Those who blow whistle on contractor fraud in Iraq face penalties

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.

From The Associated Press, 8/24/07:

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565074540867487317

Those who blow whistle on contractor fraud in Iraq face penalties

DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer

...............................................................................................

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.''

---

One way to blow the whistle is to file a ''qui tam'' lawsuit (taken

from the Latin phrase ''he who sues for the king, as well as for

himself'') under the federal False Claims Act.

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 quit 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.

______________________________________________

Harry

Harry Hope wrote:

> 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.

Halliburton moved it's corporate offices to Dubai. Why does it have US

gov't contracts if it's a foreign company?

Harry Hope wrote:

>

>

> From The Associated Press, 8/24/07:

> http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565074540867487317

>

> Those who blow whistle on contractor fraud in Iraq face penalties

>

> DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer

>

>

Few things define the Bush White House more than stories like this. When

corruption is exposed whistle blowers become the target.

The best known case of this is probably Richard Foster who tried to tell

Congress how much Bush's prescription drug plan really cost (Bush was

lying to Congress about the cost). His job was threatened if he told

the congress the truth. In other words, the only way he could keep his

job was to lie to congress (which is a felony).

The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration

The Nation.com

100 Facts and 1 Opinion

by Judd Legum

Posted October 20, 2004

55. The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to allow

Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of Congress the actual

cost of their Medicare bill. Instead, they repeated a figure they knew

was $100 billion too low.

http://zzpatarchive.bravehost.com/oct_2004/the_case_against_bush.html

The Assault on the Public's Right to Know

Sunshine Week

By Sen. Patrick Leahy

March 07, 2006

This kind of secrecy produces bad policies, as we saw when the Bush

Administration tried to hide the true cost of its Medicare prescription

drug plan from Congress and the American people. While they were

twisting congressional arms for votes on the program, political leaders

at Medicare told Congress the price tag was $400 billion. Medicare