Betcha My State is More Corrupt Than Your State

Illinois - feh.

By the New York Times' calculation of corrupt officials per capita, the Lincoln-Wasn't-Born-Here state doesn't even make the top 20.

Kentucky, however, where our Greatest President was born, ranks Number 9, ahead of such big-mouthed pretenders as Florida (14), New Jersey (15), and New York (23).

Top of the list? The District of Columbia, which is not fair because the district must have the highest concentration of government officials as a percentage of the population.

Alaska (5), Louisiana (6) and Mississippi (7) are logical suspects to edge out Kentucky, but what's the deal with North Dakota (4) and neighbor Montana (8)? Long-winter-boredom corruption?

And Nebraska (54)? You're just not trying.

Check out the full list.

h/t Page One Kentucky.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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Time to give the devil his due

John McCain is on the receiving end of a lot of wrath and anger from those angry about the Air Force's new tanker deal that went to Airbus instead of Boeing. Boeing supporters in congress are directing their ire at McCain for his role in scuttling an earlier deal that would have clinched the deal for Boeing.

McCain called the earlier deal a textbook example of cronyism and corruption, and the courts agreed. Two officials went to prison over it.

Meanwhile, congresscritters squirm, and you almost feel sorry for them.

Almost.

On the one hand, they are expected to bring home the pork for their district, and McCain took that away from quite a few of them...But on the other hand, how can they hammer him for taking on cronyism and corruption? Isn't that what we keep telling anyone who will listen that we want our politicians to do just that? Kinda hypocritical to get all peeved about it now that the chickens come home to roost.

But before you can muster any real sympathy for the poor dears and their dilemma, they go and open their mouths and you remember why you hate at least 532 of 535 members of congress with every fiber of your being.

I understand that jobs are important, but I hate hearing this sort of thing from Democrats. You don't turn a blind eye to illegality and corruption just because it provides pork. That congresspeople do so with reckless abandon and orgiastic glee is why congress consistently polls far below even the most unpopular of presidents. And it's stupid because the solution is so simple...Stop being two faced assholes if you want the electorate to stop hating you.

"I hope the voters of this state remember what John McCain has done to them and their jobs," said Rep. Norm Dicks, Washington Democrat, whose state would have been home to the tanker program and gained about 9,000 jobs.

"Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that Americans used to have," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Democrat and a former Clinton White House adviser. "We are sending the jobs overseas, all because John McCain demanded it," Mr. Emanuel said.

I have lived more years of my adult life in Wichita than any other city. I understand the importance of Boeing in the big economic picture. But c'mon! It was greed and corruption that defeated the Boeing deal, and instead of ragging on the blind pig that came across a truffle for getting one right, blame the corrupt and greedy bastards that violated the public trust and ended up losing the whole deal in the process. It's on those jackals, not McCain.

I can think of a lot of reasons to oppose McCain with vengance and fury - but this ain't one of 'em. He didn't make those fuckers corrupt. They did that all of their own accord.

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More trouble for the GOP

Just what the GOP needs...an accounting scandal is now rocking the National Republican Congressional Committee. And it was all so perfectly predictable, what with the lifting of the internal controls and all...

From 1999 to 2006 the NRCC was led by Virginia Rep. Tom Davis and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, and during that time the NRCC opted to waive the rule that the Executive Committee of the organization sign off on any expenditure in excess of $10,000 dollars. They also consolidated disparate department budgets and paid everything from one account, and repealed the prohibition on committee staff earning income from outside companies. On the one hand, this arrangement allowed rapid responses to be mounted in hotly contested campaigns. On the other, it created an atmosphere rife with temptations such as fraud and conflicts of interest.

But the actions also may have contributed to a perceived lack of oversight within the NRCC, especially over financial records, a failure that outside observers blame for an accounting scandal that could go much deeper than the allegedly forged audit a former treasurer sent to the committee’s principal lender in January. NRCC officials contacted the FBI soon after discovering that the former employee, Christopher J. Ward, had submitted what they believe to be a fake internal audit to Wachovia as part of a loan application by the committee.

House Republicans are still awaiting the completion of an outside audit of the committee, since at this time they are unsure of the scale or nature of the financial problems at the committee. Current NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) has publicly stated that there were “accounting irregularities” at the committee that “may include fraud.”

"May?"

Yes, I'm sure that is why Mr. Ward retained high-powered white-collar criminal defense attorney Ronald Machen to represent him during the FBI probe...

Since Cole took over, he has made some real, concrete and tangible changes, but the scandal is so far reaching that those changes amount to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Those so inclined can read the whole sorry tale at the Politico.

There's more: "More trouble for the GOP" >>

So does anyone really believe Matt Blunt's 'spend more time with my family' dodge?

Less than two weeks before Matt Blunt dropped his "I'm not seeking reelection" bombshell, he gathered his cronies at the posh Big Cedar Lodge south of Branson to plan the campaign strategy for his upcoming reelection battle.

Present at the meeting were top-tier staffers from his administration, media specialists, fundraisers, pollsters, communications specialists and ground-game organizers. There was no doubt in anyones mind: the meeting was the kickoff to his reelection campaign. Those present reported that the Governor was engaged, inquisitive and involved in every aspect of the planning. Prior to the meeting, Blunt had prerecorded video footage for his initial volley of campaign commercials that were to be rolled out before spring, with the goal of beating Nixon off the starting blocks with a couple of weeks of uncontested air time in which he could tout his ostensible "accomplishments" with no counter message.

The brainstorming session in the Ozarks turned over every rock they could find. The participants pored over internal polling data; they discussed initiative petitions currently making the rounds, keenly remembering the effects of 2006's Amendment 2 (the stem cell initiative) and the influence of that initiative on other races.

