic Underground has the story posted . . .
based on AP ….but picked up from Santa Barbara News Press at —
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565074540867487317
So — I couldn’t find it with the title –
only with the names.
OK — this is second time posting this; lost the first one . . .
In order to find the story, I had to use search “Donald Vance by Deborah Hastings” . . . and that brought up a few sites, all based on AP — Democratic Underground has it via AP and Santa Barbara News –
And, here’s the Yahoo version . . .
http://in.us.biz.yahoo.com/ap/070824/contractor_whistleblowers.html?.v=1
Note it’s in their “biz” or financial section —
hmmm . . . ????
And … here’s the really interesting one . . .
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/67299.html
Hastings has been writing on the corruption in Iraq since 2005???
And, it seems to connect back to the also IGNORED, IMO, testimony by . . .
QUOTE: Former Army Corps of Engineers employee Bunnatine Greenhouse testifies on government contracting practices in Iraq before the Democratic Policy Committee on Capitol Hill, in this June 27, 2005, file photo. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook/FILE)
This was quite a notorious ignoring, if I recall correctly???
So . . . an odd way to find the story; and filed in “biz”????
QUOTE . ..
whatfools August 25th, 2007 9:09 pm
“Curiouser and curiouser” said the White Rabbit as he watched this article disappear down the Memory Hole . . . when did AP become American Propaganda? UNQUOTE
Please see my comments right above this . . .
but also want to comment that for some time now — decades? — our press services have changed hands.
If I recall correctly, they are now all in foreign hands????
I haven’t looked it up in a long time, but that’s as I recall it –
And, some might recall that about 5 years ago?
Helen Thomas quit one of the news gathering agencies because of a questionable new owner. ????
Much of America is now in foreign hands and has been for some time. Michael Moore touched on that a bit in Farhenheit 911 re the Saudis.
PS: Controlling the military has been a rightwing dream since at least Edwin G. Walker . . . who I believe was a General? when JFK fired him for trying to radicalize Army with Nazi propaganda. Walker went on to allegedly being shot by Oswald — who actually “worked for the CIA on high level assignments and probably also for the FBI.”
Walker was a racist who also led the riot at Ole Miss —
he was arrested there. As I recall, the Warren Commission Report ignores all of that about Walker.
Why bother with details like JFK having fired both Dulles and Walker — ??? And, Cabell, of course, whose brother was Mayor of Dallas???
Dirty rotten whistle blowers, put them all in the tower and bring Rove, Cheney or Rummy for water boarding. Film it for Der Ferror’s pleasiure. Don’t forget the cherry bombs either. Blast the sneaky truth tellers and then get those scum-bag Common Dreams bloggers.
The further I dig for the truth, the less sure I am as to whether I really want to know the truth.
This is the most distrubing article I have ever read,__ anyplace!
How do we get a Lou Dobbs or a Larry King or someone with power to bring this out. Help me with this, we have to get this out to everyone. There must be a least ONE senator or ranking congress person who will get this ball on the table and keep it rolling. I’m really pissed now.
The article is still under “Top Stories” on CBS News.com
Kathyodat, were you or Rebel farmer able to contact Linda, Kroll? She says she would love to hear from you. She has a website also.
Anyone willing to sit on a flagpole for a year. Seriously, that always gets high level press coverage. Say you won’t come down until this matter is brought up by congress, or at least by one of the major news-casters. I might do it if Siouxrose sits up there with me. Or,__ Julia Roberts.
I’m assuming everyone knows that when you are dealing with arms dealers you are dealing with the vilest, foulest, most soulless scum ever to walk the earth. That’s right your dealing with the Bush administration and their thugs.
Ok, I thought this had all been made very transparent during the 80’s when the bush administration (Reagan was the amiable monkey that gave the speeches) armed Sadam Hussein, Bin Laden, the Iranians and others while bringing drugs into America from Central and South America. Now we are fighting these people he is calling terrorist which he armed in the past. And his CIA has created the biggest opium ring the world has ever known.
This is your brain this is your brain listening for the truth from the MSM, any question?
I’ve noticed for quite awhile how contemptuous, arrogant, condescending, bullying, and downright rude the Republicans who in charge of everything are. It’s like “Don’t dare question me, you piece of dirt.” They make the Do-Nothing Democrats look good. There’s no doubt the U.S. is a fascist nation.
