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Banned
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...on edit, powerclown, after reading your last response to dc_dux, your technique of debating is so low that I regret that I showed you the deference to bother to post all of this. Your Orwellian "doublespeak" is what it is.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by powerclown
I reject the issue as you would have it. I'm sure the soldiers are thankful to the media for telling them how to outfit their vehicles. The US Army owes an enormous debt a gratitude to CNN, wonderful. I wonder if CNN correspondents have offered themselves to be strapped to humvee front bumpers as IED triggers. Talk about helping out a brutha.
Back to the point: There is absolutely no excuse for a so-called prominent, responsible american newspaper to publish internet VIDEOS of american soldiers getting KIA.
Under any circumstances. Ever.
None.
Period.
End of story.
Wouldn't you say?
UNLESS, of course, you're an antiwar media empire pushing an antiwar sentiment.
Then it's cool.
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powerclown, I have to observe that, by posting the distraction of the NY Times photo/video reporting of a dying US soldier, KIA in Baghdad, you "pulled" a "Duncan Hunter ploy". I don't think that it worked for the yet to be indicted, Duke Cunningham co-conspirator and bribe taker, Hunter, and I don't think that it will work for you. It all comes down to what does demonstrably greater harm to the defense of the US and the safety and well being of "the troops". Is it a huge, corrupt, "quid pro quo" that included Duncan Hunter using his house committee chairmanship to force unwanted and expensive "programs" down the Pentagon's throat, in exchange for, at minimum....campaign contributions from Cunningham briber Wilkes, and rides on Wilke's executive jet....or is it the bullshit that you and Hunter trot out to divert the indignation where it obviously should be directed?
I'm astounded at the triviality that causes you such concern, and the appalling corruption, amounting to treason in a "time of war", that you choose not even to respond to:
The new NIE on Iraq, seems to agrees that our leaders have done what they promised not to do, keep our troops deployed in Iraq in the midst of a civil war:
Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002470.php
NIE: Iraq Is in "Civil War"
By Paul Kiel - February 2, 2007, 11:11 AM
The NIE is unequivocal on the whole "civil war" debate, a phrase the administration has been desperate to avoid:
The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.
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Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002469.php
NIE: The Surge Can't Work
By Spencer Ackerman - February 2, 2007, 10:58 AM
Wow, this is grim. According to the just-released Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, political reconciliation is likely a bridge too far over the next year and a half.
http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070202_release.pdf
The Sunnis remain "unwilling to accept minority status" and believe the Shiite majority is a stalking horse for Iran. The Shiites remain "deeply insecure" about their hold on power, meaning that the Shiite leadership views U.S.-desired compromises -- on oil, federalism and power-sharing -- as a threat to its position. Perhaps most ominously, the upcoming referendum on the oil-rich, multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk threatens to be explosive, as the Kurds are determined to finally regain full control over the city.
Interestingly, the listed prospects for reversing Iraq's deterioration contradict the NIE's assessment of where things actually stand. For instance, "broader Sunni acceptance of the current political structure and federalism" and "significant concessions by Shia and Kurds" could lead to stability -- but the NIE's earlier section viewed both these events as unlikely. To put this in the realm of the current debate, President Bush's "surge" is designed to give political breathing room to events that the intelligence community formally judges as unrealistic:
Quote:
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...even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this Estimate.
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About Iran. This must have been one of the most controversial elements of the estimate: Iraq's neighbors are "not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics." There's the expected qualifications that Iran and Syria are up to no good, but this is the major point. In other words, no matter how much Bush wants to lay the blame for the disintegration of Iraq on the meddlesome interference of Iran and Syria, the U.S.-sponsored political process itself -- indeed, the new, U.S.-midwifed Iraqi political order -- itself sows the seeds for the country's destruction. Apparently Bush could attack Iran to his heart's content, and Iraq would still remain inflamed.
Oh, and one final thought: this is just what's unclassified. If past NIEs are any prologue, what remains classified is much, much grimmer than what we see here. More likely than not, this is the most optimistic presentation of the NIE possible.
