It was reported by the Associated Press yesterday that a 40-year old Oregon man working as a contractor for Halliburton in Iraq, was killed. Craig Johnson spent nearly three years working in Iraq. Earlier this week, Reuters put the total number of contractors killed in Iraq at 647. U.S. losses currently stand at 2,758 killed and over 20,000 wounded since the war began in March 2003, according to the website, icasualties.org.
Speaking of Halliburton, Frida Berrigan of In These Times put together a great post on 'Dead Eye' Dick Cheney's former employer's love affair with the GOP-controlled Congress: Halliburton <3's Congress.
Shtick or substance?
Republicans sneer at these outsider efforts. “It gets to a point where it’s more shtick than substance,” says Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Rep. Tom David (R-Va.), chair of the Government Reform Committee, defends Republican inaction by declaring, “We aren’t going after the mini scandal du jour trying to embarrass the administration at a hearing that’s going nowhere.”
Yet, during the Clinton years, Republicans seemed to love “nowhere” investigations. Did President Clinton sell Arlington cemetery plots to his big donors? Did he misuse the White House Christmas card list to hunt for potential contributors? The answers to these and many other questions were sought in aggressive and voluminous investigations by the Republican-controlled Congress. In all, between 1997 and 2002, the Government Reform Committee issued 1,052 subpoenas against the Clinton administration and the DNC and only 11 related to Republican abuse.
In contrast, during the 108th Congress, the Government Reform Committee grudgingly held four hearings on Iraq reconstruction contracting. Their final report dismissed critical witnesses as “so-called whistle blowers” and attributed multi-million dollar bungles to the “fog of war.” In Sen. Dorgan’s view, the hearings “were called in order to defend Halliburton, which is a pretty pathetic way to do investigative oversight.”
Pwn3d!
This Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't know oversight if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. The current GOP sees just about everything in partisan political terms. Any debate about that died a few weeks ago when evidence of a GOP cover-up of the Child Predator Scandal involving GOP Rep. Mark Foley materialized. Why should protecting campaign donors be any different than protecting known child predators? It's standard operating procedure to cover the collective ass of the party at all costs in the GOP.
In the article, Frida poses the question: "Why doesn't Congress do more?" One could probably find the answer in the age-old phrase, "follow the money." Plus, it doesn't hurt that the revolving door for high-level officials is really just an automated sliding door that never closes, for Pete's sake. These days, people don't even try to hide it.
Cheney is a great friend to have, but it doesn’t hurt that the company has other close ties. Richard “Plame-gate” Armitage did freelance consulting work for Halliburton before assuming the number two position at the State Department. In 2005, KBR hired Joe Allbaugh, an aide to George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas and former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as a consultant. For good measure, they hired Allbaugh’s wife Diane too.
Oh, don't want to leave her out.
Just a few days ago, the government spending watchdog website FedSpending.org launched, a project of OMB Watch with the help of the Sunlight Foundation. It tracks government contracts and grants based off of data provided by government agencies.
As I was test driving the site, I came across a feature that lists the Top 100 Contractors in each of the last six years, FY2000 through FY2005, and thought I would look up a usual suspect:
Halliburton
And the Veep would have us believe he had nothing to do with that.
The site is still in it's infancy but will surely prove to be useful in the near future. I strongly urge all of you to check it out.
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fitz
Matt O.! Doing the work of the angels, once again.
I thought the contracts website was being blocked by someone, well, guess it got unblocked.
To help get rid of these bad guys, Friends of Egregious have raised $5,100 to date. Some of my people aren’t yet familiar with fdl. I’m especially proud of raising $1,700 for Diane Benson of Alaska, with contributions from a dozen people.
Rep. Tom Davis, with an S…
You can delete this if you like.
egregious @
3
That was straight from ITT but yeah, it’s Davis.
Matt O. did you finish school, what are you up to now? I mean besides saving the country :)
Wish we could REALLY find out how much the Bush and Cheney family wealth has increased in the last six years. I mean the real bottom line number.
Great post Matt, thanks.
OfT from Lamontblog, DeadEye likes Joe.