This story was on MSN home page this morning and there were over 700 messages posted in response by angry readers - in one day - then the story was suddenly removed from the home page.
The whole world is watching.
700 messages is a good start. But there needs to be 7,000 or 70,000 messages (I know that is way exaggerating it, but you get my point).
I tried to edit my previous post but it is not working. It should read 700 messages is a good start. But there really needs to be 7,000 or 70,000 (I know that is exaggerating it, but you get my point).
KEM: I talked to Kathy today. I will send her Linda’s e-mail address tomorrow. I was really busy today. Will contact tomorrow. Thanks
This whistleblower info needs to stay alive. There was nothing over at DKos today. Or AlterNet. For anyone who has the time, here are some sites to contact Keith Olbermann:
countdown@msnbc.com
KOlbermann@msnbc.com
feedback@msnbc.com
Does anyone know how to reach David Sirota with this article?
Got any other suggestions?
I just checked MSNBC’s website, which is my home page on my server. This was the #1 story this morning. Now, less than 24 hours later, it has disappeared. Not even in the archives, or at least, I can’t find it.
I have sent MSNBC a letter but I don’t expect much. You are all correct, this story needs to be kept alive. I will also try sending an email to Olbermann, and perhaps even Chris Matthews. We may not like the MSM, but we really do have to deal with them if there is any hope of getting this story out to a public that is not reading websites such as this one.
Please, everyone, send a letter to Keith O. or MSNBC, or any of the networks.
It took awhile to find it on MSNBC.
It’s in the World News/Conflict in Iraq section.
This should be front page news everywhere.
The kind of story our “free press” only prints on Saturday. The whole system is rotton to the core.
Thank you Common Dreams and Deborah Hastings.
Very seriously, this string is becoming very interesting. I’d bet a lot, that there are some BIG time players sitting up tonight figurng how to kill this from going anyplace. I’m contacting the news people Kane51, thank you for urging everyone.
Jokingly, Afraid I’d be a target on a flagpole. Sorry Siouxrose, guess you’ll have to wait till we have a party at the ranch.
Seriusly again, that get together comment you made yesterday was a swell suggestion, we have to plan for it.
Kem,
I too support Siouxrose’s suggestion that CD host a forum or that we all meet someplace to discuss ideas in person. Of course, knowing how the “eye in the sky” is watching all of us, they probably would brand us a bunch of rabblerousers and throw us into one of the state-of-the-art concentration camps. And then we can prove right then and there that we indeed live under a dictatorship (I think this already has been proven under several other reasons/events/lies/misguided and false pretenses and fabrications for war/etc).
Yes, keep it alive. One way to do it is have it scrolled on a screen on youtube. And maybe someone reading it. Anyone has the means and skill?
Something like the following maybe:
http://www.youtube.com/v/DB9890c0g_M
I’m beginning to at least understand, if not condone, the “re-education” camps established in post-war Vietnam. How in God’s name are we progressives going to succeed in “re-educating” bushslut America? These corporate fascists have rendered complicit the entire media, and have given us a generation of “journalists” who know not a whit about true investigative reporting.
They have decimated our schools and universities, likewise rendering “quality” education beyond the financial means of most families. They have poisoned or intimidated our entire “civil service” and shredded constitutional guarantees. They have taught “true ‘mercans” that corruption and bribes and outright theft of public funds is the norm.
My God, it will take several generations to “re-educate” our twisted citizenry and re-establish America’s semblance of “democracy,” post-corporative fascism. Where is our FDR, and how will we protect him from the dark forces who took down JFK, RFK, MLK, Senator Wellstone…and how many other martyrs still unknown to us? Will Dennis Kucinich be made to pay for his courage? I fully expect it.
Just want you folks to know that this is at least the SECOND TIME Donald Vance’s story has been stomped out after getting a few headlines. I’m from Chicago, and I distinctly remember reading his account in the Chicago Tribune at least two years ago, perhaps earlier. Absolutely nobody followed up on it.
The guy was only released and made it back to Chicago after his fiancée and family raised hell with their local Congress people and Senator Durbin. They thought he was dead until he somehow got a message to his fiancée. Vance is “lucky” he got out alive, I’d say. Now he has probably been threatened again. Cheneybushsluts are nazi thugs, string ‘em up…every last one.
GEE, I wonder what cheneybushsluts demanded of Durbin in return for the safe release of his constituent Donald Vance?