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<b>powerclown....you chose to dredge up yet another non-issue, just as Duncan Hunter did:</b>
Quote:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...itroom.02.html
THE SITUATION ROOM
Death Toll Climbing for American Troops in Iraq; CNN Sticks to Decision of Showing Dangers Troops Face; Is Do-Nothing Congress At Heart of Broken Government?
Aired October 23, 2006 - 17:00 ET
....BLITZER: Is -- is this appropriate, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Hunter, for the American public to see how awful, to see how brutal the war can actually be?
Because I -- I guess there has been criticism from the other side that we sort of whitewash, and we don't really convey to the American public the full extent of the brutality of the enemy. Do the American people have a right to know what war is like?
HUNTER: Well -- well, first, Wolf, the American people aren't made out of cotton candy. They understand, when you see 2,791 battlefield deaths, that people are killed, and they are killed in bad ways.
This is the first generation of Americans that could actually go online and watch an American be decapitated, have his head cut off by al-Zarqawi, as they watch. So, I would say that, contrary to what you are saying, this is a war in which more brutality is shown than probably any other.
But the point is that -- that this one killing of one American doesn't really tell any statistic. Of -- of the people killed in Iraq, 524 of our Americans have been killed in accidents, mainly automobile accidents. Now, you don't show automobile accidents, because it's not sexy. It's not violent. It doesn't draw a big audience. Showing the impact of a single bullet, a single shooting doesn't tell you anything. If you isolated one American going down on Omaha Beach at Normandy, what would that tell the American public?
BLITZER: Well, let me interrupt...
HUNTER: But how...
BLITZER: ... Mr. Chairman.
HUNTER: But -- but I guess my question to you is -- is, Wolf, how instructive would that be with respect to the conduct of the war? It tells you nothing, except an American was struck by a bullet and went down.
BLITZER: But we never actually showed the impact. And you can take a look at that five-minute report. And you will see that we never saw -- we went to black before that insurgent video, that propaganda video, which we ourselves called it a propaganda piece of footage...
(CROSSTALK)
HUNTER: Then -- then, what's the value, Wolf? What's the possible value, then?
BLITZER: The value -- some of -- some of the thinking -- and let me bring in General Grange on this.
When the Pentagon announces killed in action, they -- they don't refer to snipers specifically. They refer to small-arms fire. And there have been hundreds of American troops who have been killed in small-arms fire. And -- and one of the things that we saw in this video -- and, General Grange, let me let you elaborate -- is the nature of the enemy, how they stalk and try to kill American troops with these kinds of snipers.
But, go ahead, General, and -- and talk a little bit about that.
GRANGE: No, I mean, you can argue whether the tape should be shown or not.
I mean, I just looked back. Since 9/11, I mean, a different -- when you are asked to do a -- to make comment on a different segment, quite often, it's a decision you have to make, at least in my case, as a retired G.I., and working with the media periodically, that I always have a tough decision whether I should even comment or not.
In this case, this thing is shown overseas. And I knew it would be shown in some extent. Thank God that we show it in a -- in a better way than it is showed in its raw footage.
But point is that I guess I cheated a little bit, because we kind of -- my comments were kind of to turn it around and show the -- and capabilities of the enemy in this regard, and -- and how they use civilians for cover, and abuse civilian neighborhoods, and -- and just the way they operate, which is against the land -- rule of land warfare, to expose those things.
So, you know, in a difficult situation like this, showing it or not, I think it's also an opportunity to exploit these guys, and give the information to our people, so we can survive and take them down.
HUNTER: General, I look at it just the opposite.
I think showing Americans being killed by terrorists, with -- apparently, with impunity, because the film doesn't show the terrorists then being pursued and killed. And lots of terrorists who have shot at Americans took their last shot at the Americans, because they themselves were killed in turn.
But showing the world a film, and lots of terrorists out there watching their TV sets, a picture of an American being killed in a crowd by a terrorist who operates, apparently, with impunity, and gets away, is highly suggestive, I think, and highly instructive to them.
And I think it's dangerous to Americans, not only uniformed Americans, but also tourists, Americans who might go abroad and be in one of those crowds one day, when somebody who saw that film, how you just walk up and kill them while they are in a crowd, decides to replicate that action.