During the meetings his message was honed: He would accentuate that he had turned around a $1 Billion inherited state debt to show three years of surplusses, that spending on education had been boosted, and that 90,000 new Missouri jobs had been created. He even planned to claim that he had transformed a broken health care system.

The messages crafted at the Big Cedar Lodge formed the foundation for the State of the State address he delivered on January 15.

[Keep reading]


Those in attendance were convinced that the message could be framed successfully, even though Jay Nixon would assail the governors record of kicking poor people off the Medicaid rolls, warn that the economy was shaky, and the education system was still lagging.

So what happened?

It wasn't money - Blunt had a proven ability to rake in massive amounts of cash, and some people present thought he could take in as much as $20 million for his war chest. He had raised almost $10 million since being elected in 2004, although his campaign warchest was sitting at about $4 million, and he still needed to return $2.3 million in excess contributions. After the reimbursements were made, he and Nixon would be on a level playing field.

So again, what happened?

There are plenty of instances of wrongdoing to point to. Those who haven't done anything wrong are not usually inclined to spend $89,000 in legal fees in a single quarter. You may recall that the Eckersley scandal broke in the last quarter. In case you have forgotten, Scott Eckersley was a staff attorney for the governor who was fired for having the temerity to tell Baby Guv he needed to follow the law and archive email, not delete, delete, delete. Of course, Baby Guv lashed out.

Or maybe the money he took from Jack Abramoff for his 2000 Secretary of State campaign has finally caught up with him?

Or did his pioneering work in vote caging catch up to him? When he was still Secretary of State, he instructed county election officials to provide him with lists of absentee voters, and then forwarded those names to Republican campaign operatives, and the GOP began contacting those voters. This ploy by a graduate of the Naval Academy disproportionately disenfranchised military personnel who were serving overseas in a time of war.

Or perhaps something came of the probe into his 2004 campaign for governor, when he used $48,000 of the public funds to run ads to encourage the citizenry to go to the polls. This scheme gave Blunt an unfair edge over his opponent, and allowed him to win by a nose.

Of course, there is the fact that former state representative Nathan Cooper was due to report to prison just days after Blunt's announcement, and of course it is just a coincidence that Cooper hearing those doors slam behind him has now been delayed.

Could it be that Nathan is singing like a canary, and Matty B knows there is an indictment in his immediate future? Dare I hope?

Or could it be the fee office scandal? I've been waiting almost two years for an indictment on that mess. There is just no way that little arrangement among insiders was on the up-and-up.

Whatever the reason for his sudden one-eighty, there is one thing for sure - I'm not buying the whole "spend more time with my family" smokescreen. Unless he is trying to soak 'em up now before he goes to the federal pen for some corruption charge or another, and the wife goes back to Virginia from whence she came.

Crossposted from Show Me Progress, Missouri's Progressive Politics Community

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And Still the Baghdad Embassy isn't complete!

Just because we didn't hear about any embassy-related problems or scandals for a while doesn't mean all is well and all the problems have been solved. (I have been all over this issue for months. See here, here, here and here. Click the links and read up on why you should be in the streets with a torch and a pitchfork over this issue alone.)

The problems haven't been adequately addressed, much less solved. They have just been ignored or overruled in a rush to declare victory the 104 acre, $529 $740 Million dollar complex complete.

The latest defect to rear it's ugly head is the firefighting system.

Last month, 19 days before he retired, State Department buildings chief Charles E. Williams certified key elements of the embassy's fire-fighting system as ready for operation, according to the documents McClatchy obtained.

His own fire-safety specialists and an outside consultant, however, had warned Williams and his aides repeatedly about numerous fire safety violations.

Moreover, Williams' thumbs-up was based on tests run by another contractor that was hired, not by the State Department, but by the company building the embassy, First Kuwaiti General Contracting and Trading Co. State Department officials, members of Congress and others have accused First Kuwaiti of shoddy construction and questionable labor practices.

The State Department's top management official, Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, said in a telephone interview that he hasn't issued a certificate of occupancy for the new embassy complex. He said he won't do so until the fire safety systems and other functions are "validated and checked fully."

Kennedy also said that the department's own fire safety specialists have been to Baghdad to inspect the embassy. "They were the ones who uncovered the problem" in the first place, he said.

In May, a mortar shell smashed into the complex, damaged a wall and caused what were reported as minor injuries to be sustained by people inside. The walls were supposed to be blast-resistant, but weren't.

[Keep Reading]

The project manager, James L. Golden, attempted to alter the scene and conceal evidence of shoddy construction by the contracting company, First Kuwaiti, which is closely tied to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a (former) subsidiary of Halliburton, the war-profiteering company previously headed by Dick Cheney. (As investigations into the company ramped up, Halliburton divested itself of KBR.) According to documents and interviews, the disgraced former IG for State, Howard Krongard, reared his ugly head once more and prevented State Department officials from investigating the incident.

When it came to the attention of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he banished Golden from the country, yet Golden continued to oversee the project, as well as other projects for the Overseas Building Office (OBO).

Golden, however, continued on as project manager for several months, even though he was not allowed in the country on orders of Ambassador Ryan Crocker. On Nov. 2, he sent and e-mail responding to State Department requests for repairs to underground fire mains, where he referred to the proposed changes as mere "preferences" and do "not change the fact that the work as completed meets all reference codes and specifications."

Until his retirement two weeks ago, the OBO was headed up by Williams, who happens to be a close personal friend of former Secretary of State Colin Powell. In fact, Powell hand-picked his old friend and colleague for the job, and Williams apparently ran the OBO like a personal feifdom, going so far as to refuse to let U.S. diplomats and congressional staffers onto the new embassy compound, according to congressional testimony given in July, and corroborated by a former senior official with first-hand knowledge of Williams and the OBO.

