Iraq Whistleblowers Vilified, Demoted

Those Who Speak Out Against Corruption In Iraq Reconstruction Say U.S. Gov't Treats Them Like Criminals

(AP)  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."

[undermyboot]

Well, this has officially fallen off the headlines. It will again be buried as the Bush authoritarians and war profiteers have directed.

[kansas1946]

And this is a surprise. The Bush administration is as corrupt as they come, and Cheney isn''t going to let anyone rat his pet Haliburton out for robbing the Ameican people blind. Americans had a chance to dump this administration in 2004, but chose to put it back into the Whitehouse. You get the government that you deserve.

[finewoven]

It''''''''s this whole "Creationist" thing -
-- These nuts & everyone in the Off-White House create thier own version of history, our laws, religion, facts on WW2, Viet Nam & Iraq.
Posted by j-whitman at 01:44 PM : Aug 26, 2007

This is so true, it''s scary!! And what''t worse is that there''s a segment of the American population that buys it without question.

[j4401]

To: outrider4

Thank you for your post, I agree 100%
The news media outlets need to perform their responsibilities.

[outrider4]

WHAT IF THE MEDIA WAS NOT OWNED BY CORPORATE AMERICA?,

The article to which we are responding is a step in the right direction. The reader received some enlightment about the whistleblower problem, and I, for one, thank them for so doing.

An independent investigative media could solve the problems incident to whistle and many other problems that arise and continue to exist because the public is not aware of the nature and magnitude of the same.

If journalists used the same amount of space and energy to point out the acts of nonfeasance or misfeasance committed by corporate America as is spent on the selling the brand name, public relations, and good will by corporations, or on misleading advertisements, the public in general and the shareholders, politicians, and jurors in particular would do the rest.

[j4401]

The Real Reason We''re In Iraq:
An influential group of conservatives convinced President George W. Bush that it was in America''s best interests to conquer Iraq as a first step toward dominating the oil-producing nations in the Middle East. There was no "exit plan" because we never intended to exit. The plan was, and is, to build military bases in Iraq and stay there forever. Our leaders see Iraq as a place to make money. So Bush & Co. have set up their friends to cash in on the rebuilding of Iraq.

[gunownerdan]

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler''s propaganda minister

[undermyboot]

Anyone would think that this story would have HUGE legs, but this story is one day from being buried. It comes out over the news-dead weekend. It will never be followed up by the government compliant press. Makes you wonder just how much ALL of the press is following orders from their repug neocon masters.

[nyckate]

toldyouso21 - - You''re right to a great extend - THis is the fault of Bush and his band of thugs and bullies.

Thing is this - without the acceptance of America this could not happen - this should bring horror to every single American. It hasn''t - it won''t and those who wish to report crimes now will not in the future - for their own country''s henchmen will make them pay dearly for it.And we all accept that - our congressmen and senators accept it. None stood up to help these people - none went to help their families - no major news reports on it. We''ve become a country we were never intended to be.

[magoo2u1]

OK. That''s it, get out and get out now. Irag is our Waterloo. Our Dien bien phu...... Our government will pay any price and overlook any wrong to stay in IRAQ. It was my belief that there would be a blood bath if we left and that the lunatics would have access to oil money , but now I see that thay have access to our arsenal and 160 TONS of missing dollars and an endless stream of incometence to fight us with. LEAVE NOW !!

[toldyouso21]

We have met the enemy....and he is us!
Posted by Chimneyfish at 03:09 PM : Aug 26, 2007


Nope the enemy are Republican neo cons. I am neither a neo con or any other type of Republican. We have met the enemy and he can be identified by his Bush/Cheney bumper sticker and can be found at any/all GOP rallies.

[firststate]

With all the fraud, it couldn''t be hard to find and prosecute offenders. With its consiglieri of the bush-cheney crime cartel, Gonzales also acting as Attorney General, he won''t permit the DOJ to prosecute companies that contribute correctly and hire friends.