BLITZER: All right.
HUNTER: Well, sir, if I may, it's a point well taken. And -- and I recognize that.
And -- and I would say that, in the comments that were said in this, that, in my evaluation, they were not all -- they did not kill a lot of the Americans in this shot. They missed. There were some wounds. And, in fact, the -- they were not that good, and which would have been a different slant, the way it was shown internationally, compared to how it was shown by -- in the United States.
BLITZER: We're almost out of time, Mr. Chairman, but let me just wrap it up.
In your -- your letter, you suggest that CNN reporters no longer be allowed to be embedded with U.S. military forces in Iraq. We have several of our reporters all the time embedded, literally risking their lives, very courageous reporters, whether Michael Ware. John Roberts is embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq right now. And -- and we have -- we have -- we have been doing that for three-and-a-half years.
Are you at least open to this notion that good people, like you and General Grange, can disagree on this, without questioning the -- the credibility, the patriotism of CNN?
<h3>HUNTER: I think that -- I think the question I asked when I saw this, Wolf, is, does CNN want America to win this thing?</h3>
And, if I was a platoon leader there, as I once was, and I had a -- and I had a news organization which had shown, had -- had taken film from the enemy, showing them killing one of my soldiers, and they asked if they could be embedded in my platoon, my answer would be no.
I go back to the -- to the -- the days of guys like Joe Rosenthal, who filmed the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, and Ernie Pyle, who was a soldier's reporter, the guys who were on our side -- even though they reported the rough and the tough of the war, they were on our side.
You can't be on both sides. And I would say, if I was that platoon leader, I would say, absolutely not. Take CNN out of there. You can't be on both sides.....
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<h3>The real problem that powerclown and Duncan Hunter exhibit no concern about. How many of our troops would be safer...unwounded....even alive, today, if these "patriots" in congress, had none traded precious defense dollars away for....what ???</h3>
Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13006800...wsweek/page/2/
Man in the Middle
As a corruption probe heats up on Capitol Hill, the spotlight falls on a California defense contractor with some powerful friends.
By Mark Hosenball, Jamie Reno and Evan Thomas
Newsweek
June 5, 2006 issue
...According to published reports and congressional and law-enforcement sources who did not want to be identified discussing a sensitive investigation, the Feds are also reviewing Wilkes's ties to other powerful House leaders. Former GOP majority leader Tom DeLay, <b3>Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter and Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis all reportedly had dealings with Wilkes.</b3> None has been accused of any wrongdoing; a spokesman for Lewis said the congressman had not seen Wilkes for 10 years. <b3>Hunter's spokesman said his boss urged the Pentagon to ignore congressional pressure on contracting</b3>, and DeLay's lawyer had no immediate comment....
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Quote:
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/200...s_brand_o.html
<h3>Hunter's Brand of Congressional "Oversight"</h3>
<p>The <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=oversight">two definitions of the word "oversight"</a> have a neat symmetry. One means "an unintentional omission or mistake," whereas the other, is nearly its exact opposite: "Watchful care or management; supervision." Typically, the latter meaning of the word is meant when it appears in the phrase "congressional oversight." But not always, with the minor caveat that the "unintentional omission" may, at times, been intentional...</p>
<p>Since there seems to be burgeoning interest in the real estate holdings of staffers-turned-lobbyists (-turned-staffers-again, <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051223/images/lewislowery.pdf">in some cases</a>) and defense contractors in Jerry Lewis’ orbit (Laura Rozen provides a nice summation and one-stop shop of links <a href="http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004353.html">here</a>), we think it’s worth revisiting a sub-rosa real estate relationship involving House Armed Service Committee chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA).</p>
<p>Almost exactly a year ago, the Associated Press <a href="http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050616/NEWS06/506160474&template=printart">did a nice roundup</a> of House leadership financial disclosure statements. Among the highlights for Hunter was his co-ownership of a rural Virginia cabin with “former Democratic U.S. Rep. Pete Geren of Texas.”</p>