"As far as I know, nothing's been fixed," said a State Department official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation for speaking to the news media. "The lives of the people who are working in that building are going to be at stake" if the complex doesn't meet building codes, he said.

Concerns over the embassy's fire safety systems first arose in late August, when fire safety specialists from the State Department inspected the complex. They discovered problems with the water mains, fire alarms and numerous other systems, according to a Sept. 4 trip report.

The State Department ordered Williams to bring in an outside consultant, Schirmer Engineering of Greenbelt, Md., which found the same problems, according to e-mails from Schirmer to the State Department dated Oct. 22, Oct. 27 and Nov. 1.

Williams set up a separate structure to oversee the Baghdad project. E-mail exchanges in the documents obtained by McClatchy portray his project managers as playing down potential problems and refusing to share information about the embassy's progress.

Somewhere along the line, although no one knows exactly when, Baltimore-based Hughes Associates Inc was hired by First Kuwaiti to test water pressure in the underground firemains to assure they would be operable in the event of a fire.

On December 7, a certification was issued by a Hughes contractor that declared the new embassy met fire codes. But Hughes is now backing away from the contract employee that wrote the certificate. In fact, Hughes President Philip J. DiNenno, who did confirm his company had been hired by his company, sent an email to the State Department on December 14 in which he said the contract employee actually did nothing more than witness one test. "He was and is not authorized to speak on behalf of Hughes Associates or to communicate the final status of any deficiencies, and certainly he may not satisfy anything unilaterally," DiNenno wrote, adding that the firm's final report is still being prepared.

If and when the embassy is ever completed and certified move-in ready (the deadline was September but delays have pushed the occupancy date well into 2008) it will house approximately 1200 diplomats and staffers, as well as coalition military officials. The decision to move Petraeus and his entourage into the embassy complex was an after-the-fact decision because in the words of Patrick Kennedy, who heads the State Department director of management policy "Crocker and Petraeus don't want to divorce."

When contacted in Kuwait on Friday, Wadih al Absi, the general manager of First Kuwaiti and a co-founder of the company, refused to comment on issues concerning the embassy, stating that it's a violation of his contract to speak to the media without the State Department's permission and that he's been requesting permission for three months.

Your (incompetent) State Department at work folks - pissing away your tax dollars as fast as they possibly can, like they are so much cheap beer.

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They said they were planting the seeds of Democracy; instead corruption took root and is thriving

Iraqi and American officials have admitted that in spite of a statistical drop in violence during the Surge™, the state slipped further over the brink into lawlessness over the last year. Corruption and theft have never really been out of favor in Iraq, but occupied Iraq has become nothing short of a kleptocracy. According to an independent analysis, Iraq is the third most corrupt nation in the world - of 180 countries surveyed, only Somalia and Myanmar were more corrupt than Iraq.
The scope of the theft is staggering. It is estimated that as much as 1/3 of what American taxpayers are spending on reconstruction contracts ends up stolen, with a healthy cut going to militias. The top anticorruption official in Iraq estimated that $18 Billion had been filched since 2004.

That official resigned his position and fled the country a few weeks ago, after 31 of his agencies employees were hunted down and executed over the past three years.

[Keep reading...]

All this stealing and pilfering undermines the ability of the nation to provide essential services, yet providing the basics is integral to sustaining the recent perceived advances in security. It also facilitates a distrust of government and throws up roadblocks to reconciliation as groups with an established foothold in the Shiite dominated government resist reforms that would rein in the systemic corruption.

The average Iraqi, for the most part, finds the thieving to be a major source of embarrassment. They feel like the corruption and thievery affects them on an emotional and moral level, and point to what the Q'uran says about theft - Allah is against it. "God does not love the corrupters," is a theme that runs throughout the Q'uran. The Iraqis who were horrified at the looting in the wake of the invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein are doubly ashamed of the libertarian free-for-all their country has turned into because the tentacles of corruption reach into every nook and cranny of the society.

If you have children in school, you have to buy their textbooks from, a profiteer at three times the price charged by the ministry of education. If you want to wash your car, chances are the carwash is stealing the water from the degraded infrastructure that supplies water to homes and citizens. If you have a loved one with cancer, their pain medications are only available on the black market and are devastatingly overpriced. If you need a job, pay a $500 bribe and become a policeman.

And it has degraded so far that corruption is no longer a means to wealth, it is a way of life. It has created an endless spiral of dishonest dealings, and everyone feels the taint.

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Rudy channels Bill O'Reilly

During a town hall meeting in Staten Island on June 27, 2001, Mayor Rudy insults city workers when the subject of corruption in his administration comes up. President Larry Hanley of the ATU Local 726 attempts to confront Rudy on an inside deal to grant bus routes to private bus companies that contributed to his campaign. And Rudy loses it! Hanley can't get a word in during Rudy's deluge of verbal attacks as city workers hector him:

"Oh, get out of here! ...Stop it! ...Cut out irresponsible, stupid, ridiculous charges.... Nobody is corrupted.... I find people who make false and irresponsible charges of corruption to be reprehensible.

"Take the microphone away! End of the conversation.... That's the end of the conversation.... I do not talk to people that accuse me of corruption.... Sit down and that's the end of your irresponsible charges.... That's the end of this conversation.

"I'm not running away from anything... I'm standing here and you're acting like a bunch of immature idiots.... Ask another question.... You all look too irresponsible to be bus drivers.

"You accuse me of corruption, I stop talking to you.... That's the end of it, OK? You accuse me of committing a crime and corruption, I do not talk to you. So that's the end of the conversation....

"You came here to cause trouble and you're a bunch of idiots. You came here to cause trouble, you've accomplished it, and you're probably too irresponsible to be handling other people on buses.... It's really, really scary that these people drive buses.

"I know the kindergarten does a lot better than these morons.... You're acting like morons, yes. Yes."

