Corruption

Condi, Congress, Contempt and Resignation

Bloody Lawyers, Corruption, US politics, War on Iran, War on Iraq
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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Middle East policy on Capitol Hill in Washington DC USA on 24 October 2007. Rice said on Wednesday the United States would cut off Iran's 'malignant' activities in Iraq and stop its destabilizing behavior across the region. EPA/MATTHEW CAVANAUGH

Could it possibly be that even Condi Rice is shocked at the depth of the incompetence and greed that are being publicly revealed by the Iraq corruption hearings?

Head of State Dep’t Anti-Corruption Office in Baghdad Is A Paralegal
By Spencer Ackerman – October 25, 2007, 11:35AM

How well are the State Department’s anti-corruption efforts in Iraq managed? Don’t ask Condoleezza Rice.

Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) laid it all out. Not only are there duplicative U.S. offices in Baghdad to oversee anti-corruption efforts — the Anti-corruption Working Group and the Office of Accountability and Transparency, to name two — but coordination is so bad that the OAT for months boycotted the meetings of the AWG. Rice said she was “not aware” of that.

What, officially ‘not aware’ or actually not aware? Or could it be both? Could it really be that she did not know and the depths of her ignorance are only now becoming clear to her? She’s certainly looking as though something’s knocked what little stuffing she had out of her recently. It could be from that… or maybe they didn’t have the patent Ferragamo boots in her size. Who knows.

Another point she wasn’t aware of: OAT has had, according to Rep. Tierney, four acting or permanent directors in the past ten months alone. The most recent one isn’t a diplomat or a trained anti-corruption official at all, but rather a “paralegal” who works at the U.S. embassy. “I should get back to you with a sense of how we manage these programs,” she replied.

Perhaps Rice actually didn’t know; not that that gives me have any sympathy towards her. Why didn’t she know? It’s her frickin’ job.

It could be she’s just been brought down to earth with a great big thud on learning that she isn’t the noble liberator of the barbarians and the heroine of her loyal underlings, but rather the aider and abettor of a gang of common thieves and murderers, but even so her ignorance was deliberate policy not inadvertence.

Plausible deniability they call it – with former attorney general Samuel “I don’t recall” Alito, it’s foremost proponent. It got so ridiculous that he had to resign, but he never actually admitted anything much.

Alito made sure he didn’t know anything that could condemn him – even if he actually did know, he made sure he officially ‘didn’t know’.

It’s a useful and convenent bit of sophistry, that – it covers up much administration wrongdoing and plasters over all sorts of festering sores. When you don’t know something you can’t be blamed and if everybody stonewalls, no-one gets caught. But the one thing you can’t escape from is the fact that an officer of state should know what’s going on their department.

That’s why Alito had to go, that and the ridiculousness of the country’s senior law officer being seen to deliberately obstruct a judicially-powered committee.

Whether Rice knew details about the fuckups and corruption in her department officially or otherwise is kind of irrelevant anyway, complicit as she is in the larger crime of the illegal invasion of Iraq, the unlawful killing of much of its population and the wanton destruction of its infrastructure. Everything else flows from that original offence and to even begin to list Rice’s resulting crimes is to pile Pelion upon Ossa.

But it’s looking increasingly less likely that she’s got the stamina for the long- planned attack on Iran, even though she is currently managing to hold the line in public:

During a hearing bristling with partisan snipes between Democrats and Republicans, the overall state of affairs in Iraq was never far from the surface. Pressed by committee members to acknowledge any regrets, Rice said that the war in Iraq had been difficult and expensive.

“Yes, frankly, it has been harder than I thought it would be,” she said.

But she defended administration policy and praised patriotic Iraqis who had risked their lives.

“I cannot by any means make up for the terrible sacrifice,” she said. “But I can say that I think nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice. And yes, I do believe that it’s been worth it.”

