Home Outside Asylum

Take a walk, smell the roses. Any topic is fine, save people bashing.

Want a peek at how widespread and ncestuouous the corruption is?

From the linked article:

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A large global hedge fund, Cerberus Capital Management (dba, Cerberus-Gabriel), is at the center of an emerging Pentagon and CIA contracting scandal that has the attention of three Congressional Committees.
This scandal involves the mismanagement of VA hospital facilities privatized during the Bush-Cheney Administration, as well as intelligence abuses by private CIA contractors with financial ties to major GOP leaders and institutions.

In each case, the companies under investigation have links to prominent GOP figures, including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and several Republican Congressmen indicted for corruption involving kickbacks from defense contractors. The Republican Congressional Campaign Commitee (RCC) has also received substantial contributions from conservative fund managers running Cerberus, a virually unregulated $30 billion hedge fund, which owns the second largest bank in Israel.

The Cerberus scandal involves its holding, International American Products (IAP) Worldwide Services, awarded a $120 million contract to manage facilities at Walter Reed, is only the latest in a long line. IAP’s President, Alfred V. Neffgen, was formerly Chief Operating Officer for KBR's government operations group, which was forced to repay tens of millions of dollars to the Defense Department for food and fuel overcharges in Iraq. IAP has other contracting connections with Dick Cheney’s Halliburton/KBR. Most recently, IAP bid on part of the Iraq oil reconstruction project as a partner with Halliburton KBR. The Army Times reports about Halliburton tie-in: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/Weightmansubpoena

IAP Connected With Halliburton

Cerberus owns, or had a major interest in, a string of now-bankrupt companies that had contracts with U.S. defense and intelligence agencies that were found to have a common pattern of large-scale fraud, security problems, and financial scandals involving GOP lawmakers and lobbyists.

IAP also has a corporate tie-in with Halliburton-KBR on multi-billion dollar Iraq contracts. Halliburton is a major defense contractor once headed by Vice President Cheney, that has had its own history of problems with fraud and overcharges related to its management of sole-source projects in Iraq, particularly the multi-billion dollar LOGCAP contract to repair and maintain Iraq’s oil fields and pipelines. Just months before the invasion, DoD designated Halliburton/KBR as the sole potential bidder for potential large-scale pipeline repair contracts. Four years after the initial invasion and occupation of those fields, Iraq is still not producing at its prewar levels, a threshold that would require termination of the LOGCAP contract.

Senate Judiciary Committee Goes Into Closed Hearings to Discuss Firing of U.S. Attorney Who Prosecuted CIA Contractor Case

On Tuesday, Judiciary Committee member Arlen Specter revealed publicly that the committee he used to Chair would be going behind closed doors to discuss still-classified details about the retaliatory firing of U.S. Attorney Caroline Lam, who had aggressively prosecuted the MZM Wade-Cunningham contracting case. (Source C-Span Radio, 03/05/2007, @ 7:20 pm).

According to Specter, the Senate Judiciary Committee went into closed session to talk about an ongoing TOP SECRET investigation that stems from the Cunningham case. Three Hill Committees reached an agreement with the Department of Justice to receive files compiled by the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego, and are just beginning to hold public hearings into the unlawful dismissal of Lam.

These closed hearings are most likely related to contracts that MZM had with CIA, including one that led to the falsification of data about aluminum tubes shipped to Iraq that allegedly were going to be used to reconstitute Saddam's nuclear program. That's right, those aluminum tubes, the one's that were falsely used by White House and Vice President to justify the invasion of Iraq.
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There's tonnes more at the link. The scandal looks to be astounding in its scope. Isn't it going to be fun watching them clean out this cesspool?



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Topic - Want a peek at how widespread and ncestuouous the corruption is? - GliderGuider 12:57:07 03/9/07 (3)

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