You've got to watch this YouTube to believe it!



Yeesh! And this guy is running for president?

The Village Voice ran a story in September 2007 on how crime-busting Rudy somehow skipped the mobsters infesting... kids' school buses.

Now exactly who is the moron?

[That's all]

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Ted Stevens, Alaskan King Crab

The IRS and the FBI raided his home and he's caught up in a ever-expanding corruption scandal in Alaskan politics. So how has Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) handled the heat? He snapped at the press. It's their fault, don't you see?!

I can understand liberals' complaints about unfair and imbalanced press, because goodness knows, liberal media bias doesn't exist. But Stevens' whining about unwarranted and overdone media coverage of him and his son's slimy activities? Hell, the King Crab from Alaska deserves all the scrutiny he's gettin' and more. Stevens clacked his claws during his Anchorage Daily News interview:

[Snips below the jump]

...Stevens grew testy when a reporter suggested that the level of interest in the state's senior senator was high because so many Alaska politicians and public figures had been caught in the wider corruption probe. Also, as the longest-serving GOP senator in history, and the former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens has a higher profile than the average Washington politician.

In the interview, Stevens made vague threats to the people who have suggested that he and his son, former state Senate President Ben Stevens, might be guilty of some sort of wrongdoing. The younger Stevens hasn't been charged with a crime, but his name has come up repeatedly in court proceedings. Plea documents in Allen's own case say that payments of $243,250 the Veco CEO made to Ben Stevens were bribes in exchange for "giving advice, lobbying colleagues, and taking official acts in matters before the Legislature" when the younger Stevens was a state lawmaker.

"Your papers print (the names of) those people who have been convicted and my son's name and mine at the same time. As far as the public is concerned, it's all the same ball of wax," Stevens said. "I'm not going to comment on that ball of wax."

"But we've been included in a way that I hope people understand the laws that are doing it," he said. "Because when it's all over, some people are going to have to account for what they've said and what they've charged us with."

It was unclear whom Stevens was threatening. When asked if he meant libel or perjury, Stevens said: "No. I'm just saying there are ways to account for this in the future."

When asked if he meant political retribution, he remained vague:

"I think the people out there ought to worry about that the way I worry about the investigation. There are myriad things you can do. Just a myriad of things."

Jeso Pete! Not only is King Crab a kook, but he's creepy, too. One wonders: Is Stevens thinking about urging the politicized DOJ to trash his enemies? Attack Democrats who have been consulting with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich to run against crabby ol' Ted? Will he appeal to loyal Bushies to wiretap ADN reporters? The latter isn't beyond wild speculation. Come to think of it... sadly, none of these offhand questions seem far-fetched given the ascendancy of Republican corruption and disregard for the rule of law.

WaPo also reported that Ted is "a skeptic about human causes of climate change." Arctic drilling and oil executive bribes, I'm sure, haven't influenced Stevens' position.

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Army to review Iraq contracts for fraud

A 105mm M1 Abrams tank, outside the
Tank-Army Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM)
Detroit Arsenal, Warren, MI

On Monday, ten specially trained auditors, criminal investigators and acquisitions experts will descend on the Tank-Army Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) north of Detroit to begin an audit of a sampling of approximately 6000 contracts worth $2.8 billion issued by an Army office in Kuwait that has been identified as a hotbed of corruption.

The office in question, located at Camp Arifjan, buys supplies and gear to support American G.I.'s as they rotate in and out of Iraq. Nearly two dozen Army, military and civilian employees have been charged with accepting bribes and kickbacks, and $15 million has changed hands. Depending on what the investigators discover, the number of individuals charged will likely grow. Currently the Army Criminal Investigations Command has 83 ongoing corruption investigations relating to contract fraud.

The highest profile corruption case to be charged so far involves Army Maj. John Cockerham, who stands accused of bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction. Prosecutors charge that Cockerham, in concert with his wife and sister, took at least $9.6 million in bribes in 2004 and 2005 during the time he was a contract officer in Kuwait.

Some of the red flags that have been raised include contracts awarded to vendors outside the usual competitive bidding process and contracts that went through the motions of the bidding process, then were awarded to the highest rather than the lowest bids. In other instances, what was purchased was not what was delivered.

"Is there anything in there that might indicate to us that there might be some potential fraudulent activity?" Jeffrey Parsons, director of contracting at Army Materiel Command, said in an AP interview. "If there are patterns that we start to identify, then we're going to do further review."

Contracts with significant problems will be forwarded to the Army Audit Agency and the Army Criminal Investigation Command. If there's credible evidence of wrongdoing, the FBI and prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department are called in.

In Warren, Mich., home to a large Army acquisition center, the contracting review team will examine 314 of the Kuwait contracts, each worth more than $25,000 and issued between 2003 and 2006.

In Kuwait, a separate team of 10 at Camp Arifjan is already going through 339 contracts of lesser value and awarded during the same time period, according to Army Materiel Command at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Both reviews are to be finished before the end of the year.

Preliminary results of an investigation into the contracts coming out of Camp Arifjan in 2007 has wrapped up, and the investigators uncovered numerous problems with the office, including high staff turnover, slip-shod record keeping, inadequate staffing, and lack of oversight. Those personnel problems, coupled with billions of dollars of war funding, create an environment where corruption, malfeasance and misconduct find fertile soil.

The investigative teams in both Michigan and Kuwait will be reviewing paper records, but they will also be using data-mining techniques to search electronically stored data for signs of wrongdoing. "Do we have contractors with different names but the same address?" Parsons said. "That would cause some suspicion." He also indicated that the investigators would be relying on tips provided by individuals familiar with the imperfect process.

