When the esteemed senior senator from the Grand Canyon State claims “We’re winning in Iraq,” my mind flits to another joke, this one involving the Lone Ranger and Tonto. The masked man and his Indian companion run into a swarm of Native Americans charging down on them. The Lone Ranger asks, “What are we going to do Tonto?” To which Tonto replies, “What do you mean ‘we’ Kemosabe?”
At the current rate of $12 billion per month, Nobel Laureate, economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, has forecast the total hard-dollar bill for Iraq will exceed $3 trillion, and that, with all the soft economic and social costs included in the computations, the bill will pass the $5 trillion mark.
Considering the rampant fraud and abuse that has been and remains part and parcel of the adventure, there can be little argument that the “American taxpayers have been stolen blind.” That remark was issued in the March 11, 2008 Senate hearing on Waste and Abuse in Iraq.”
(It is essential to recall that, prior to the GOP loss of control of both the House and Senate last year, in the fiscally responsible Republican-controlled chambers, there had not occurred EVEN ONE oversight hearing!)
In the March 11 hearing, called by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the first panel witnesses included outgoing Comptroller General David Walker, DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter, and Special IG for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen; Republicans all. The three agreed that fraud and abuse of the American taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars, although “improving,” was a rampant circumstance of daily life.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) resurrected testimony from a 2006 Democratic Policy Committee hearing (DPC hearing because the Republican Senate leaders refused to call one). In that earlier hearing, witness Frank Willis of Custer-Battles told how bundled $100 bills were offloaded from million-dollar pallets and used as footballs before they vanished into the corrupted ether that was Iraq.
Relative to the untested, highly unsafe water that KBR provided American troops in Iraq, Will Granger composed an internal company memo that noted, “This event should be considered a near miss, as the consequences could have been VERY SEVERE, resulting in mass sickness and death.”
When queried by Dorgan about how the Pentagon reacted to the memo, the witness replied, “They did not seem to care about this.” Bunnatine Greenhouse, the then PARC (Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting) at the Army Corps of Engineers, the highest civilian employee charged with oversight of military contracts, testified she could “unequivocally state the abuse related to contracts awarded KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse.” (Following her testimony, the administration immediately saw to it that the career civil servant was demoted from her position.)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