Oct. 12, 2006: Vice President’s Remarks at the Luncheon for Congressman Jim Ryun:
Matt, small thing wrt your last quoted material, FWIW:
“Fiscal Yr. | Rank | Total Contracts”
Careful readers will notice that after 2002, it changes from millions of dollars to billions.
Readers who are not so careful, may not “get it.” Visually, it might have more impact if you put in the zeroes, because then the numbers at the bottom will be visibly larger than their predecessors. This is a very small thing, it’s a very good post.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 6
Rules are for everyone else.. they don’t have a bottom line
egregious @
5
Yes, I am done with school. I received my B.A. in political science from the University of Arizona.
These days I am working for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund on the Pombo In Their Pocket campaign to oust CA-11 Rep. Richard Pombo.
OT, but funny and unlikely to last.
Check this out. Look closely — won’t take you a minute.
Oklahoma kiddo @
6
At that level, I don’t think it’s about how much you have. It’s about who you know. Know the right people, and the lap of luxury is a yacht in the carribean regardless of what you’re actually worth.
Where is Fitzy?
We need him..
Jack
That’s a cool picture atop the post. I can never find anything cool like that.
No matter how much effort the Republican party expends trying to separate economics from morality, it is an impossible task. Particularly today. With the unbelievable way in which the GOP has managed to so unfairly distribute the goodies. The gulf between the haves and the have-not-much is huge. And growing. We are becoming a third world country economically, with most of the wealth concentrated at the top.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 14
That happened back in the time of JP Morgan and the other robber barons. This country recovered. It will again. That said, 20 years of republican rule compared to the Big Dog’s 8 years? God damn.
Thanks for staying on these thieves like a tick on a dog, Matt.
OT — craziness here. Tigers going to the Prom for the first time in 43 years. There will be a lot of people hurting tomorrow morning in the Motor City and across the state.
Rayne @ 16
Don’t remind me… (A’s fan here.)
Another funny item. Sorry to go off-topic. The idea of all that money being stolen makes me see red. This is my therapy. (h/t to Ralfast @ Dkos)
How much was literally stolen? Where is all that money…??? It’s pretty hard to spend billions and billions of dollars… and have little tangible to show for it but some concrete runways.
Good news for Minnesota Blues:
MN-GOV Star Tribune Oct 14 Hatch (DFL) 46%, Pawlenty (R) 37%
We could very well have a Democratic sweep in November if this keeps up.
Norm Coleman take note, cuz you’re next!
Matt, regarding Halliburton, it might be a great topic for a post if someone followed up on this Business Week article from May 2003. It dismissed suspicions that Halliburton would benefit enormously from the war, claiming the company’s stock was rising for other reasons.
(Halliburton’s stock hit an all-time high earlier this year.)
DefJef @ 19
Think Scrooge McDuck’s swimming pool.
Marx didn’t really have to make his case in “Das Kapital”. “Wealth of Nations” and the Grand Old Party did it for him.
We have become the most powerful economic and nuclear armed banana republic in history.
I am serious…. what DID halliburton provide for all that money?
Bill @
10
it’s gone already. what did it say?
Please don’t forget Bechtel, Bank of America etc., and the Carlyle Group.
Aloha everyone… O/T from the last thread for BlueAmerica but I just wanted to link my comment there to all my FDL’er friends and say thanks!
And The Winner Is… ‘Comment’
You all are The Best!
Matt #17 — my sympathies to you on the A’s loss. Imagine having to lose and then stay overnight in Detroit. Ugh. Sure hope they managed to get the redeye.
I too would really like to know where all that money has gone to. Did it pay for an education?? A vacation?? Home remodeling?? New artwork for the office?? A secret bank account??
Unfortunately, it is very likely that we will never truly know. I sure hope that they have nightmares every night for what the money could have gone towards (medical care, education, small business loans, food, etc).
Rayne @ 28
Ah the “A’s”. I remember when I lived in Tahoe City, Charley O. had a place up there and he’d just be all over the town. You’d see him everywhere. Victoria Station, Lucky’s market, Sunnyside or wherever. Those were the days!
LindyH @
25
Still there — this is the page you get when you ask for a synonym for pederast. The first line of the response is, “Did you mean …?”