I expect it’ll be the same with Rice as it was with Alito: she’ll continue to deny she knew anything, say “I don’t recall” a lot and eventually resign, leaving Bush to make another dreadful recess appointment, perhaps the odious John Bolton (or someone equally rabid) who will push for nuclear strikes on Iran.

Rice has to be got rid of now , even if she is George’s best friend. She may be talking up Iraq success but anyone watching the hearings can see she’s at the end of her tether. If is the case that even she has been shocked at the depth and breadth of the corruption revealed in Iraq it could be that there may be some dark moral places that even Condi won’t go, unlikely as that might seem.

But that would mean she disagreed with Bush: that means disloyalty and if you ain’t for the Chimperor, you’re against him. You have to go, office wife or not.

Shooting Yourself In The Foot

Bloody Lawyers, Civil liberties, Corruption, Manufacturing consent, Media, Policing, US politics, Wingnuts
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Interesting events in Phoenix as a litigious sheriff unhappy with the way Phoenix New Times journalists covered him allegedly takes his revenge:

Michael Lacey, the executive editor, and Jim Larkin, chief executive, were arrested at their homes after they wrote a story that revealed that the Village Voice Media company, its executives, its reporters and even the names of the readers of its website had been subpoenaed by a special prosecutor. The special prosecutor had been appointed to look into allegations that the newspaper had violated the law in publishing the home address of Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s home address on its website more than three years ago.

The weekly and its leadership has been in a long running battle with Mr. Arpaio, after the weekly published a series of stories about his real estate dealings.

“They did not have a warrant, but they told me that I was being arrested for unlawful disclosure of grand jury information,” Mr. Larkin said by phone from his home early this morning, after he was released from jail. Mr. Lacey remained in jail early this morning. Captain Paul Chagolla, a spokesman for the sheriff did not return a call for comment.

Steve Suskin, legal counsel for Village Voice Media, said that the arrests on misdemeanor charges of the newspaper executives represent an escalation in the conflict between The Phoenix New Times and Sheriff Arpaio, who has received national attention for his reputation for running tough jails.

“It is an extraordinary sequence of events,” Mr. Suskin said. “The arrests were not totally unexpected, but they represent an act of revenge and a vindictive response on the part of an out of control sheriff.”

Here’s one of the articles Sheriff Joe Arpaio is so unhappy about:

You get elected to public office, say, sheriff.

You start scowling like John Wayne and jam the jails full. You put the cons in stripes and house them in surplus Army tents, where four guards oversee 1,800 inmates.

Your detention officers beat up prisoners, while feeding them food unfit for a dog. A paranoid public afraid of crime is grateful because it naively believes your abusive policies will scare people from committing that next robbery and shooting.

Who cares if this is all baloney?

You drum up a few death threats along the way, because that generates free publicity chronicling what a bad-ass you are.

Who cares if innocent people go to jail?

The voters love it. Even as your office is besieged by tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits stemming from beatings and deaths in your Mother of All Dungeons.

The dead guys were druggies anyway, your public relations machine claims. And, hey, that’s what the county’s insurance policy is for — settling claims of distraught survivors.

What matters most is that your image as “toughest sheriff in America” has made you into a valuable commodity.

And that image is worth a lot.

More…

If Arpaiao hadn’t had those media executives arrested and the NY Times hadn’t picked it up, I and many thousands of others nation and worldwide never would have read that and known of the terrible allegations against him.

Hubris begets nemesis. You’d think an officer of the law would know that. Silly sheriff.

Cui Boeing-o?

Capitalism, Corruption, US politics, War on Terror, Wingnuts
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Bush at Boeing 2004

Times and others:

‘Suicide’ casts shadow over USAF links to defence contractor

Charles Riechers, deputy head of the Air Force’s multibillion-dollar procurement budget, is believed to have committed suicide amid controversy over his links to a defence contractor. Mr Riechers, who was found dead at his home in Virginia over the weekend, joined the USAF procurement team in January after his confirmation had been held up by the US Senate for two months.