<p>At first glance, no big deal. Preston M. “Pete” Geren III, however, is not your average former Congressman. A <a href="http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/bluedog.htm">Blue Dog</a> from the Texas 12th, Geren’s 1989-1997 House stint is still less-than-fondly remembered by some for his relentless championing of that ineffective sinkhole of a project brought to us by Boeing and Bell, <a href="http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/wwV22.html">the V-22 Osprey</a>.</p>
<p>More recently, Geren briefly served as <a href="http://www.hilltoptimes.com/story.asp?edition=217&storyid=6096">Acting Secretary</a> of the Air Force from July to November 2005, after Air Force Secretary James Roche resigned in the wake of the <a href="http://pogo.org/p/contracts/TankerLeasingDeal.html">Boeing tanker lease scandal</a>. In February 2006, Geren was <a href="http://www.army.mil/leaders/leaders/usa/printbio.html">confirmed as Undersecretary of the Army</a>.</p>
<p>But Geren is no newcomer to the Pentagon. Between 2001-2005, Geren occupied an office <a href="http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?s_hidethis=no&p_product=DM&p_theme=dm&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_field_label-0=Author&p_field_label-1=title&p_bool_label-1=AND&p_field_label-2=Section&p_bool_label-2=AND&s_dispstring=pete%20geren%20AND%20date%2803/02/2003%20to%2003/02/2003%29&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=03/02/2003%20to%2003/02/2003%29&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=%28%22pete%20geren%22%29&p_perpage=10&xcal_numdocs=20&p_sort=YMD_date &xcal_useweights=no">"strategically next door"</a> to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whom he served as <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/geren_bio.html">a special assistant</a> responsible for "inter-agency initiatives, legislative affairs, and special projects." In written responses to questions posed by the Senate Armed Service Committee during his Army confirmation earlier this year, Geren noted that among his specific responsibilities as a Rumsfeld aide was acting as Pentagon liaison with Congress on detainee abuse issues that began with Abu Ghraib in 2004.</p>
<p>A less-charitable description of Geren’s Abu Ghraib duties, according to a knowledgeable congressional source, was “keeping Congress off Rumsfeld’s back”. Indeed, much to the Pentagon’s consternation, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner's (R-VA) was actually moved to investigate Abu Ghraib and hold multiple hearings on the matter. Not so with Geren's real estate partner, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Consistently dismissive of interrogation and detention excesses as isolated incidents, <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.congress05may05,0,659146.story?page=2&coll=bal-iraq-storyutil">Hunter actively discouraged Congressional investigation into Abu Ghraib</a>.</p>
<a id="more"></a>
<p>Absent from national press coverage of Hunter's antipathy towards
Abu Ghraib investigations, however, was the fact that Hunter's <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00006983&cycle=2004">top corporate</a> <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00006983&cycle=2002">campaign contributor</a>, San Diego-based defense contractor Titan Corporation, potentially had a lot to lose in the scandal. (Titan <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00007050&cycle=2004">gave generously</a> to Cunningham as well).</p>
<p>When Titan bought Virginia-based contractor RTG in 2001, it also
acquired a $10 million, five-year contract awarded in 1999 to provide
linguists to the US Army. In the wake of 9/11, Titan's linguist
contract was given a ceiling of $657 million, with the company
receiving $112.1 million from the contract in 2003--six percent of
Titan's total revenue. A May 21, 2004 report <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20040521-9999-1n21titan.html">by the <em>San Diego Union-Tribune</em></a>
revealed Titan’s contractor hiring and training practices to be
systemically lacking, and that far from supplying "skilled contract
linguists" as its contract stipulated, Titan was "hiring people who
speak limited English and have no professional experience as
interpreters and translators". Personnel from Titan were also singled
out in both the Taguba, Fay and Kern reports as participants in abuses
at Abu Ghraib. (Titan, along with Arlington, Virginia-based contractor
CACI, is currently facing multiple lawsuits.)</p>
<p>As Abu Ghraib was unfolding, Titan was also losing money in legal
bills as federal investigators were discovering Titan to be among the
most ethically bankrupt US contractors doing business overseas. The
matter of illicit campaign contributions-for-quadrupled management fees
in the West African nation of Benin didn’t sit well with the Justice
Department; a host of document falsifications and under-reporting
