Report fraud and go to jail

[truthmatters]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153

This is how this admin has been treating people who are trying to stop fraud.

Iraq corruption whistleblowers face penalties
Cases show fraud exposers have been vilified, fired, or detained for weeks

John David Mercer / AP
Robert Isakson filed a whistleblower suit against a contractor in 2004 alleging the company bilked the U.S. government out of tens of millions of dollars. A judge later threw out a $10-million ruling in his favor.
One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.


Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.

He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers — all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.

The seller, he claimed, was the Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co.

“It was a Wal-Mart for guns,” he says. “It was all illegal and everyone knew it.”

So Vance says he blew the whistle, supplying photos and documents and other intelligence to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he didn’t know whom to trust in Iraq.

For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside Baghdad that once held Saddam Hussein, and he was classified a security detainee.

[nevadamedic]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153

This is how this admin has been treating people who are trying to stop fraud.

:slap:

[darin]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153

This is how this admin has been treating people who are trying to stop fraud.

Hey liar! :) Let's get this straight - a guy works for a company he thinks is doing something bad. He calls in the Military who were unaware he was the informant. He goes to jail with the other illegals until things get sorted out. And that's SOMEHOW tied to the BUSH ADMINISTRATION? WTH is wrong with you?

I really am amazed that you rally to the support of ONE SIDE of a situation without having all the facts.


American soldiers who raided company at his urging detained him and another American, unaware that he was informer; (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50A12FB38550C7B8DDDAB0994DE4044 82)

[truthmatters]

So you are Pro fraud of bilking the American government by corporations?

[Gaffer]

So you are Pro fraud of bilking the American government by corporations?

Let's see. It's an iraqi owned company, doing black market business in illegal weapons. How does that tie into American corporations? It seems whoever he informed to let the ball drop when they raided the place and didn't get him out when they should have. I'd be looking up that agent as soon as I was free and we would do a little toe to toe.

[truthmatters]

One whistleblower demoted
Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse knows this only too well. As the highest-ranking civilian contracting officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she testified before a congressional committee in 2005 that she found widespread fraud in multibillion-dollar rebuilding contracts awarded to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

Soon after, Greenhouse was demoted. She now sits in a tiny cubicle in a different department with very little to do and no decision-making authority, at the end of an otherwise exemplary 20-year career.

People she has known for years no longer speak to her.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153


You see this article goes on and on with examples of people who were punished for reproting fraud and abuse.

[truthmatters]

Let's see. It's an iraqi owned company, doing black market business in illegal weapons. How does that tie into American corporations? It seems whoever he informed to let the ball drop when they raided the place and didn't get him out when they should have. I'd be looking up that agent as soon as I was free and we would do a little toe to toe.


Who made the weapons?

Why was he punished for trying to save our troops from being harmed by these weapons?

[truthmatters]

http://www.ridenhour.org/prizes_03.shtml

Here is a little more on Vance

[truthmatters]

Julie McBride testified last year that as a "morale, welfare and recreation coordinator" at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR exaggerate costs by double- and triple-counting the number of soldiers who used recreational facilities.

She also said the company took supplies destined for a Super Bowl party for U.S. troops and instead used them to stage a celebration for themselves.

"After I voiced my concerns about what I believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion," she told the committee. "My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country."

Halliburton and KBR denied her testimony.

She also has filed a whistleblower suit. The Justice Department has said it would not join the action. But last month, a federal judge refused a motion by KBR to dismiss the lawsuit.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153


Support your troops people

[truthmatters]

U.S. shows little support?
One way to blow the whistle is to file a “qui tam” lawsuit (taken from the Latin phrase “he who sues for the king, as well as for himself”) under the federal False Claims Act.

Signed by Abraham Lincoln in response to military contractors selling defective products to the Union Army, the act allows private citizens to sue on the government’s behalf.

The government has the option to sign on, with all plaintiffs receiving a percentage of monetary damages, which are tripled in these suits.


It can be a straightforward and effective way to recoup federal funds lost to fraud. In the past, the Justice Department has joined several such cases and won. They included instances of Medicare and Medicaid overbilling, and padded invoices from domestic contractors.

But the government has not joined a single quit tam suit alleging Iraq reconstruction abuse, estimated in the tens of millions. At least a dozen have been filed since 2004.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153


Why would your government not want to punish fraud?

[truthmatters]

Come on why are these people being punished for trying to stop people from wating your tax dollars on greedy companies who would STEAL a football party from the troops?

COME ON YOU TROOP SUPPORTERS !

[avatar4321]

So you are Pro fraud of bilking the American government by corporations?

It's statements like these that make it clear that your screen name is just for show and you dont care at all for the truth.

[truthmatters]

It's statements like these that make it clear that your screen name is just for show and you dont care at all for the truth.


Again with the completely empty insults?

I asked that because gaffer was defending the people who are punishing people who reported fraud.

Are you really so blind you will join in and help him?

[avatar4321]

Again with the completely empty insults?

I asked that because gaffer was defending the people who are punishing people who reported fraud.

Are you really so blind you will join in and help him?

Empty insults? You are the one insulting people for disagreeing with you. I am simply pointing out your insults for disagreement and your endevour to completely ignore every single contrary fact without addressing them is exactly why no one takes your name seriously.

How old are you anyway? You should really grow up.

[Gaffer]

Who made the weapons?

Why was he punished for trying to save our troops from being harmed by these weapons?

The article didn't say who made the weapons. Just that they were being sold. Chances are high they were russian or chinese made. I don't know the circumstances behind his being locked up other than he was picked up in the sweep along with others and the agent he had informed to did nothing to get him out. I need more facts before making a judgment. But based on just what was in the article he got screwed.

[Gaffer]

Again with the completely empty insults?

I asked that because gaffer was defending the people who are punishing people who reported fraud.

Are you really so blind you will join in and help him?

I didn't defend anyone. Whistle blowers are fine if they are actually trying to do some good and exposing corruption. They are not fine if they have a political agenda. Many do. There have been a lot of so called whistle blowers over the years. They always turn out to be democrat hold overs from the clinton administration.

Whistle blowers are always going to get trounced on by their employer. That's a fact. And no law will change it. They might not be able to be fired but their lives can be made miserable. A whistle blower needs to be prepared to move on to another line of work.

If you think this is just the Bush administrations doings you better look a little deeper. The government is a big bureaucracy and the president has little if any control over most of it.

[truthmatters]

Why would it take them three months r=to realize he was the one who told them to come get these guys so the weapons would not kill our troops?

Do you really think they needed to hold and torture him for three months to find that out?

BTW his is JUST ONE of the stories theere are a bunch of them in this article.

[avatar4321]

Why would it take them three months r=to realize he was the one who told them to come get these guys so the weapons would not kill our troops?

Do you really think they needed to hold and torture him for three months to find that out?

BTW his is JUST ONE of the stories theere are a bunch of them in this article.

torture? is that all you got? scare tactics that never happen.

Lets act as if the President is torturing everyone. then the people might get scared and vote for us.

Pretty sad. Especially for a so called lover of truth.

[truthmatters]

Robert Isakson filed a whistleblower suit against a contractor in 2004 alleging the company bilked the U.S. government out of tens of millions of dollars. A judge later threw out a $10-million ruling in his favor.


he won his case my friend

[darin]

Everyone Thank TruthMatters for this thread getting closed. She can't follow directions.