One Utah

So I’m watching special congressional oversight hearings on C-Span (LOVE C-Span) that also took place today.

They’re talking about the corruption of the whole Halliburton - no-bid contractor, cost-plus abuse.

And among the witness — all former Halliburton employees — is a nice middle aged, all American workingwoman, former teacher, who worked as a bookkeeper in Iraq.

She was fired and put under guard after writing a letter complaining that she was seeing too much overcharging on invoices to the US Gov’t; things like the over reporting how many people were tasked with a job by five times.

Did you know most Halliburton US employees in Iraq are actually hired by a Cayman Island Corporation?

She used the word “drug dealing” at one point in her testimony, and Senator Byron Dorgan says. “What do you mean, drug dealing. Do you mean like narcotics and pharmaceuticals?” And she says, “No, that’s what they called it, drug dealing, it just means everything, whenever you do a deal to rip off the taxpayers.”

And others go on to describe a culture that was once discreet and is now a wide-open culture of gluttony and braggadocio.

It sure sounded to me like the term “drug dealing” was a pretty commonly used, and commonly understood imperialist slang, and that “making money” on the Big Uncle’s dime, is become sport — as it has in all other wars. But this time, we’re using private contractors whose bosses are not military, but businessmen.

I’ll try to post some video of transcript. I’m sure we will be hearing more on this soon.

This entry was posted Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 9:37 pm and is filed under George W. Bush, Iraq, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.