If a contractor and an acquisitions officer conspire to break the rules for personal gain, uncovering the corruption can be extremely difficult. "You can have a contract file that is pristine - all the documentation is there," Parsons said. "Just going through the contract files doesn't necessarily give you 100 percent assurance that something else might not have been going on."

Beating the checks and balances in the federal procurement process is a difficult trick to pull off, requiring attention to detail and precise planning. It takes someone schooled in the system to know how to evade it. Unfortunately, the Army had some very smart "bad apples" who knew how to pull it off.

The 6000 contracts that came from the office in Kuwait spawned 18,000 transactions for myriad support items, from laundry and warehouse services to bottled water and food. Every transaction presented an opportunity for fraud to be committed.

In 2005, two Lt. Generals who were top commanders in Iraq, Steven Whitcomb and John Vines, became so concerned about allegations of corruption that they pushed for the Criminal Investigation Command to establish field offices in Iraq and Kuwait.

The Army investigating the allegations of fraud, abuse, bribery, corruption and kickbacks is a good start, but it is time to take a page from history. It is time for a reprise of the Truman Committee.

In 1940, as World War II gripped the globe and United States involvement in the conflict became more and more likely, the United States appropriated $10 Billion in defense contracts in preparation for that eventuality.

Early in 1941, reports of malfeasance and abuses by the contractors reached Missouri Senator Harry S Truman, and the news did not sit well with WW I Infantry Captain “Give ‘em Hell Harry.” In typical Truman fashion, he set out to seek the truth, not by summoning “experts” but by embarking on a 10,000 mile tour of military installations. On this fact-finding tour, he discovered that the companies that received the contracts were clustered in the east, with a mere handful divvying up most of the largesse. He also discovered that they were receiving a fixed-profit, regardless of performance.

He returned to the Senate convinced that the defense efforts of the United States were being undermined by waste and corruption, and he proposed the notion of a special Senate committee that would investigate the National Defense Program.

President Roosevelt was convinced to let Truman head up the committee, being sympathetic to the President and his administration. The President was assured that the committee would not be too much trouble, as it would only be allotted $15,000 to investigate billions in defense contracts.

The Truman Committee was created by unanimous Senate decree on 01 March 1941. Over the next three years, with Senator Truman at the helm, the committee held hundreds of hearings, traveled thousands of miles to conduct field inspections, and saved millions of dollars in cost over-runs. Senator Truman was not shy about threatening executives with prison time as he whacked greedy corporate snouts out of the public trough.

Before Claire McCaskill announced her Senate bid, I was encouraging her to run for the Class I seat that Truman once held, and touting her background as our state auditor and as a tough prosecutor as reasons she should run and reasons we should vote for her, because the Iraq fiasco needed a good auditing, in the spirit of Harry Truman.

During her campaign, she seized on my the idea of a modern day Truman Committee to investigate waste, fraud and corruption in the reconstruction of Iraq. During a speech in Harry S Truman’s hometown of Independence last year, she spoke admiringly of the former President and his diligence in reining in war profiteers. "He was fearless. He uncovered enormous undeserved profits. I believe we need a new Truman Committee. I will fight for such a committee.”

Less than a year after she was elected, and a mere nine months after taking her seat, she is very close to bringing the notion to fruition. The Senate recently agreed to a plan from Senators McCaskill and Webb to get a handle on the Pentagon’s scattershot method of awarding private contracts for work in Iraq. It was added to the Defense Authorization Bill for 2008.

The audits that get underway on Monday certainly underscore the need for the oversight body that would be created from the legislation offered by Webb and McCaskill. In fact, they demand it.

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The State Department needs an "Office of Lessons Learned"

Determined as they are to make the worst possible choices, under the leadership of the most incompetent and inept Secretary of State in the history of the Republic, First Kuwaiti has been awarded additional contracts for construction of embassy and consulate facilities.

Apparently your mother was wrong and crime does pay.

The company that used counterfeit, sub-standard building materials, assembled by abducted third-world workers who are essentially slave labor, has benefited further.

Late last month, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co. was part of a team that won a $122 million State Department contract to build a U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to contract documents.

That's one of at least three State Department jobs, in addition to the Baghdad project, that First Kuwaiti won in association with a U.S. firm, Grunley Walsh LLC of Rockville, Md.

Since 2006, by operating as a subcontractor to Grunley Walsh, First Kuwaiti has won contracts for work on a new U.S. Embassy in Libreville, Gabon; on a consulate in Surabaya, Indonesia; and on the Jeddah project.

Such partnerships are increasingly common as foreign companies try to win shares of embassy construction contracts that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year under the State Department's aggressive building program. Under a 1986 law, only U.S. firms can bid on embassy construction.

But industry analysts said that First Kuwaiti appears to be the financial muscle behind the partnership with Grunley Walsh. Lebanese businessman Wadih al Absi founded the company in 1996. News reports and Middle East experts say that Absi is a supporter of Lebanese Christian politician Michel Aoun, an ally of Syria and the Iranian-backed Islamic militant group Hezbollah. [emphasis added]

Henry Waxman is already investigating the Inspector General for State, who has facilitated malfeasance at the highest level. Maybe he needs to be looking into the OBO division of State, too.

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More Corruption, Delays and Overruns in the Iraq Embassy Project

Image: McClatchy Newspapers

Even more problems with the new mega-bunker embassy in Baghdad are coming to light - and this time there is a criminal investigation into the construction contract. This criminal probe follows an investigation by Henry Waxman and the House Oversight Committee that was initiated a few weeks ago into the conduct of the IG for the State Department. Howard J. Krongard, the Inspector General for the State Department, has exhibited a persistent tendency to censor reports that might embarrass the administration, and has repeatedly thwarted investigations of the State Department and the problems with the embassy.

The problems started with the bid process.