expenses didn’t sit well with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
(Lockheed Martin wasn’t thrilled, either; poised to buy Titan, the
company pulled out of the deal in 2004). On March 1, 2005, <a href="http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/daily_news/25663-1.html">Titan pled guilty to three criminal counts of bribery</a>, and paid a total of $28.5 million in fines to the Justice Department and SEC.</p>
<p>Despite the brazenness and scope of Titan's actions, as part of the
federal government’s settlement with the company, the Defense
Department waived its right to disbar Titan from any contracts. Though
the Titan contract should have been re-bid by now, according to
transcripts of recent Titan shareholder conference calls, the company
(now part of L3 Communications, which bought it last year) will retain
the contract until at least next year.</p>
<p><h3>As a general rule, we tend to think that those charged with
oversight, and those overseen by Congress, shouldn’t be in business
together--and if they are, their respective disclosures should be
clearer. (<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/pfd2004/N00006983_2004.pdf">Hunter’s disclosures (pdf)</a>
make no mention of Geren’s Defense Department affiliation, and Geren’s
disclosures simply refer to the “Hunter/Geren partnership”--to look at
them, you’d have no idea that the “Hunter” chaired House Armed
Services). Would public knowledge of the business relationship between
the Pentagon’s Congressional point man for Abu Ghraib and the House
Armed Services Committee Chairman--and, as we noted earlier, champion
of an exceptionally ethically-challenged defense contractor--given
anyone pause in May 2004 (or any other time, for that matter)? Was
Hunter’s real estate partner in a position to help Hunter help any of
his defense contractor patrons?</h3></p>
<p>Whatever the case, Geren has done nicely for himself while in
government service. As his on-average 28 page public financial
disclosure reports reveal, though he resigned his position on several
corporate boards when he took the Army job, in his four years as a
Rumsfeld special assistant, Geren collected an approximate total of
$200,000 a year as a director of Anadarko Petroleum, Texas-New Mexico
Power Company, Cullen/Frost Bankers and RME Petroleum.</p>
<p>-- Jason Vest</p>
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Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...9-1n4adcs.html
ADCS founder spent years cultivating political contacts
By Dean Calbreath
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
and Jerry Kammer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
December 4, 2005
.......Wilkes left Aimco in 1992 to take a job as a political consultant for Audre Inc., a Rancho Bernardo firm that specialized in automated document conversion systems, which converted maps and engineering drawings into a format that could be edited via computer.
Audre, which was nearly bankrupt at the time, was eager to get more federal contracts. Shortly after Wilkes' arrival, the 35-person firm, headed by San Diego businessman Tom Casey, began donating thousands of dollars to key members of Congress.
"Wilkes was a political operator," said former Audre engineer Dirk Holland. "He was pretty slick. He knew how to grease the wheels."
Said a former business associate of Wilkes: "He knew that it pays to get a sponsor. He knew that's the way the game is played, and he convinced Tom Casey that that's what it's all about."
Union-Tribune file photo
Congressmen Duncan Hunter (left) and Randy "Duke" Cunningham, shown here before a base-closure commission hearing in June 1991, have received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from various defense firms.
Between 1992 and 1997, Audre employees and family members donated $77,000 to members of Congress. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, who got $7,250, and Cunningham, who got $5,050, became prominent backers of automated document systems in Congress.
<h3>"Our job as San Diego congressmen is to do our best to make sure our guys get a fair shot," Hunter said recently. "And Brent Wilkes and Tom Casey were aggressive and enthusiastic promoters of a breakthrough technology."</h3>
Audre was able to increase its influence by teaming up with Evergreen Information Technologies, a Colorado company that specialized in computerizing federal contract information.
Casey had been one of the founders of Evergreen in the early 1990s and served on its board of directors. Evergreen gave $22,000 in political donations, often targeting the same politicians on the same dates as Audre.
According to charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, $20,000 of Evergreen's donations were illegal. Evergreen Chief Executive Barry Nelsen asked staffers to write $1,000 checks, leaving the "payee" line blank, according to SEC documents. Nelsen then gave the checks to lawmakers and repaid his workers in violation of federal law, the SEC charged in 1993.
