Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Halliburton isn't the only pig chowin' down at the taxpayer trough by any means – it simply has the honor of being the most conspicuous. The “War on Terror” has given birth to a shadow government of contractors , and the midwife from hell is proud poppa Pentagon, who has even outsourced that role . He can now pass out cigars and show off his beautiful bouncing baby deficit while bragging, “see that? I made that myself!” Poppa Rummy is so excited he telephones Uncle Rush (Limbaugh) and Auntie Ann (Coulter) to spread the good news!
There are many colorful phrases in the South, and the one dancing around in my head at the moment is: “sometimes, the baby is just ugly”. And what an ugly baby this is! It has the lying lips of a politician , the nose of a pork barrel pig , and the appetite of a special interest lobbyist .
We all know the ole saying of things happen in “threes”, so let's take a passing glance at two other war profiteers and make this a trifecta. Who are the other two? I'm going to serve up Custer Battles and Blackwater, two you might not have heard of before.
Custer Battles started off as a private security company, much like Blackwater, however, they evolved into much more by creating a number of subsidiary companies, which served to confuse auditors by double and triple billing for the same charges. In some ways you could say they took the old Army slogan to heart: be all that you can be.
Custer Battles is a small fish as compared to Halliburton, however, that doesn't mean their fraud games are any less painful to the taxpayer wallets – fraud is still fraud. The funny thing is this fish got hooked thanks to two whistleblower patriots who had the courage to stand up and do the right thing in a sea of corruption. My personal favorite fraud: it's a tie between playing football with the $100 bricks of cash, but their innovation of stealing existing Baghdad Airport equipment, repainting it with their logos, and then selling it to the powers that be, just barely trumps a good football game.
There have been various court documents filed in regards to this fraud, but the main trial came to a head when this contractor was found guilty in March 2006.
The jury found that all of the U.S. funds spent under the contract were fraudulently billed. In addition, the jury found more than 30 separate fraudulent acts, each one of which is subject to an $11,000 penalty. The total award in this case is in excess of $10 million .
At the heart of the litigation was the decision as to who was actually paying the bills Custer Battles falsely submitted: the U.S. taxpayers, or the Coalition Provisional Authority. Lawyers for the defendant argued along the following line:
“…Since none of the money that the CPA paid to Custer Battles came from U.S. taxpayers, the False Claims Act does not apply. Indeed, he says that the CPA paid Custer Battles with money that were recovered from Saddam Hussein's palaces, frozen international back accounts and oil revenues and not a penny more.
In the end the jury did not buy into this lie, but federal judge T.S. Ellis months later set aside the verdict, letting the hooked fish swim free. His rationale ?
The former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq could not be considered a US government entity. (There's a more in-depth article
here .)
That's a “mulligan” if I've ever seen one! The contract clearly states the agreement is with the U.S. Army and not the Coalition Provisional Authority. Even if it weren't, Custer Battles knew they were involved in fraudulent activity , based upon their own internal memos! They are guilty and the original penalties should stand and not be vacated.
Over and over it's the same – Americans are cited by courts all around the country for not reporting for jury duty, and yet when they do take the time out of their lives to perform their civic duty, judges throw out their verdicts!
Another fat, dumb, and happy pig at the slop farm is another private security firm by the name of Blackwater . You might have seen the results of their work when four of their employees were murdered, burned, dragged through the streets, and then hung from a bridge in Fallujah. Arrogance breeds anger and resentment, and Blackwater brought that out in Iraqis in dangerous levels with no one to blame but themselves.
“ 'The problem is, his guys are trying to protect the ambassador. But I would ride around with Iraqis in an Iraqi truck, and they were running me off the road. We were threatened and intimidated. But they (Blackwater's security) were doing their job, doing what they were paid to do in the way they were paid to do it. And they were making enemies on every single pass out of of town.' The ‘first rule' of an insurgency, said Hammes, is ‘you don't make any more enemies.' And Blackwater clearly failed in that mission. ”
