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A Matter of Trust: Is CEO Bush billing Jessica Lynch for her Hospital Meals?

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by One Citizen

Sooner than later, the American public will reverse its long-held opinion that the GOP is the party to be trusted in matters of this nation's economy. For instance, given the $87 BILLION Iraqmire "shortfall" our country's CEO "misunderestimated," it is a distinct possibility that Ken Lay consulted with the Vice President to project the war budget back during the early planning stages in Dick Cheney's energy Summit. [LINK]

Enron's infamous former CEO reportedly attended that summit, and it's lately been revealed that the group was apparently cutting up the Iraqi oil fields long before the Bush Administration began stridently thrumming "Get Saddam" over the airwaves. [LINK]

If one considers Iraq strictly as a business venture, how could there have been such a huge budget oversight? Doesn't it sound more and more as if it has Ken Lay's fingerprints all over it?

Although there were watchdogs barking the dangers of cost overruns, [LINK] they were easily drowned out by the Bush White House and the GOP in Congress. Was their rigorous campaign lockstepped by Karl Rove to specifically hype the imminent threat of Saddam Hussein's vaunted weapons of mass destruction? Greatly aided by the corporate-owned media, most Americans were basically panicked into invading Iraq.

As it turns out, we were never in any imminent danger of being attacked by Saddam Hussein. It was the Chickenhawk Administration and its Congressional Cohort that pushed us to where we are today. [LINK]

And now they're all backing off the claims that Hussein had anything to do with the horrendous attacks of 9/11. [LINK]

Apparently the public should have somehow sensed that Afghanistan was going it alone on September 11, 2001, right? Forget about the pages and pages of redacted findings referencing Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Congressional report on intelligence before Sept. 11, 2001. Notice that there's scarcely a mention in corporate media about the distinct absence of any evidence linking Iraq and its evil, all-powerful dictator to the 9/11 attacks, or to al-Qaeda. [LINK]

During his victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, "Fighter Pilot" Bush said, "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding."

We now know why the Bush Administration has blocked and stalled the release of Congress' report on September 11. A government official, speaking to United Press International, has said, "The report shows there is no link between Iraq and al-Qaeda." [LINK]

It may be safely assumed that Dubya's cadre would rather have us believe that it was Puerto Rico, Panama or Paducah that attacked us before admitting that it was his daddy's old pals in Saudi Arabia that backed the training and coordination of those 9/11 skyjackers. [LINK]

George Bush, Sr.'s former Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney apparently now just wants us to put all that messy 9/11 business behind us and move on. [LINK] Forget that Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia and just move along, people. In fact, they've all but forgotten Bin Laden and 9/11, and seem to want to only recall the vision of American citizens dying for the purposes of beefing up defense industry funding for their beloved expatriated corporate benefactors. In stark contrast, American media remains so "embedded" that it continually suppresses images of our troops suffering and dying in Iraq. Just what is being sold when images of American citizens leaping from collapsing buildings appear to hold much more prominence in the media than those of American troops dying while guarding Iraqi oil fields?

So just how did Mr. Bush come up with his $87 billion figure and just what is it going to buy for him? Are we to believe that this will be the total price of forever ending terrorism? Is he still using Arthur Anderson's wacky abacus? Is it unpatriotic to wonder aloud where all that cash might be going? Surely we wouldn't want it to get shuffled into that same offshore account that old pal "KennyBoy" Lay opened a couple of years ago. Considering the overly aggressive stance that Enron regularly took as a world player, its not hard to imagine that the bombing of Iraq was blueprinted at Enron's Houston offices and finalized at Cheney's closed door Energy Summit in D.C. [LINK]

But what the heck. It's only 87 Billion Bucks. Certainly a small portion of that huge bounty is slated for the meals of our wounded soldiers while they're being treated in military hospitals, right? [LINK]

Don't bet on it.

There's still that gaping hole in the economy that Bush's tax cut for the wealthy caused, even though American soldiers are presently being personally billed for their meals while they're in the hospital.