During those two months Mr Riechers, who had served in the USAF for 20 years, worked for a defence advice company, Commonwealth Research Institute (CRI). According to reports, the $13,400-a-month (£6,600- a-month) job was arranged by the USAF as a favour while the Senate considered Mr Riechers’s confirmation. Quoted last month in The Washington Post, Mr Riechers said: “I really didn’t do anything for CRI. I got a pay cheque from them.”

A USAF spokesman said that it would co-operate with county officials who were investigating the death of Mr Riechers, but that the matter was “a civilian, not a military, one”. The arrangement has come under scrutiny from politicians concerned about this relationship. The case received additional attention last week when Pemco Aviation, another defence company, amended a legal challenge to a contract won by Boeing to mention CRI and its parent Concurrent Technologies.

Pemco is challenging a $1.2 billion contract awarded by the USAF to Boeing for the maintenance of air-refuelling tankers. Reuters said yesterday that Pemco was claiming that Boeing had close ties to Concurrent, so there might have been a conflict of interest in the hiring of Mr Riechers.

The USAF’s not having a lot of luck with their procurement officials, is it? Remember Reichers’ predecessor Darleen Druyun?

By George Cahlink
gcahlink@govexec.com
October 1, 2004

Darleen Druyun, former No. 2 acquisition executive for the Air Force, was sentenced to nine months in prison on Friday for negotiating a job with Boeing at the same time she was involved in contracts with the company, the nation’s second-largest Defense contractor.

Druyun, 56, will serve nine months at a minimum security prison and another seven months at a halfway house or on home detention. She also was fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 150 hours of community service. Sentencing guidelines could have required Druyun to serve up to 16 months in prison.

Federal District Court Judge T.S. Ellis called the “stain of this offense very severe,” particularly while the nation was at war. Ellis agreed to allow Druyun to serve her sentence in South Carolina, where she plans to retire with her husband.

As part of the plea agreement, Druyun admitted that she did “favor the Boeing Company in certain negotiations as the result of her employment negotiations and other favors provided by Boeing to the defendant.” Previously, Druyun had admitted to negotiating a post-government job with Boeing, but steadfastly maintained that she had never favored them at the negotiating table.

Prosecutors said Druyun admitted to favoring the defense contractor after failing a lie detector test this summer. She also confessed to altering a personal journal to make it appear that there were no conflicts with Boeing.

Druyun’s plea agreement outlined four specific contract negotiations where she favored Boeing:

    Druyun agreed to a higher price than appropriate for a proposed deal to lease 100 tanker planes from Boeing, which she called “a parting gift” to her future employer. She also shared a competitor’s proprietary data with Boeing.

  • In 2002, Druyun awarded $100 million to Boeing as part of a restructuring of the NATO Airborne Warning and Control System contract. She said the payment could have been lower, but she favored Boeing because her daughter and son-in-law worked there and she was considering work there as well.
  • In 2001, Druyun oversaw a $4 billion award to Boeing to modernize the avionics on C-130 J aircraft. She admitted she favored Boeing over four competitors because the company had given her son-in-law a job.
  • In 2000, Druyun agreed to pay $412 million to Boeing as a settlement over a clause in a C-17 aircraft contract. She admitted to favoring the payment because her son-in-law was seeking a job with Boeing.
    Officials with the watchdog group Project for Government Oversight lauded the conviction.

“The Druyun case is offering an unusual view of just how cozy the Pentagon and defense contractors have become,” said POGO Senior Defense Investigator Eric Miller. “Her supplemental plea filed with the federal court on Friday details an even sleazier story than we could have imagined.”

“The Pentagon has been saying Ms. Druyun was a tough negotiator,” Miller continued. “Ironically, while she was working for the Air Force, as we initially suspected, she was actually negotiating on behalf of Boeing.”