When the State Department requested bids in 2005, exactly one came in, from J. A. Jones International of Charlotte, North Carolina. In spite of having a track record with the State Department, and having won embassy construction contracts in the past, the J.A. Jones bid was rejected because the estimated to cost was twice as much as had been allotted by State, and the company would not guarantee the June 2007 completion date. Additionally, the J.A. Jones bid was a cost-plus estimate, which frankly, is about the only way a responsible contractor would have bid the job, since the construction site was in a freakin' war zone...that was getting hotter every day. First Kuwaiti was chosen solely because it was willing to offer a fixed-price contract, in which cost overruns aren't passed on to the government.

"The only company in the end that would offer us a firm fixed-price (contract) was First Kuwaiti. The decision was made, and I believe rightly so, that firm fixed-price is the best protection for the American taxpayer. If an American company had bid a firm fixed-price, they might or they might not have won." said Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's director of management policy.

Unable to get a legitimate contractor to walk down the primrose path to potential financial ruin, the State Department Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) waived the law requiring open and competitive bidding, and awarded the contract to a firm from Kuwait, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Company. When the OBO issued the waiver, they described First Kuwaiti as "capable of completing the design and construction in accordance with the required schedule, budget and performance parameters."

That rosy assessment and vote of confidence was, to say the least, overblown. Four months after the embassy was supposed to be ready to open, it is not only not ready, but problems are still presenting. The most recent setback has been with the sprinkler system. When they tested it, the pipes burst at the junctions. In May, when electrical systems were tested they failed, and an investigation revealed that First Kuwaiti was using counterfeit wiring that fell short of the specifications.

You get what you pay for.

[keep reading]

Counterfeit, sub-standard building materials are one way to turn a profit on a bad bid, I guess. Another way is to abduct workers from emerging and third-world countries and spirit them off to Baghdad against their will, then underpay them to the point that they are essentially slave labor. I realize that "slavery" is a strong word, but I am not the only one using it. "It is distressing to hear that our fellow Filipinos are being deceived into working in Iraq by unscrupulous contracting firms," Senator Mar Roxas of the Philippines said, upon hearing of the abduction of Filipinos to work on the embassy. "Unless we have officially accepted that the days of slavery are back, the government must act." (emphasis mine)

According to testimony by an American who spent a short period of time working as an Emergency Medical Technician at the embassy complex, Filipino workers were given tickets that indicated they were boarding a plane to Dubai, and were not told they were going to Baghdad until the plane was airborne. When they found out, and objected, a security guard reminded them at gunpoint that they were in no position to protest. They were indeed going to Baghdad, and there was not a damned thing they could do about it. The American EMT testified before the Oversight committee that conditions at the site "were deplorable, beyond what even a working man should tolerate." Foreign workers, he said, were packed tight into trailers, equipment was insufficient and basic needs went unmet. "If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes, he was told, 'No, do with what you have' by First Kuwaiti managers."

He also said in his testimony that workers were routinely physically and verbally abused and another witness testified about the rate of on-the-job injuries. "There were a lot of injuries out there because of the conditions these people were forced to work in. It was absurd."

As if the substandard building materials, the shoddy construction, the missed deadlines, and the abduction and forced labor of third-world workers wasn't enough, the company has also been implicated in a kickback scheme with...wait for it...Kellogg, Brown& Root.

And all that corruption and malfeasance took place with the apparent complicity of the Inspector General for State, Howard Kronegard, whose job it was to provide oversight and prevent those very offenses.

***************

But wait! There's more!

You know how they say that it isn't the corruption that gets you busted, it's the cover-up?

That holds true here, as well.

In May, a mortar shell smashed into the complex, damaged a wall and caused what were reported as minor injuries to be sustained by people inside. The walls were supposed to be blast-resistant, but weren't.

The project manager, James L. Golden, contractor for State, attempted to alter the scene and conceal evidence of shoddy construction. According to documents and interviews, the IG for State, Krongard, reared his head once more and prevented State Department officials from investigating the incident.

When it came to the attention of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he banished Golden from the country, yet Golden still oversees the project, as well as other projects for the OBO.

The OBO is headed up by a close personal friend of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, retired Army Maj. Gen. Charles Williams. Williams was hand-picked by his old friend and colleague to head up the OBO, and Williams apparently runs the OBO like a personal feifdom, going so far as to refused to let U.S. diplomats and congressional staffers onto the new embassy compound, according to congressional testimony given in July, and corroborated by a former senior official with first-hand knowledge of Williams and the OBO.

As recently as August, Williams assured the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the embassy would be ready for occupancy by the end of September.

"This and other incidents involving separate embassy construction projects raise concerns about the adequacy of the Department's management of our overseas building operations," committee chairman Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Cal., wrote to Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on October 4.

The State Department declined to make Williams available for an interview and directed questions to Patrick Kennedy, the department's director of management policy.

As of this writing, the embassy is not move-in ready, and there is no clear indication when it will be. They have, however, complicated matters further by deciding after-the-fact to move General Petraeus and his entourage into the embassy, requiring space for an additional 250 people, and an expansion of the classified areas, because, in the words of Kennedy, "Crocker and Petraeus don't want to divorce."

There's more: "More Corruption, Delays and Overruns in the Iraq Embassy Project" >>

More questions about First Kuwaiti

First Corruption Kuwaiti is in trouble again, this time for a kickback scheme in which it is alleged that the company arranged to pay a $200,000 kickback for two additional, unrelated projects in Iraq.

...a now-sealed court document obtained by The Associated Press, allegedly involved First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting and a manager for Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. or KBR, a firm hired to handle logistics for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The document summarizes grand jury testimony from the former KBR manager, Anthony J. Martin, who pleaded guilty in July to taking kickbacks in 2003.