It is highly unlikely, after all, that billing Jessica Lynch for her food while she was recuperating will compensate for the entire $774 Billion that Bush's tax refund to the richest 1% will drain from our economy over the next ten years.

However, by selectively economizing in "less important" areas, BushCo obviously believes that they'll still hang in there with their all-important GOP sponsored tax cuts for businesses. [LINK]

And since we won the war in Iraq so handily, they can now justify cutting our troops' pay while they're "vacationing" in sunny Iraq! [LINK]

It will be necessary to let the cash flow freely for the more important projects, though. For instance, there's no cost spared when it comes to taking care of the defense contractors assigned to rebuild the Iraqi "infrastructure." Those no-bid contracts are extremely vital, as they're supposed to restore the flow of oil out of Iraq. As of last week, they were a mere $200 million above the original estimate to perform that service.

They've apparently not made much progress in getting that oil to flow as of yet, because they're actually having to import oil INTO Iraq. You see, the cost-plus contract they've been granted isn't really considered a performance based contract, so Halliburton is raking in just under $1 billion, yet they somehow haven't been quite able to deliver the goods yet. In the defense industry, the cost-plus type of contract is similar to being handed a blank check for just showing up, as long as the contracting officers for the government are lenient about the whole deal. And with that kind of cash flowing, the government's contracting officers may have the ability to make more cash for not showing up as long as the correct offshore accounts are arranged (if you know what I mean). [LINK]

And speaking of offshore accounts, Halliburton's offshore franchise (Kellogg, Brown & Root) has also incurred an additional $1 billion in costs, yet the promise of paying for Cheney's war with those Iraqi oil revenues remains as elusive a dream as the dancing in the streets that our troops were promised when rolling through the desert towards Baghdad. It may be noteworthy that the street dancing reportedly occurs after our troops are killed these days. [LINK]

Could it be because the Iraqi people are feeling more oppressed than ever? It's not possible that they're not actually rebuilding their "infrastructure" with all that cash we're pumping over there, is it?

Most folks don't realize that Halliburton had to pay around $2 million in fines for defrauding the government on their defense contract at Fort Ord in Monterey, California back in the 1990s. [LINK]

Generally, contractors who defraud the government face disbarment and thus are prevented from participating in all future federal contracts. That way, they'll get no second chance hone their talent to beat us out of more goods and services on later contracts. These are DEFENSE contracts, after all, and in some instances, a breach of such a contract could well mean the difference between security and disaster.

The disbarment of Halliburton would have been a rap on the knuckles compared to what they could have received for trading with the enemy in the early 1990s. Instead, they were only fined around $3.8 million for knowingly supplying Libya with items that could be used to detonate nuclear bombs. [LINK]

Someone probably should have landed in the Graybar Hotel over that one. But not ol' CEO Cheney's firm. It was nothing but the V.I.P. treatment when the Pentagon later handed their Iraqi defense contract to them. Team Bush trumped-up the "exigent circumstances" which precluded the normal competitive bid procedure and allowed them to fork over their contract. [LINK]

How much have we spent in Iraq so far? Well over $75 Billion dollars. For a current monetary update go to: http://www.costofwar.com/.

And how much could an additional $87 Billion buy? Oh, just 233 times the current budget for border security around the entire U.S., for one example. [LINK]

And when Dubya sold Congress those tax cuts for the purpose of getting "OUR" Economy back on track, did he mean "OURS" as in "the U.S." Economy or "OURS" as in "THEIRS"? Reliable reports of Halliburton and other U.S. Oil companies reflect that those tax cuts seem to have resulted in only getting THEIR numbers back to decent earning levels after that nasty asbestos fracas. So when Bush says "ours," he may mean "his and his insider buddies."

Isn't it time we started looking a little closer at how "They" are spending "Our" money?

It's not unpatriotic for you to ask where your nation's leaders are steering us.

George W. Bush said "It's YOUR money"...

So it's only natural to inquire about it.

Right?

One Citizen

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY