Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Scandals: On the Horizon, Pouring Cats and Dogs, and Just Starting to Break

Philadelphia Inquirer: Did Chalabi's INC group lobby for war using taxpayer money? Since its inception in 1982, the Iraqi National Congress has recieved over 100 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars. According to Chalabi's own crowing press releases the group's leaks of classified materials and arrangement of meetings between reporters and bogus informers resulted in hundreds of stories about Iraq and WMD and terrorism which were completely untrue. Now Senators Kerry and Levin have asked the GAO of Congress to open an investigation into whether the INC improperly used taxpayer funds to lobby the government. I suspect another serious scandal is about to break.

Los Angles Times: The Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation of the computer intrusion into the files of the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. David N. Kelly, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York will be heading the investigation and hurling kitties and pups from on high. Along with the Valerie Plame affair this is second criminal investigation opened by the Justice Department inspired by the action of GOP operatives in government.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: Ten firms have been awarded billions of dollars in US contracts for Iraq's reconstruction despite paying more than $300 million in penalties since 2000 to resolve allegations of bid-rigging, fraud, delivery of faulty military parts and environmental damage.

This is the ethical and legal equivalent of putting convicted embezzlers in charge of a trust fund. To make matters worse, the Bush Administration's no-bid contracting and poor oversight of the contract work is an invitation to steal to those who have proven they need no invitation. It won't be long before this scandal, now looming on the horizon, begins to douse the Bush Administration, too.

I'm begining to think that the Bush Administration's strategy is to engage in so much corruption, crime, and malfeasance, that voters can't keep track of all the investigations, indictments, and arrests happening in the Beltway.

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