Although the government has tried to keep First Kuwaiti's name out of public records related to Martin's case, details from his grand jury testimony were found by a defense lawyer, J. Scott Arthur of Orland Park, Ill., who included a summary in a six-page document filed last Friday in an unrelated federal court case in Rock Island, Ill. The AP downloaded a copy of the document from the court's Web site shortly before a judge ordered the document sealed and removed from the public record.

According to the court document, Martin testified to a federal grand jury that he engaged in the kickback scheme with Lebanese businessman Wadih Al Absi, who controls First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting. The company is building the $592 million Baghdad embassy, the largest in the world with working space for about 1,000 people.

These questions come amid the House Oversight Committee investigating the Inspector General for State over allegations the IG stifled investigations into acts of malfeasance by First Kuwaiti. The company is closely tied to Kellogg, Brown & Root, which was a subsidiary of Halliburton, the war-profiteering company formerly headed by Dick Cheney. Amid investigations coming to light, Halliburton has divested itself of KBR.

There's more: "More questions about First Kuwaiti" >>

Surprise! Another Republican Real Estate Deal

Imagine my surprise when I checked in at the Chicago Tribune today and saw the story on Congressman Jerry Weller (R-I11) and his questionable actions on foreign real estate transactions:

Weller, a southwest suburban congressman with a fondness for Latin America, has sunk a large share of his investment capital into a land development in Nicaragua. But he didn't declare the extent of his holdings on his required congressional disclosures, and he indicated dramatically different purchase prices for the land in American and Nicaraguan records.

This wasn't just an ommission. The Tribune reports that he underreported the number of properties he owned in 2005 and that he overreported the purchase prices of several properties:

In his 2004 disclosure, Weller listed the sale of a Capitol Hill condo for between $250,001 and $500,000 on April 8 and three days later reported buying Lot 2 in San Juan for between $50,001 and $100,000.

Property records in Rivas show Weller bought the 2.6-acre parcel at Playa Coco for 50,000 cordobas, or about $2,777.

That's a $47,323 discrepency on the low end. And, Weller did the same thing repeatedly, in 2002 and 2005. In one case, he bought a property for $4,333, reported the purchase at $50,000 to $100,000 and then sold the property for $95,000. I don't know enough about taxation of foreign investments but that seems to me to be a significant capital gain that was underreported.

Now why would he hide his land investments and the extent of them. The answer looks like he wanted to influence the CAFTA vote. Apparently, Weller was a staunch advocate leading the debate in favor of the narrowly passed agreement:

His investment got a boost from the narrowly passed Central America Free Trade Agreement, which Weller pitched in 2005 as a tool to enable businesses in his hard-pressed district to sell tractors and food to Latin America. CAFTA also includes additional legal protection for American investors, including those who have purchased lots from Weller.

What he didn't say was that, while he publicly pushed CAFTA, Weller privately was pursuing his land development, some 2,000 miles away. The House approved the trade pact in July 2005 by only two votes, 217-215.

So, in 2005 when he was publically supporting legislation that would directly benefit him, Weller disclosed none of this. Perhaps he didn't want his buddies to know that he could care less about tractors and far more about his own pockets? Because, in 2006, once the CAFTA deal was sealed, he did make more substantial disclosures.

Further in, the story reports that Weller doesn't disclose anything about his wife's holdings, feigning complete ignorance about what she owns and what her finances are. Yeah, I have no idea how much money my husband makes or what real estate he owns.

The theme of all of this is familiar. We have Congressman after Congressman - most often Republicans - who use real estate transactions to hide payoffs or to hide profits from votes for self-interests.

Do they send these people to a school for this or is it Republican tribal communication - you know, passed on verbally from one generation of corruption to another?

There's more: "Surprise! Another Republican Real Estate Deal" >>

It isn't the sex, or even the corruption, it's the hypocrisy

"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter said in the statement. "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."

Whatever, Senator. However you want to try to spin it, it boils down to this:

Yet another powerful, influential man who sits on a committee that deals with issues arising from sex trafficking – has been caught consorting with hookers.

Add this unseemly business to the cloud of suspicion that was already hanging over his head after his less-than-kosher associations with the disgraced lobbyist and convict Jack Abramoff.

In 2003, Vitter attended a fundraiser hosted by Abramoff. Two months after the event, Vitter inserted a provision into an Interior Department funding bill that was favorable to one of Abramoff’s clients, the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana, at the expense of the Jena Choctaw tribe – also his constituents. The provision that Vitter slipped in barred the Jena Choctaw from opening a casino that would have competed with the casino owned and operated by Abramoff’s clients, the Coushatta. Vitter has previously confessed to working with lawyers from Abramoffs firm, Greenberg Traurig, in drafting the legislative language for the provision.

This man has proven himself not fit to serve in the position he holds. He should, for the sake of the institution, resign immediately.

I have said from the very beginning that this is not about sex. It is much deeper than that. The sex is just the part that gets the American public in a tizzy. So bless their little hearts. If it takes tits and titillation to get the American people to pay attention to something, well, so be it. I would be tickled pink if people got as excited about bad policy and bad politics as they do bad behavior, but unfortunately, they don’t. So what the hell? We’ll take what we can get so long as light keeps shining in dark corners.

One last thing - if Brian Ross of ABC News knew that a sitting senator was on that list, and he backed off on the story...He should resign in disgrace, too.

UPDATE: About that resignation I think he ought to have the courage to submit...In 1998, he agreed. Think Progress has dug up this quote from the Clinton impeachment era: “I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess,” he said. [Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12/20/98]

There's more: "It isn't the sex, or even the corruption, it's the hypocrisy" >>

Fred Fielding Goes Long

Okay, buckle up and grab the dashboard. The route of Republican logic (snort at that oxymoron) we are about to traverse is as twisted a path as any Missouri two-lane blacktop.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has sent along a letter ‘splainin’ why the White House is refusing to let Sara Taylor and Harriet Meyers testify if there is any record of the exchange.

