Wild Adventures In Profiteering & Corruption In Iraq, Cont'd.

'Tis fitting, Demon thinks, that while we're on the subject of how well things are going overall in Iraq (below), & to accompany the news that Bush seeks an additional $50 Billion to spend for the war effort, to take this opportunity to also point out that recent news reports say that Maliki's government is not only incapable of governing, but rife with systemic corruption.

Demon thinks she should warn Maliki he's infringing on Bushco trademarks & patented business methods where incompetence & corruption are concerned.

And, oh yeah, more on the mistreatment of those charmingly deluded US government & former government officials who somehow thought they were doing the right thing to expose illegal arms sales by Iraqis with our assistance, & well-documented fraud & overcharging by the likes of Halliburton & KBR.

Bushco showed them! We must have order in the ranks, after all. The moral of the story may also be "lie down with dogs, get fleas & worse."

From an MSNBC report late last month:

"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 [for 97 days] in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.
[...]
"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.
[...]
" 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.
[...]

"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."

Read on: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153/