Maybe that tearful retraction Durbin made on the Senate floor, refuting his own reference to FBI reports that USA contractors and military in Iraq were conducting themselves like Nazis and KmerRouge? Yeah, that explains Durbin’s caving to the bushsluts.
Looking in from the outside, it sure looks as if the USA is already a pseudo fascist State. Time perhaps for concerned citizens to take back their country from the Vandals and Barbarians, in Washington DC, presently ruining your country.
Really. This all just too sad.
Sorry to be hard, but somebody said time ago (I think it is de Gaulle, but I may be wrong) :
“A people has the government it deserves”
Unless you Americans don’t do the appropriate and don’t clean the shit drastically (I can think of a certain number of cases where the people just got rid of their government), this will go on and on and on.
As a citizen of the world, I am in favor of a boycott of US products and services (No ethics, no sales). As many corporations don’t behave properly and there seem to be no reasonable nor legal way to fix this, the only way I can think of is to “sink” them.
At the end, they can’t (yet
oblige us to consume…
What I find hard to believe is that can find men and women to go fight their frauds for them. Oh, I mean wars!
“She also said the company took supplies destined for a Super Bowl party for U.S. troops and instead used them to stage a celebration for themselves.”
Those scum-sucking, coprophagous, bottom feeders.
Madhoosier said on August 25th, 2007 3:23 pm:
“Justice…would be to fill up the Halliburton Concentration Camps with Halliburton employees and corrupt government officials.”
Sounds good. The sooner we take back the Justice Department and bring charges, the sooner we have the trials. It would be damn good viewing…
“There [are moments] in which the aid of an able pen [is] important to place things in their just attitude.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1798.
If what this article reports aggravates you, like it did me, please take the time to write your local representative and first express your displeasure, then ask for him or her to investigate immediately. I did. Refer to the Forbes.com article that was released Friday afternoon. Indicate that this is just one more reason to leave that quagmire called Iraq.
Do it today.
Peace to you all.
this is enough to make me ill….seriously i read the first 3 paragraphs and i can read no more…im starting to wonder…where the hell is everybody…when are they gonna take their heads out of their you-know-whats and get this piece of sh!t out of office……protest…protest……protest people….come on…and trust me, i know im preaching to the choir right here…sorry for that….but im jus physically sick from reading these articles everyday!
I’m physically sick from reading there articles everyday”!
Amen, I can’t believe it either, I realized things were very bad in DC, that we have allowed a fascist form of government to take over our contry, but this article is the worst. This isn’t fascism, it’s a dictatorship and to make that worse, our president is insane.
I could handle a benelovent king or queen perhaps, until that king or queen re-established a true democracy, with honest elections, banned lobbying, cleaned up the enviroment, supported honest jouralism and joined the other fair minded leaders of the world and sought to make ammends for our past crimes.
After reading this article and the comments, I fear if we ever do elect a fair minded president now, he would be murdered. Perhaps the best thing that can happen is when Bush attacks Iran, to just watch the pieces fall into place, for when he does that, this county, this government, will end.
Whistleblower protection is just one of many issues which will be addressed by “THE WORLD JUSTICE PROJECT”, sponsored by a variety of Bar Associations in this country and other countries.
MISSION:
“A fair, functioning system of laws is the foundation of communities of opportunity and equity. In the absence of the rule of law, violence, poverty, corruption, sickness, and ignorance flourish.
The World Justice Project (WJP) is a multidisciplinary and multinational initiative to foster human well-being by advancing the rule of law.”
You may not hear about this project from the MSM for obvious reasons. I would encourage everyone to visit the website below and read more about their mission and plans to engage the local, state and federal governments to advance the rule of law.
Please!!!!……visit this site and send $$ if you can afford to contribute to this positive and hopeful project.
There is still hope!
http://www.abanet.org/wjp/
Kem, we can’t give up now. There is still a chance to head off war with Iran and I will keep on trying.