Nelsen did not fight the charges and was fined $65,000. He says he made the donations – none of which went to Hunter or Cunningham – so Congress would push the Navy to work with his firm.
Getting noticed
"I went to Tom Casey and said, 'How do we get some money or political heat or something to make the Navy do what they should do?' " Nelsen said. "So up pops Brent Wilkes."
Nelsen said Wilkes identified which politicians should be given donations.
The lobbying by Audre, as well as that of other software companies, was effective. Congress created an automated document conversion program, which provided $190 million in contracts between 1993 and 2001.
Audre won more than $12.5 million of those contracts, largely provided through earmarks that let legislators add pet projects to the budget.
"An earmark is usually devoted to a particular company or particular project that is tied to a particular congressman," said Michael Surrusco, director of ethics campaigns at Common Cause, a government watchdog group.
Earmarks are typically added to budget bills after they have been passed by the Senate and the House and the differing versions are being resolved in a conference committee. Because those meeting occur outside public view, the earmarks can be a way of avoiding scrutiny or accountability.
The earmarks were included in the budget even though the Pentagon never asked for funds for automated document conversion. In 1994, the General Accounting Office, now known as the Government Accountability Office, which monitors federal spending, found that the military did not need automated systems because it already had its own systems to digitize documents.
That did not dissuade Audre's supporters in Congress.
Union-Tribune file photo
Tom Casey, founder of Audre Inc., a business that specialized in automated document conversion systems, hired Brent Wilkes in 1992 as a political consultant for the company.
"I operate under the idea that not all good ideas come out of the Pentagon," Hunter said.
Two dozen firms vied for funding from the automated document conversion program. Their success depended on lobbying influential legislators, said Richard Gehling, who headed Audre's federal sales in the late 1990s.
Once Congress has appropriated money for programs, Pentagon officials decide how to apportion the money among prequalified contractors. These officials are very mindful of the desires of members of Congress who were crucial in funding the program, contractors and program managers said.
Gehling described Audre's technique for obtaining government contracts during a deposition in a lawsuit he filed in 2000 to gain back pay from the company.
A successful sale to the military, he maintained, "normally boiled down to who the House or Senate member was and how much pressure they put on the undersecretary (of Defense) about getting the funding for their constituents."
Audre attorney Ian Kessler asked: "That, in turn, depends upon how much political muscle, how much influence (a company has) with a particular congressperson?"
Gehling: "The majority of the time, it's (whichever company) has the most clout."
Kessler: "You mean the most political clout?"
Gehling: "Who's paid more."
Kessler: "Paid more in terms of political contributions?"
Gehling: "Fundraisers. Sponsoring."
To build more political backing for Audre, Wilkes asked Casey in 1994 to budget at least $40,000 a month for lobbying, far beyond what the money-losing company had been spending, according to two sources at the company.
When Casey balked, Wilkes quit the firm. Six months later, Wilkes launched ADCS Inc., customizing a German system called VPMax to compete for contracts to convert government documents. It was a family affair. Most of the company's top executives were related to Wilkes or his wife, Regina.
<b3>The Pentagon rated VPMax as faster, easier and cheaper than Audre. VPMax cost $6,035 per unit, compared with $11,479 for Audre's PC system and $29,950 for its Unix system.
Even so, Hunter backed Audre, partly because it was a U.S.-made product.
"I did oppose having a German firm get the business," he said recently, although the German creator of VPMax was getting little more than licensing fees for the ADCS project.</b3>
Casey played on that sentiment. When talking to Hunter about ADCS, Casey called it "the German software." Hunter, in turn, asked Maj. Gen. John Phillips, the Pentagon's chief purchasing officer, to "whenever possible, use [document conversion] products that are made in the United States by American taxpayers."
In May 1995, just as Wilkes was launching ADCS, Hunter – who had just been named chairman of the Armed Services Committee – let Audre use his office for two weeks to demonstrate its newest release to Pentagon officials.
Two weeks after the demonstrations ended, Audre sold $1.2 million of the software to the military for testing.