The fraud rate is at least 29 1/3 percent. The administration''s not concerned with government money or the law. It''s concerned with preserving sources of income of the republiCON party. They protect their crooked friends, not prosecute them.

Bush/Cheney aren''t renting out the Lincoln bedroom, they''re selling blank government checks. The minimum stolen is $8.8 billion that''s 88 million - $100 bills, or more than 193,832 pounds. Nearly 97 tons of $100 bills gone, but this administration''s only concern is covering it up.

Restore honor and dignity? Yeah, right.

[firststate]

Sorry for the obvious blunders, I forget that spell-checking doesn''t replace proofreading.

[tbweb]

"Iraq Whistleblowers Vilified, Demoted
Those Who Speak Out Against Corruption In Iraq Reconstruction Say U.S. Gov''t Treats Them Like Criminals"

This is a "thematic" problem, a "thematic" issue and it covers and crosses every category of American life, not just in Iraq, but in corporations, government and most notably on American urban streets! Whistle blowers, Rats, Snitches or whatever label you want to put on people who turn others in, these people are truly hated and despised! Nothing good happens to Whistle blowers, in most cases they suffer in some way, the price they pay for blowing the Whistle always turns out not to have been worth it! This is the problem with out of control crime and murder in America''s urban areas, no one wants to come forward, no one sees anything even when it smacks them in the face. Police Departments are understaffed, Witness Protection Programs are underfunded or not funded at all, there is no protection for a Whistle blower unless it''s a high-profile criminal case. The average U.S. Citizen or their families are usually dead meat! The worst thing that can happen is for the News to show someone on TV describing a crime or a criminal, how stupid is that?

[firststate]

The fraud and corruption seem to have become systemic in the Iraqi reconstruction. Any investigation threatens to unintentionally expose all the other schemes and fraud involved in each project and spark more investigations.

Fraud seems to be the standard policy of some of the contractors. When a whistleblower''s report should trigger an investigation, but contractors'' management complains to their friends in high places who helped them get the contracts in the first place. Whether these friends are actually taking kickbacks, controlling campaign contributions, or they don''t want to be embarrassed, it''s in their interest to prevent or control audits and investigations.

is Halliburton and KBR''s main friend in high places is Tricky Dicky II, Cheney. He is both in a position and knows the ways to prevent and impede investigations.

How many whistleblowers lost their motivation after a few months of aggressive interrogations? Are any still confined and subjected to extreme treatment to adjust their attitudes?

When corruption has become systemic, whistleblowers are a threat to everyone involved in the fraud as well as those who condone it by willful blindness. That makes them a threat to the Bush/Cheney version of America, where the corporations join the small time crooks to steal from us at every level of a project.

[abaur2]

Every Government has some element of corruption but the US Government is nothing but corrupt. Where are those idiots now, who supported the Bush/Cheney ticket, not only once, but twice. So, the real idiots are the public which support such candidates. Bush was a loser long before he entered politics. The tragedy is that Americans will do it again 2008.

[mayihavemore]

Character & integrity are not applicable when it comes to White House, Judiciary & Military.

Let Freedom Ring!

Can''t someone from CBS moderating a debate or interviewing candidates press them on this issue.. Where is the Whistleblower law in all this.. Can it get anymore Draconian?

[j-whitman]

It''''s this whole "Creationist" thing -
-- These nuts & everyone in the Off-White House create thier own version of history, our laws, religion, facts on WW2, Viet Nam & Iraq.

[prinzowhales]

The entire leadership of the Washington Regime should have been removed once it was finally admitted that there were no WMDs in Iraq...Congress is beneath contempt...if there were a Representative Pinckney in Congress today he would wear both arms out caning these scoundrels...They not only failed to discern the Bush Regime''s transparent lies regarding WMDs, they failed to act once the truth was finally admitted....vile slinking creatures.