I used to frequent “New World Order” or Illuminati sites and although I think some of these guys are just a tad nutty some of what they say seems to hold true. The whole idea of a shadow government ruled by the uber rich for instance, is not far fetched and true so far as I’m concerned. Also, they also say we are given snippets of what’s coming next via movies and news to numb us to the inevitablity of it all as well as keeping us from trying anything stupid, say like stopping it. Also true from what I’ve witnessed. Free your minds, indeed.
ireneus is right, up to a point. but massive corruption and black ops funding are not mutually exclusive, are they?
vance’s story is shocking, but only in its extreme. you don’t get to the top of anything in this country by bucking the system, esp. not in the world of the military, intelligence, etc.
all of the major institutions in this country, gov’t, military, corporations, even academia to some degree, will kill you or destroy your life if you threaten them. one of the whistleblowers in the enron scandal (i forget her name) said as much before congress: she feared for her life.
the reputation of the institution is more important than the life of any single individual.
the 1-2 trillion dollar iraq war itself is a massive fraud. do you think our fearless leaders really care if halliburton or kbr bilks a few million here & there for this & that? bill moyers, back when he was on Now on PBS, had a top DOD accountant on who said during the 90’s the pentagon could not account for TWO TRILLION DOLLARS. in a 10 year period, they just “lost” two years of their budget. the DOD to this day still cannot pass its annual audit; it defers them every year, unlike every other gov’t agency.
rlyle:
Easier said than done. I think most Americans would agree: those so called representatives don’t represent Americans’ rather they serve They The Corporations. And since those corporations are global in nature, boycotting anything USA means you boycott everything made everywhere.
The only solution that I can come up with - and have seen here as recently as today - is to incorporate as We The People, Inc and starve the beasts.
I wouldn’t go so far as to indicate the purpose of the corporation, but I most definitely would say it would be a B2B service organization: we supply labor for the corporation’s needs. By this route we circumvent Wal-Mart’s anti-union practices, circumvent all government and we for our own little black ops.
Also, I would make sure to include the Minutemen to ensure that ALL illegal immigrants have safe passage and are included on the articles of incorporation. Every single person who wants in will be on the Board of Directors. And did you know that Board are far more democratic than our foolish democracy?
At any rate, anyone who wants to whistleblow is naive and nuts because they’re not thinking outside the system. Incorporate. Fight fire with fire. I mentioned this to David Sirota once but never heard back.
If people were to really incorporate, wow, I would be really interested in seeing the response. We’d be the dog and not the tail!
Yes, I remember Rummy on the hotseat back in 2002-2003 answering press questions about about 2-3 trillion dollars missing. A summary of his response: oopsie. I don’t understand how that story was dropped. If we had a Bernstein-Woodward type team of investigative reporters currently, they might rip this story wide open.
My bet is the missing money then, and probably additional missing money since then, has gone into permanent military bases in Iraq. That’s the project Bush wants under the radar, since there has never been real congressional or Iraqi approval. It is, however, part of the neo con blueprint for the invasion of Iraq. The think tank Rummy and Cheney belonged to had that blueprint in place by the late 1990’s. The bases are critical to secure our access to oil over the next couple of decades of intensifying competition.
I hope there is a follow up on this story, maybe a 60 minutes in depth look at what was happening. It is going to trial. The military goons involved need to be publically identified and embarassed. My guess is if there is a monetary award through lawsuit, these goons themselves might get the same treatment for costing the government money. What goes around comes around? (old NASA orbit proverb)
Scary huh? Room 101 actually exists!
Ok, I thought this had all been made very transparent
That depends on how you look at transparent. What transparent means to you isn’t what it means to our government. And when you went on about the Iran-Contra thing, that should have turned on the light. Example? Transparency is voided by a president who claims he doesn’t recall some 50+ times during a trial of immediate peril for our nation. A lack of knowledge or a statement of “I don’t recall” now means there’s no more reason to look for the truth/facts. Since Nixon this method has been the source of avoiding prosecution and or involvement in illegal crimes, moral and constitutional actions for all government officials. Unless they are caught red handed with a log of paper to show guilt, they get away with their actions. UNLESS it will have a profound effect on their party lines. And even that, since gwb has taken office, is now being, should I say, ignored. Its more evident these days now as congressional and senate hearings go on. They avoid asking the proper questions to get to the whole truth. They don’t follow up on information given. I can’t count the times when someone in a hearing has claimed “I’ll get that information to you asap” Then you never hear a thing about it. You may be lucky to hear that there was a hearing, but never what and how they came to a decision on it. It just goes away. As did the Iran-Contra hearings. No follow up business as usual. Hell, you even have a key player, North/convicted criminal, right back into the spot light again, which happens continually. Problem? I was a member on a harley group site a while back. I found myself within a mix of right wing nuts. It didn’t matter how much/many links or information I posted when debating issues. They simply refuse to acknowledge any wrong doing. And as long as these people have so many willing to just look the other way, have I said no follow up business as usually, yet? I’ve now come to the conclusion that cspan is now just another type on entertainment. Our congressmen and senators a new bread of actors. Their goal to quell the population when information mistakenly leaks out. They’ll half ass perform their duties until the issue can be swept under a rug or stuntman/fallguy. Then they’ll have a dinner to raise money for his attorney fee’s and fines. Guess what! Citizens of the country even show up to support him/her!!! Figure that one out!!!
