UNDER THE "BIG W": 12 BILLION STOLEN

One of my favorite movies is "IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD" directed by Stanley Kramer. Remember Spencer Tracy, the mild-mannered chief of Police, who manipulated all those frantic people in order to rob them blind? He had plotted for years to steal the fortune under the big "W". What a coincidence. Guess the BIG "W" could stand for you-know-who of the same initial. Keep in mind, the money under the big W was stolen too.

Anyway, Dick Cheney reminds me of Spencer Tracy's character in that movie. He had no conscience, just like Cheney and Rove. I see Cheney and Rove (they are interchangeable) as the puppet masters standing behing the puppet Bush, pulling all the strings. They will stop at nothing to rape and pillage and ruin our country. They gave no-bid contracts to firms like Blackwater and Haliburton — and guess what? Over nine billion dollars was stolen by "ghost" employees. Turns out that 25% of all no-bid government contracts awarded to Bush's cronies, always "disappears" to the wealthy elite at the top of the chain. And we wonder why the average American cannot afford to survive. The "trickle-down" theory at its finest. This is the most un-Christian thing I've ever heard of.

IRAQ'S MISSING BILLIONS: In a hospital room in Iraq, a newborn baby struggles to breathe. Doctors are deeply frustrated by the severe lack of equipment to save her. The hospital, meant to have benefited from a $4 million refit, is a germ-infested, dilapidated structure with raw sewage leaks in the kitchens and operating rooms. It has melted lighting fixtures. Ants crawl around on the floors. This hospital is just one example of how the huge funds allocated for restoration have somehow gone missing.

In this revealing documentary, Dr. Ali Fadhil, a young Iraqi doctor, sets out to learn what has led to the catastrophic results when money was put into the care of the U.S. led coalition. What emerges is a disturbing tale of corruption and fraud.
As word spread of the kind of money that could be made in Iraq, foreign contractors negotiated deals fast and furiously. CBC Newsworld

From The Age
TENS of billions of dollars have been lost through fraud in Iraq and mismanagement, with some of the money possibly funding the insurgency, a US House of Representatives Committee has been told.

The claims came at the start of a four-day hearing by the House Government Oversight Committee, headed by Henry Waxman. Representatives of eight big companies with contracts in Iraq, including Haliburton, will testify at the hearing, and can expect a hostile reception from the Democrat-controlled committee.

Mr Waxman said the hearing would expose breathtaking "waste, fraud and abuse" and made it clear he intends to pursue senior Bush Administration officials about their role in botched Iraq reconstruction programs.

He said disorganisation and confusion in the Bush Administration after the fall of Iraq meant that billions of dollars had been wasted or stolen and had still to be accounted for.

He said the US Federal Reserve shipped 363 tons of cash, totalling $US12 billion, packed in wooden boxes to Iraq during the Bremer administration from March 2003 to June 2004 but it had "disappeared".

"Who in their right minds would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?" he asked as Mr Bremer sat silently. "But that's exactly what our Government did."

Mr Bremer did not dispute the claim that $12 billion — about a third of the reconstruction budget for 2003 — could not be accounted for and that there was no paper trail that could help explain what happened to it.

"The country was in chaos and the banking system was a shambles," he said. "We had to simplify the contracting rules. Such regulations are simply not designed to deal with wartime conditions."
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THIS JUST IN: You won't see, read or hear this in any main stream news outlet!!!!

Join the Impeachment Race in State Legislatures

New Mexico and Vermont are in a race to be the first state to send impeachment resolutions of Bush and Cheney to Congress (see details below). Several other states are also in the race, including Maine (http://www.maineimpeach.org) and New Jersey (http://www.impeachthem.com). A state legislature, without a governor, can petition the House to begin impeachment, and a single Congress Member can force an impeachment debate by accepting the state resolution.
http://impeachbush.tv/impeach/states.html

You can sign up to get involved and stay informed in your state by signing this petition (you can also print it out and collect signatures):
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/petition
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If You Want to End the War, Investigate It

The investigation season is off to a slow start. In "Beyond Oral Sex: The Bush Investigations" , David Swanson and Jonathan Schwarz lay out what's needed. Very little has been begun. Chairman John Conyers has held hearings on signing statements . Chairman Waxman is holding hearings this week on corruption . To lobby for the right investigations done the right way, go to:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/investigations