Writes F²

"Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion back and forth in that regard. The position that the president took and conveyed to the committees and the offer of compromise did not include transcripts. The accommodation was designed to provide information, not to appear to be having testimony without having testimony. One of the concomitants of testimony, of course, is transcripts.

"As far as the debate goes, often cited is that a transcript is not wanted because otherwise there would be a perjury trap. And, candidly, as everyone has discussed, misleading Congress is misleading Congress, whether it's under oath or not. And so a transcript may be convenient, but there's no intention to try to avoid telling the truth." (emphasis added)

Perjury trap? Are they planning to lie?

I guess if you are a part of this freakshow, it’s better to be assumed a liar than to open your mouth to prove it.

Sara Taylor was overheard explaining to a friend at lunch that “orange makes me look sallow.”

There's more: "Fred Fielding Goes Long" >>

Bandar and the bank

Last week, Blue Girl commented on a story about Bandar on the take:

It turns out that the British arms dealer BAE has been kicking back ₤120,000,000 a year to Saudi Prince Bandar. This arrangement started right after Bandar negotiated a deal for 100 war planes to be purchased from the British arms merchant in 1985. In case you are wondering – that comes to ₤2.64 Billion over the last 22 years.

Paul Kiel reports that "it appears, the money trail from London to Riyadh leads through Washington D.C.'s most corrupt bank."

In 2005, a U.S. investigation found the Riggs Bank guilty of...

...numerous money laundering schemes involving, among others the Saudi Embassy to Washington (which Bandar helmed), former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the government of Equitorial Guinea. According to this week's Newsweek, Riggs's documentation of its Saudi accounts may contain clues about what Bandar in fact received from BAE.

Highlights from Newsweek:

A single individual in Saudi Arabia received $17.4 million from the Saudi Defense account over four months.

Allegedly this person "coordinate[d] home improvement/construction projects for Prince Bandar in Saudi Arabia" for a "new Saudi palace."

Riggs Bank's compliance officer David Caruso said, "It was impossible to distinguish between government funds and what would normally be considered personal purposes."

A London account "replenished" the Saudi Defense account at Riggs with $30 million every three months.

Riggs terminated business with the Saudis over concerns "about the withdrawals."

Bandar's lawyer explained that the "new Saudi palace" was "Prince Bandar's official residence" in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Finance Ministry audits of the accounts concluded that there were "no irregularities" when Bandar was ambassador.

Prince Bandar or "Bandar Bush," a nickname given to him by the Bush family due to their close ties, "has largely dropped out of sight, according to three U.S. officials who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive diplomatic matters."

Stay tuned.

There's more: "Bandar and the bank" >>

Bandar on the take

Just file this under "And you are surprised by this? That's so stupid it's cute!"

It turns out that the British arms dealer BAE has been kicking back ₤120,000,000 a year to Saudi Prince Bandar. This arrangement started right after Bandar negotiated a deal for 100 war planes to be purchased from the British arms merchant in 1985. In case you are wondering – that comes to ₤2.64 Billion over the last 22 years.

The BBC has the details.

Including how Tony Blair quashed the investigation into the deal by the Serious Fraud Office last winter.

***************

And credit where credit is due: emptywheel at The Next Hurrah gets major props for catching this story back in mid December. I flat wasn't paying attention. I was busy with the latkes and the menorahs and the gelt and the dreidels and the matzo balls and the granddaughter. Marcy, when I get one this right a full Friedman ahead of everyone else, I strain something patting myself on the back. Major, major hat-tip to you, Ma'am.

There's more: "Bandar on the take" >>

We Are Beyond Politics, Its Time To Enforce The Law

Today the Bush Administration admitted it had destroyed computer evidence that was legally required to be maintained. Forensic computer experts consistently state that, with the right effort, just about anything can be recovered from a hard drive. Even when things cannot be recovered, there are traces, bits, pieces, etc. there that, at a minimum, indicate the previous existence of the items and their characteristics. If this is really true, and it sure appears to be, then the clear cut violation of the Presidential Records Act serves as an unassailable predicate for the seizure of the appropriate computers and hard drives from the Administration. They should be so seized and analyzed; they will either show evidence that confirms the emails and documents in question were there and erased, including WHEN they were erased, or alternatively it will result in a finding that hard drives were replaced with clean ones in an attempt to obstruct justice (and an attendant conspiracy case that would boggle the mind). Substantive criminal evidence results either way, and the public is entitled to the discovery of that evidence. There is no legitimate basis for the Administration to refuse this either; the predicate crime has been directly admitted by them already, and this places the matter beyond executive privilege under Nixon v. US. This is simply not politics anymore, that canard is over; this is criminal behavior that strikes at the heart of our democracy, open and accountable government. The time has come to investigate and prosecute; end of story.

There's more: "We Are Beyond Politics, Its Time To Enforce The Law" >>

Pelosi nods to the Congressional Black Caucus

This is sure to make the right to go nuts but at least Speaker Pelosi didn't put him in charge of the House Intelligence Committee.

Miramar Democrat Rep. Alcee Hastings was tapped as chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who rebuffed Hastings' bid to become House Intelligence Committee chair, made the selection Thursday.

Hastings will be the first African-American to chair the commission and said in a release he plans to "continue his trailblazing work in the areas of human rights, economic development and parliamentary diplomacy."

Hastings' (FL-23) trailblazing work also includes being impeached and removed from the Federal bench for corruption and perjury.

The CBC raised quite the fuss when Pelosi didn't let Hastings head the Intelligence committee although she wanted him to replace Harman who was supposed to get the gig.

Oh well, the Republican party can't have them all.

Deb-TUD

There's more: "Pelosi nods to the Congressional Black Caucus" >>