Word of mouth and e-mail. Send this article to everybody you know. The only time I ever got a response within 6 months from my senator was when I wrote to him through Michael Moore’s website regarding HR 676, enhanced medicare for all. To that one Durbin replied in 8 days. Obama, not at all. So, writing to the power hierarchy feels like sending a message in a bottle. But we can be a news outlet. To shut us down, they’ll have to shut down e-mail.
2nd ammendment?
So if we know this much publicly, we can expect the Democrats in office to know much, much more. And they won’t impeach, nor put any more pressure on Gonzales. They don’t even use this as political ammunition against Bush & Co. Any guesses why?
You get one guess.
Ireneus nailed the likely scenario re Mr. Vance and his colleague, as far as black ops are concerned. His comments aren’t probative, but having myself been a military intelligence analyst several decades ago, I know first hand that what actually goes down inside the military bubble is very often at sharp odds with what the public is told, through slavish media reports or direct public statements by the military (If you need confirmation of this fact, watch any Rumsfeld press conference between 2003-2006, and compare it to the facts extracted since then by a handful of real investigative journalists).
This was the naked truth during the Viet Nam era of the late 1960’s when I served, and it’s certainly truer now by an order of magnitude, given the 100 ways this malignant “war of choice” has virtually destroyed any broadly shared conviction among the American People, “red or blue”, in leadership accountability, corporate ethics, personal integrity, or the moral force of our Constitution and the so-called “American way of life”, which we used to expect from our elected officials, military leaders and war contractors, especially during a conflict in which so many of our young troops are dying or being maimed for life.
A viewing of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons”, either the play or movie, would be deeply instructive in not only dramatizing these attributes, but would also serve as a somewhat anachronistic, but still tragic parable of how far this nation has fallen away, when the lives of our troops and our treasure are at stake, from simply doing what’s right. It seems to me the President and the Vice President and their minions ought to embody that enobling human virtue–not its opposite. Instead, we have Bush and his Contractor-in-Chief, the Iraq policy amnesiac Dick Cheney.
During ‘Nam, daily, open and frequently courageous print and TV coverage of the war’s incessant horrors, and the duplicities of our leaders in what came to be seen, post-TET-Offensive, as the unconscionable waste of our troops and our treasure in a hopelessly lost proposition– cynically prolonged for years by Nixon and Kissinger to allow the fanciful, empty strategic construct of “Vietnamization” to take hold and the war to be pronounced “Vietnamized”, so we could then declare “Peace with Honor” and haul ass (if the current fetid slogan “When the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down” has a vaguely familiar whiff to it, it’s merely putrified Vietnamization warming on the stove, even more fundamentally impossible today within the mangled civil war inside Iraq, than it was 40 years ago when North Vietnam, after we bailed out, captured and consumed the South in record time.)
We are lost in the desert, for sure. $9 billion in stolen booty is just the tip of the berg. As someone above artfully stated, we may already be a dead nation that just hasn’t lied down yet. If we haven’t awakened yet from the “wake up call” so many of us are proposing, maybe it’s because the wire’s been cut. Maybe someone should check.
Osama and all the other terrorists don’t scare me in the least. The chance of them killing or hurting anyone I know are nil.
My government though has been using my tax dollars to spy on me, endanger my civil liberties, inconvenience my travel and tamper with the elections. They have also borrowed thousands of dollars using me as collateral. If I get a chance to blow the whistle on the government; it would be my honor.
Thank you good citizens who take YOUR oath of office seriously. You will find that doing the right thing will keep you out of big crowds, but you will be in a better class of people.
Interesting…. i wrote a rather long post on totalitarian regimes, and the dangers of the US corperate government, and my post was “reduced” to: “Scary huh? Room 101 actually exists!”
What, has the corperate oligarchy hacked this site? no suprise there.