The tanker purchase is now up for discussion in Congress again and there are fears that the USAF is trying to slant the process unfairly in favour of Boeing, again. Boeing is the red thread here, that and its relationship with the Bush administration and the Pentagon, which has been very cosy, particularly so during the 2004 election campaign:

Bush visit raises $2.4 million for Republican Party

After landing Friday afternoon at Boeing Field in Seattle, Bush said European nations should end their subsidies of Boeing rival Airbus. He declared the United States is prepared to take action before the World Trade Organization to stop them.

Bush made the comments after meeting with Boeing executives and employees in a company hangar.

The relationship is cosy enough even for a little espionage not to disrupt it. For instance, whatever happened to this Boeing radar scientist suspected of spying for Israel?? I don’t ever recall hearing of a charge or trial:

FBI Investigating Boeing Scientist
October 19, 2006 9:00 AM

Vic Walter and Eric Longabardi Report:

Agents in the FBI’s foreign counterintelligence unit have opened a criminal investigation into the handling of classified material by a senior scientist at Boeing.

The scientist, Abraham Lesnik, of suburban Los Angeles, works in the development of anti-missile systems for aircraft and holds a Department of Defense security clearance of Secret, Special Access, according to his resume filed in court papers.

The FBI has conducted three separate searches of Lesnik’s home in Valley Village, Calif., according to Lesnik’s lawyer, Marc Harris.
Investigators in the case say Lesnik’s Boeing laptop computer has been turned over to the FBI after questions were raised as to whether classified data ended up in the hands of unauthorized individuals including foreigners.

Lesnik’s lawyer says his client “has never improperly transmitted any classified information to anyone.”

Lesnik’s neighbors say FBI agents have been conducting a 24-hour surveillance of his home for the past few weeks.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed search warrants had been served but said the affidavits filed with the court were sealed, and no other information on the case could be made public.

Boeing spokesperson Walt Rice tells ABC News, “Boeing is cooperating with U.S. Government investigators in this case, and as such, we cannot comment further.”

Odd.

While we’re on the subject of dirty tricks, at least $1500 of the money Bush raised at that Boeing visit went to fund skullduggery like the GOP’s fake ‘sex offender in your neighborhood’ cards in Washington State.

But back to those tankers and Reicher’s death.

If the Northrop Grumman team wins, most of the work would be done in Mobile, Ala. But engineering, management and some support services would be based in Melbourne.

If the Boeing team wins, most of the work would be done in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan. Some of the work by Boeing and its suppliers would be in Florida, focused in cities such as Clearwater and Stuart.

There’s a lot resting on this tanker deal.

Why did Reichers kill himself, if indeed he did die by his own hand? That has yet to be proven, even though the wire services confidently asserted it was suicide within hours of the event’s announcement. If he did kill himself, was it from fear of prosecution or exposure or jail? If he didn’t, I ask again – who benefits?

Life During Wartime

Capitalism, Corruption, Life under Capitalism, New Labour, UK politics
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Sir John and Lady Bourn
The Great and The Good

While Britain’s overstretched servicewomen and men swelter in the desert heat for meagre pay and their families are forced to live in officially-sanctioned squalor, everywhere you look politicians and civil servants are enriching themselves at the British public’s expense.

Here’s what Sir John Bourn, the virtually unsackable – appointed for life, much like a Supreme Court judge in the US, he or she can be removed only by a joint vote of the House of Commons and House of Lords – Auditor General of the Uk’s National Audit Office, the man who is supposed to stop government waste and fraud, helped himself to in expenses from tne taxpayers’ hard-earned cash:

  • 175 lunches and dinners since 2004 with permanent secretaries, directors of big accounting companies and defence contractors at the Ritz, Savoy, Dorchester, Brown’s Hotel, the Goring Hotel, Cipriani, Bibendum, Wiltons, Mirabelle and The Square. The bills, nearly all for two people, vary from £80 to £301. Many of the bills came to between £150 and £220. One bill for four people – two from the NAO – at Wiltons was £500. In the past six months, he has spent £1,651.56 on meals.

