The Price For Exposing Corruption in Iraq

There are brave soldiers and Americans who step forward on occasion to report abuse, corruption, fraud and an assortment of other activities that would land most Americans in jail for their crimes.

There brave individuals are seldom rewarded for their honesty and loyalty to the country they serve. Instead many find themselves in more trouble than any criminal would ever go through.

Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods. He was told very little about why he was there.

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.

Vance thought he was doing his Patriotic duty 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.

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 efforts, 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.

Corruption has often occurred in Iraq reconstruction. Hundreds of projects will 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.

The Project on Government Oversight says they will never find out what corruption is going on if people fail to come forward and reveal such abuses. The problem is the U.S government is sending a message to anyone involved, if you tell you will pay dearly.

The highest-ranking civilian contracting officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bunny Greenhouse testified before a congressional committee in 2005 that she found widespread fraud in multi billion-dollar rebuilding contracts awarded to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

Greenhouse was quickly demoted after she told of her findings of corruption. She now sits isolated in a small area for a workstation waiting for the other shoe to drop, all because she revealed what any good American should if they found such illegalities.

Julie McBride worked as a “morale, welfare and recreation coordinator” at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR inflate 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.

McBride voiced her concerns about what she believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed her under guard and kept her in seclusion,” she told the committee. Her property was searched, and she was told that she was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. She remained under guard until she was flown out of the country. Halliburton and KBR denied her testimony in court.

The Bush administration was quick to give many no bid contracts to Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and many other corporations loyal to the Bush/Cheney conglomerate of business elite.

The U.S government either fails or refuses to monitor where taxpayer dollars go involving the Iraqi reconstruction. Bush regularly seeks and receives billions of dollars from Congress to supposedly rebuild the country he has completely destroyed.

These are a few of the countless stories coming to light of what innocent people go through if they expose corruption inside George W Bush's war in Iraq. Each story is similar in nature and telling about why the U.S is really in Iraq.

As thousands of American and Iraqi lives are taken as a results of Bush's onslaught of destruction, the rebuilding is continually being delayed, more U.S funds are filtered into the hands of corporate allies of Bush.

How long will the war in Iraq last? It will last as long as Congress sits idly by and allows American citizens to be thrown in prison, demoted from their jobs and financially destroyed for doing what Congress should do.

If honest Americans are punished and abused for revealing massive corruption within the Bush administration and their corporate allies, what does that say about our government?


Image by Stephen Pitt Cartoons

GOD BLESS AMERICA * SCOOTER SCOOTS

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The 4th of July 2007 HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! It can only get better.

Scooter Libby Roundup

FACE THE FACTS: The reason Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence was SO LIBBY WOULDN'T TALK. Bush “guaranteed not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth. This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.” Now, the Bush administration is legally protected from having to answer questions. If Libby had been in prison, anyone could have gotten to him. Now, no one can get Libby to say a word about the real culprits, which are obviously Rove and Cheney/Bush.


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**First of all, it's vitally important to understand what Valerie Plame was actually doing, and how her "blonde good looks" were a perfect cover for the dangerous work she was doing in finding nuclear weapons in enemy territory. Along with Plame, what we never hear about is that this entire CIA covert program is now gone and several other CIA agents lost their jobs and their cover.

The reason this whole thing is different than any Clinton pardon is because this is a White House-related crime. You can't pardon or commute the sentence of someone who is directly related to your office!!

** Bush gleefully sent people to their deaths without commuting a single death sentence as governor of Texas. He sent mentally retarded children to their deaths. He probably sent innocent people to their deaths.

Doug Basham says: "Bush freed Libby... this is your “law and order” “strong on national security” republicans in action again. They have no problem outing someone who was working on nuclear proliferation issues, and then they have even less problem pardoning the person who leaked it. Well, at least Bush (Cheney) made sure Libby wouldn’t flip on them, and start talking."

According to Marcy Wheeler, Bush “guaranteed not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth. This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.”

And the worst part of this is… we’re now going to have to listen to all the right wing media hosts and their fellow propagandists tell us once again, that no crime was committed, even tho’ republican prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said there was.

They will tell us it’s Patrick Fitzgerald who should’ve gone to prison, and that it was Richard Armitage who told Robert Novak, even tho’ Libby told at least 2 other reporters. So what if it was Novak who reported it? Libby leaked the name of a covert CIA operative to at least 2 other reporters, whether they reported it or not! So yes, a crime was committed. He just wasn’t charged with the crime of leaking.

Bush did not consult with the Justice Department or special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald before commuting the sentence of former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, according to Tuesday’s Washington Post. Bush commuted Libby’s sentence for perjuring and other crimes related to his role in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

This is the first time in Bush's presidency that Bush commuted a sentence without going through his lawyers at the Justice Dept. Bush didn't even ask the Prosecutor in the case Patrick Fitzgerald, for his opinion as has normally been done in the Justice Department.

"First, President Bush said any person who leaked would no longer work in his administration. Nonetheless, Scooter Libby didn’t leave office until he was indicted and Karl Rove works in the White House even today."

President Bush on Tuesday left open the possibility of an eventual pardon for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"As to the future, I rule nothing in and nothing out," the president said a day after commuting Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case.

Bush openly proclaimed on national television that "any person who leaked would no longer work in his administration." Libby now is free, awaiting a full pardon and Karl Rove is still directing the steps of the Bush administration.

Survey USA conducted a quick, automated survey to gauge response to President Bush's decision to commute former White House aide Scooter Libby's prison sentence.

According to the poll:

17% say Bush should have pardoned Libby completely.
60% say Bush should have left the judge's prison sentence in place.
32% of Republicans agree with the President's decision, compared to 14% of Democrats and 20% of Independents.
26% of Republicans say Libby should have been pardoned completely, compared to 21% of Independents and 8% of Democrats..

A wide majority of Americans are against letting Libby go free. The Bush decision regarding Scooter Libby portrays the conclusion that he will do anything to protect those within his inner circle.

Equal Justice Under Law is a phrase engraved on the front of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. This phrase was apparently first written in 1932 by the architectural firm that designed the building. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes subsequently approved this inscription, as did the United States Supreme Court Building Commission which Hughes chaired.

It has become increasingly clear that in Bush's America, there is no "Equal Justice For All.