Maybe it isn’t fair, but I think it is funny.
iowa christine @ 29
This documentary: Iraq’s Missing Billions will answer a lot of those questions.
Matt O, you NAILED them buddy! Yes!
From the I-wish-I’d-said-that department: from DemFromCT at The Last Hurrah (sorry link didn’t work).
The illgotten $$$ are probably in overseas banks. Am wondering, after the R’s have been thrown out, whether European countries can be persuaded to disclose those accounts. After all, this R administration illegally obtained the whole world’s records of banking transactions around the world in order, they said, to trace terrorist activities.
And another shoe – re the Big Dig:
Breaking: Mitt Romney (R) Under Federal Investigation
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/14/20350/685
Bechtel/Parsons is the BigDig contractor under scrutiny. Now, where have I heard THOSE company names before, Matt O.?
Matt O! Another great post! Hugs. I’ve been thinking about you (as ever). Have you moved permanently back to CA from AZ? More politics in the future? etc. Aunt Valley Girl wants to know! xxxoo
Bush’s Lincoln Group: Pig Back at the Trough
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1014-28.htm
“This, however, is the 21st Century. We’re supposed to be smarter now. Yes, terrorism exists. But in Great Britain and Israel and a lot of other civilized countries, they reconcile themselves to that fact and manage to expend their energies trying to solve it like a criminal activity and not obsess about it full time, curled in a fetal position shivering like a shaved poodle on an ice rink, fearful of the unknown. Of course, I am talking about countries where the term “intelligence agency” is not an oxymoron. Where staffs are manned by actual professionals, and not the buddies of ex-girlfriends’ roommates’ cousins.”
http://www.workingforchange.co…..emid=21506
The GOP back there in the mid to late 1990’s
was a continous fountain of investigation,moral
high horsing and Clinton WH expose. That it
actively sought to discredit,disabuse or take
Bill Clinton out via impeachment historically
documented and supported.
When G.W.Bush came to power in early 2001 he
claimed very early on that his WH would be a
bastion of virtue,forthright morality and in
all ways political unblemished whiteness.
Six years later those claims from G.W.Bush
stand in most ways discredited. The Decider has
shown little inclination towards moral,ethical
or truthful conduct or the enforcement of these
in his WH.
The GOP in the House or Senate has exposed
itself has being hypocritical and acting not
out of deep felt universal principle. The last
five years clearly conducted in ways the GOP
never displayed during the Clinton WH years as
to sharp-nosed reaction,inquiry and resorting
to full Congressional means to expose or hold
in check. The GOP run Bush2WH clearly being
given a run of field the GOP never would permit
the Clinton WH.
So having fallen down on consistency the GOP
in both houses of Congress deserve to be turned
out this November of 2006. Having discredited
themselves of moral or ethical principle. By
having been derelict over fiscal governance.By
having been derelict regarding oversight. By
having been derelict regarding checks,balances
and inquiry. Dereliction the central charge.
The Bush2WH has squandered its moral and
ethical standing with its cheapening of WH
position thru fact and truth disallow and its
simple willingness to lie repeatedly.
If the GOP had conducted itself has it was
so willing to advertise it would have no real
problems today. Moral,ethical and truthful
conduct can not be attacked when evidence
points to these being present in government
action and conduct. The GOP sold out on those
repeatedly over last 5 years. Deserves all the
scorn being shown now. Deserves now a fall from
power in DC richly and amply.
Matt, you do such good work. I’m saving all your posts so I can say I knew you when.
ARe we at the point yet with these greedy monsters where they are so embedded there’s no turning back? Is this our future –
revolvingautomated sliding doors with gun turrets?Bill @
31
Do a google for Pederast and three or four
explanations down the page is the answer!!
I must agree it is funny….no disrespect meant!!
jinny @
35
That headline was in the Boston papers today…should really hit “Mr. Phoney” between the eyes. He is such an actor and is hell bent on getting the nomination. He has been out of state more than in it and has let his Lt. Gov run everything…that is why she is now running for Gov. and losing!! She, too, has taken a page from Rove’s book and has been really hitting below the line…yet she tries to act innocent. She and Romney deserve each other!!
Both are bad news…
Matt – another great job.