  • Entertaining by large defence contractors and accounting firms included a visit to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 8, paid for BAE Systems, the company caught in a corruption investigation over a Tanzanian defence order. Sir John has refused to release an NAO document on BAE’s biggest and most controversial defence order, the Al Yamamah defence deal with Saudi Arabia.

  • Sir John went for a dinner at the Savoy hosted by the Society of British Aerospace Companies on September 6; attended a polo match on July 29 funded by IT contractor EDS, which has multimillion-pound government contracts; visited the opera at Garsington on July 4 paid for by GSL, a company promoting public finance initiatives, scrutinised by the NAO; attended a reception and opera recital at Middle Temple Hall with Lady Bourn on June 6, paid for by Reliance Security Group, which has PFI contracts with local government and the police.

  • Sir John and Lady Bourn took foreign trips with first class air travel to San Francisco, Venice, Lisbon, Brazil, South Africa, the Bahamas and Budapest. Their air fares and taxi fares ranged from £15,997 to Brazil and £14,518 to South Africa, to £2,238 to Budapest and £1,718 to Venice.

  • Lady Bourn did not accompany him on his latest trips, to Moldova on September 28 and to Khazakstan. The air fares were £1,117.50 and £2,107.20 respectively. Over the past six months, Sir John has spent £16,998 of taxpayers’ money on mainly first class travel for himself and his wife.

But.. but Sir John and Lady Bourn had had a social position to maintain!

So why has Sir John had such a blind spot? The reason, according to those who know him well, is pride and a determination not to be beholden to anyone, however grand.

“If he was taken to lunch at the Ritz by someone from a big company, he would insist on reciprocating at the same level. If he met a permanent secretary for lunch, he would take them in turn to suitable restaurant, say the Goring or Wiltons.”

Whether Sir John was entertaining a business director, fellow Whitehall mandarin or journalist – including from the Guardian – he would always insist that the NAO made a reciprocal arrangement.

When Sir John is abroad and representing Britain at conferences or signing agreements, earning the NAO £4m a year to advise foreign governments, he insists on a similar style.

Oh, heaven forbid a mandarin should ever lose face.

Since London’s become the world capital of dirty money, corrupt oligarchs. dodgy arms dealers and blinged-up billionaires, who’ve now joined the exiled dictators and corrupt corporate CEOs as perfectly acceptable additions to the most rarefied circles of top civil servants and government ministers, it’s been getting harder and harder for the socially ambitious public servant to keep up. The bar keeps getting raised ever higher – you have a car and driver, he has a Maibach and a driver and a bodyguard . You have a chichi London pied a terre in Chelsea – but he has a mansion in Bishops’s Avenue. It never ends.

Just ask Tony Blair,

Blair's new country house?

Blair is said to be buying himself and Cherie a Christopher Wren-designed country pile in Wiltshire (see above) that’s finally big enough and posh enough as to befit their massively inflated egos.

Buying it with what, one asks? A relatively modest new-build Barratt home in Dulwich was good enough for Thatcher on her retirement and she was no slouch in the personal enrichment stakes. Where’s the money for this new Blair landed estate coming from? For someone who’s never had a job that wasn’t in some way taxpayer-subsidised, the newly-retired Blair, so recently worried about he’d pay his mortgage, suddenly seems to be doing quite well.

No doubt the taxpayers, as they do with the Blair’s house in Connaught Square, will be picking up the bill for police security on his new country estate. I suspect that bill will make Sir John and Lady Bourn’s expenses look a mere bagatelle in comparison. The fact that he is in potential physical danger only as a result of his own actions is not a factor. We must pay to protect his and Cheries’ sense of entitlement and grandeur.

Our elected and appointed public servants see themselves not as public servants, but as an elite social group set apart from the rest of us poor schmucks. This arms race in greed and corruption will only accelerate while we allow them to think that and act as trhough that’s so.