Some of the things I find out about our government
really makes me proud to be an American. Forget third-
world dictators, our government has to be the most
corrupt group of liars known to man. Any problem that
arises in the world can be traced back to something the good ole’ US of A did to help them in the past. Look at Vietnam or Central America in the 80’s, or the prime example of today, Iraq, we “helped” them all.
Common sense: The people in this story have already demonstrated they are ok with killing, robbery, torture and a host of other ills. They supply the tools of the trade and they have no ethics or morals. So, that is who you are dealing with but consider this. If you don’t have the avenue of blowing the whistle asking for oversight and the expectation that fairness or even honest brokerage, what can you do.
There are solutions that don’t envolve the methods used in the article.
In the late 1970s, the decline of the Soviet Union had already begun. In his speech to the Party Congress in 1979, Brezhnev said Russia had to change. That marked the beginning of his own, personal, end. At that time, he told the Americans not to rejoice, but to tremble with fear, because their country would very quickly surpass anything that even Stalin and Beria had imagined. Looks like we have finally made it.
And properly translated, Khrushchev’s statement was that he would dance on America’s grave. He didn’t make it, but with the “selection” of the Bushits, we are now dancing on our own grave. Welcome to Wally World!
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
That whistle-blowers are pushed out of their jobs will probably continue no matter what is done - that is the nature of bureaucracy and administrative systems. The problem is that under the “qui tam” suits the Justice department needs to sign on in order for the suit to have any real traction; a judge to take them seriously. As is made clear in the article, this is not happening with present admin. Nor will it, I fear, with any of the possible forthcoming democrats since they are so close to lobbyists and DNC “old chairs” with an agenda to wrest K street from the republicans.(Who expects an admin to go ahead with a legal proceeding which expose malfeasance within the selfsame admin?)
I suggest a strategy which may have lasting effect is to try to convince legislators to amend Lincoln’s “qui tam” bill to take away the provision of Justice Dept. approval. That way, pending whistle-blower suits get a little more teeth.
As far as Kristina40’s “The further I dig for the truth, the less sure I am as to whether I really want to know the truth.”
I suggest you don’t look into the Shield Group Security Co. which is later renamed National Shield Security and was started by iraqi expatriates during the “saddam years” who returned and secured quick permission to provide security(armed men) and analysis and logistical support for firms. Vance said he was told he was being held because his “employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents”. Vance says clients included State Dept. workers and iraqi ministry people. Also, there was a weapons cache when Special Forces came for him.
Were the weapons confiscated? Returned?
Apparently, no other SGS(later NSS) personnel were taken into custody.
There are conflicted articles about whether the company still exists. There website is still up with no contact information save the possibility of reaching them through website e-mail. Kristina40, would you like to try?
MASTERSHAKE, Sometimes when we edit, something goes awray, maybe try writing it again and see.
What can we expect from an administration that is comprised of those who refused to serve in our military, and then have sold out to special interests (ie Haliburton and the energy cartel, in the most clandestine manners? They have maintained their control by assassinating the character of those who have sponsored reforms–remember Sen Max Cleland, a triple amputee Vietmam Vet who was branded unpatriotic because he sponsored an inquirey concerning the causes of 9/11 which Bush opposed.
Those Americans who have helped this most destructive administration in our history steal the elections and now stand by as they erode our republic, must assume blame.
Jesus said ye “shall know them by their fruits”.
Could there be any clearer evidence of who the Bush administration serves.
These are real Americans. I’m upset to read this article of all these accounts of abuse, but proud and thrilled that there are still courageous, honest, moral people out there. The true citizens of this country are behind you all.
This is just disgusting! I have served my country in the military and as a federal employee and I couldn’t be more embarrassed or hate my government more. Republicans love to say “The Founding Fathers blah blah blah”, I wonder, what would the Founding Fathers say the this- our government that jails its own people for doing the right thing.
This is the real fear.
It does not come from terrorists or chemical weapons. It comes from the people we have trusted with authority betraying us. Our true fear is losing our freedoms and living in tyranny. It is upon us.
In the Declaration Of Independence it states:
‘But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.’
A hard rain’s a gonna fall.
Listen people, for years I experienced something which I never heard of anyone else experiencing until I heard it from this guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke#Reptilian_humanoids
Even though the entire world might think he is crazy…to completely forward and honest here…I don’t.
The woman who said she doesn’t want to know more than she knows already, this would be something she really doesn’t want to experience.
Anyone who is not familiar with him please see
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=6860946590182985661&q=David+Icke+Was+He+Right%3F