Aug. 25, 2007
Iraq Whistleblowers Vilified, Demoted
Those Who Speak Out Against Corruption In Iraq Reconstruction Say U.S. Gov't Treats Them Like Criminals
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Former Army Corps of Engineers employee Bunnatine Greenhouse testified before the Democratic Policy Committee on Capitol Hill about the issuance of no-bid contracts to Halliburton for Iraq-related work, June 27, 2005. Shortly after, she was demoted, allegedly for poor job performance. (AP (file))
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Interactive Iraq: 4 Years Later The conflict wears on as the nation struggles to rebuild.
Signed by Abraham Lincoln in response to military contractors selling defective products to the Union Army, the act allows private citizens to sue on the government's behalf.
The government has the option to sign on, with all plaintiffs receiving a percentage of monetary damages, which are tripled in these suits.
It can be a straightforward and effective way to recoup federal funds lost to fraud. In the past, the Justice Department has joined several such cases and won. They included instances of Medicare and Medicaid overbilling, and padded invoices from domestic contractors.
But the government has not joined a single qui tam suit alleging Iraq reconstruction abuse, estimated in the tens of millions. At least a dozen have been filed since 2004.
"It taints these cases," said attorney Alan Grayson, who filed the Custer Battles suit and several others like it. "If the government won't sign on, then it can't be a very good case — that's the effect it has on judges."
The Justice Department declined comment.
Most of the lawsuits are brought by former employees of giant firms. Some plaintiffs have testified before members of Congress, providing examples of fraud they say they witnessed and the retaliation they experienced after speaking up.
Julie McBride testified last year that as a "morale, welfare and recreation coordinator" at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR exaggerate 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.
"After I voiced my concerns about what I believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion," she told the committee. "My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country."
Halliburton and KBR denied her testimony.
She also has filed a whistleblower suit. The Justice Department has said it would not join the action. But last month, a federal judge refused a motion by KBR to dismiss the lawsuit.
Donald Vance, the contractor and Navy veteran detained in Iraq after he blew the whistle on his company's weapons sales, says he has stopped talking to the federal government.
Navy Capt. John Fleming, a spokesman for U.S. detention operations in Iraq, confirmed the detentions but said he could provide no further details because of the lawsuit.
According to their suit, Vance and Ertel gathered photographs and documents, which Vance fed to Chicago FBI agent Travis Carlisle for six months beginning in October 2005. Carlisle, reached by phone at Chicago's FBI field office, declined comment. An agency spokesman also would not comment.
The Iraqi company has since disbanded, according the suit.
Vance said things went terribly wrong in April 2006, when he and Ertel were stripped of their security passes and confined to the company compound.
Panicking, Vance said, he called the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, where hostage experts got on the phone and told him "you're about to be kidnapped. Lock yourself in a room with all the weapons you can get your hands on."'
The military sent a Special Forces team to rescue them, Vance said, and the two men showed the soldiers where the weapons caches were stored. At the embassy, the men were debriefed and allowed to sleep for a few hours. "I thought I was among friends," Vance said.
The men said they were cuffed and hooded and driven to Camp Cropper, where Vance was held for nearly three months and his colleague for a little more than a month. Eventually, their jailers said they were being held as security internees because their employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents, the lawsuit said.
The prisoners said they repeatedly told interrogators to contact Carlisle in Chicago. "One set of interrogators told us that Travis Carlisle doesn't exist. Then some others would say, 'He says he doesn't know who you are,'" Vance said.
Released first was Ertel, who has returned to work in Iraq for a different company. Vance said he has never learned why he was held longer. His own interrogations, he said, seemed focused on why he reported his information to someone outside Iraq.
And then one day, without explanation, he was released.
"They drove me to Baghdad International Airport and dumped me," he said.
When he got home, he decided to never call the FBI again. He called a lawyer, instead.
"There's an unspoken rule in Baghdad," he said. "Don't snitch on people and don't burn bridges."
For doing both, Vance said, he paid with 97 days of his life.
By Associated Press writer Deborah Hastings
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 119 Comments-- 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.
Thank you for your post, I agree 100%
The news media outlets need to perform their responsibilities.
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.
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.
"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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Let Freedom Ring!
-- These nuts & everyone in the Off-White House create thier own version of history, our laws, religion, facts on WW2, Viet Nam & Iraq.
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