This is just part of the story...when EVERYTHING comes out there will still be 26% who REFUSE to accept the reality...are YOU one of them?

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Thursday 12 June 2008
by: Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t | Report

Last year, swearing in before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill, Blackwater USA Chief Executive Erik Prince testified about security contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Photo: Reuters / Larry Downing)


A backlog of whistleblower lawsuits against military contractors has been swelling and festering since the early days of the so-called war on terror.


According to critics, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has blocked the progress of these lawsuits to spare the Bush administration a major political black eye should the truth about ongoing war profiteering be revealed, a charge the DOJ denies.


Under the False Claims Act, a civil war era law, when an employee of a company thinks they have evidence that their company is defrauding the US government, the individual can file a lawsuit on behalf of the government against the contractor by filing a special lawsuit called a qui tam - a Latin abbreviation for "he who sues in this matter for the king as for himself."


The exact number of qui tam cases stuck in legal limbo is unknown because the cases are kept under strict seal. But sources who have been following the issue closely estimate that there are between 50 and 70 Iraq contracting fraud cases under seal. Under normal circumstances, when the DOJ receives a qui tam case, it conducts an investigation into the whistleblower's claims. If there is sufficient evidence of significant fraud, the DOJ joins with the whistleblower to sue the company in question and recover the government's money. The whistleblower can receive up to 30 percent of money recovered as a reward for their service to the taxpayer.


Not a single qui tam case against war contractors has been joined by the Bush administration DOJ despite the possibility of recovering billions of dollars for the US taxpayer and reining in war profiteers, who continue to cheat and defraud the government and the US troops mired in battle.


"The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious," Congressman Henry Waxman (D- California) told the BBC, adding, "It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."


As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Waxman and his team of investigators have been tracking mismanagement, waste and fraud in Iraq war contracting. His investigations have created a rough sketch of where US and Iraqi money has been stolen and wasted. The qui tam cases may provide the missing link: the voices of individual employees who can give first hand accounts of the profiteering.


According to qui tam investigator Dina Rasor, co-author of "Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Result of Privatizing War," the wave of qui tam cases is coming, but will probably have to wait until the next administration.


"The investigations by Waxman and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction have left breadcrumbs leading everywhere. Either qui tams have not been filed, which is not the case, or they have not yet come out," Rasor told Truthout.


Rasor's book documents numerous examples of fraud and negligence on the part of military contractors in the Iraq war theater. Rasor works directly with Iraq contracting fraud whistleblowers, but is prevented from discussing any aspect of the cases she is involved with because they remain under seal.


Critics charge that the DOJ is misusing its power to keep the qui tam cases sealed in order to prevent a massive and unprecedented level of war profiteering from becoming public.


The DOJ strongly rejects this claim. "There are cases being investigated. I have never heard of anything being blocked for political reasons. The people who are the day in and day out attorneys in the civil division are career employees and they do their job," Charles Miller, spokesman for the DOJ civil division told Truthout, adding, "I expect that the cases will move when the investigations are complete ... It has nothing to do with the administration."


A unique factor in qui tam suits is that even if the cases are unsuccessful or companies settle the lawsuits to avoid trial, the facts of the case are eventually made public. Therefore, the historical record on the most privatized military operation in US history has only begun to be written.


These qui tam cases must eventually be dealt with because the statute of limitations - the amount of time whistleblowers have to file their case - does not run out once the case has been filed. Whistleblowers have up to six years (if acting without DOJ backing) to file a qui tam case. This means that cases involving Iraq reconstruction fraud will continue to pile up for years after the last contractors leave the country.
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KJ

Sorry KJ, but Henry Waxjob has had more than enough FACTS for over three years to prosecute wrongdoers and outright thieves if he had any intention of doing so. He and the rest of the Dems would rather get air time with their meaningless and never ending hearings than make anyone pay for their crimes. They are wasting our money as badly as the KBR's and others involved in the LOGCAP contracts. I don't under stand the mindset that would rather make the Pres look bad than actually FIX the problems. Harry Truman was a back bencher until he was put in charge of Gov waste in WWII. He uncovered millions of dollars in fraud and waste and became the go to guy almost overnight. Of course he was an American first and politician second. Just the opposite of todays Dems and many Repubs.

I can agree with that....Harry gave them hell..

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ROFL...This board is just too good.