1972 yearbook photo
Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo (top), now the CIA's executive director, was a friend of Brent Wilkes' at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista.
<b3>"When you're in a position like Hunter was, you have a lot of clout, and we're not supposed to rock the boat," said a former Pentagon procurement official who declined to be named.</b3>
At that point, Wilkes started donating money to Cunningham, who sat on a House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Pentagon budget. Since October 1995, he and his associates have given $71,500 to Cunningham's campaign and political action committee. Cunningham became an ADCS booster.
"The success achieved by ADCS Inc. is an asset to the San Diego business and technological communities," Cunningham said in a 1997 endorsement that was printed in ADCS' pamphlets and press releases. He predicted VPMax would lead to "a stronger, more efficient national defense."
<h3>In 1996, Casey pressed Hunter to find out why the military was not buying more of Audre's software. Hunter demanded a Pentagon investigation.
A report from the Pentagon's Inspector General responded that "little demand exists" for automated document conversion systems. Aside from a Navy base in Ventura County, Port Hueneme, no military installation said it needed the systems. Much of the software Congress had funded was languishing in storage.
Such criticism did not dissuade Hunter.
According to Gehling's deposition, Hunter pushed the military to buy $2.5 million in Audre software in February 1997.
"There were still problems with the software," Gehling said. "It's always been flaky. It's still flaky."
Under pressure from Cunningham, the Pentagon shifted the money from Audre to ADCS.</h3> At the time, Cunningham said he only wanted the military to pick the best contractor possible. Donald Lundell, who was then Audre's chief executive, accused Cunningham of being swayed by Wilkes' campaign contributions.
At the time, Cunningham rejected any criticism of his actions.
"I'm on the side of the angels here," he said then, adding that anyone who questioned his role "can just go to hell."
Questionable projects
By then, the document conversion program was drawing fire from Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who included it on a list of $5.5 billion "objectionable" earmarks that Congress had tacked onto the military budget.
<h3>In July 1997, McCain accused the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House National Security Committee, where both Hunter and Cunningham sat, of "virtually ignoring the request of the Pentagon and impeding the military's ability to channel resources where they are most needed."
McCain said that "with military training exercises continuing to be cut, backlogs in aircraft and ship maintenance, flying hour shortfalls, military health care underfunded by $600 million, and 11,787 service members reportedly on food stamps," Congress should not be funding "a plethora of programs not requested by the Defense Department."</h3>
McCain was largely ignored. Three months later, Congress earmarked $20 million for document conversion systems. The earmarks hit $25 million the next year, including ADCS' biggest project: a $9.7 million contract to digitize documents in the Panama Canal Zone, which was to be handed to Panama in 1999.
The idea for the project came about at a time that Hunter and Cunningham were both warning that the People's Republic of China might try to take over Panama once U.S. forces left. The project was based on the idea that the U.S. should have blueprints of public buildings in Panama in case of a Chinese takeover.
Wilkes began lobbying for the project in early 1998, targeting Rep. Robert Livingston of Louisiana, who chaired the Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands and Cunningham, who served on the subcommittee on defense.
As the Appropriations Committee earmarked the budget, Wilkes, his wife Regina, Wilkes' nephew and lobbyist Joel Combs, attorney Richard Bliss and Rollie Kimbrough, a Democrat who headed a Washington, D.C., company that partnered with ADCS on the project, contributed a total of $28,000 to the three Republican lawmakers.
The project passed without the Pentagon's support, since most of the documents in Panama had little military value. Many of the documents that were of military value already were being photocopied, faxed or scanned into computers.
But Wilkes got a contract to convert millions of documents into computer-readable format, including reams of papers that dated to the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. By Wilkes' own description, ADCS was using its most expensive technology to scan engineering drawings from the 1870s and images of boats from the 1910s.
Louis Kratz, an assistant undersecretary of defense, tried to block funding for the project, arguing there were more pressing needs at the Army's Missile Command, the Air Force's Logistics Center and an Air Force Pacific Base project.
Kratz was rebuffed by Cunningham as well as Hunter, who wanted the Pentagon to give Audre a $3.9 million contract to perform document conversion on an Abrams tank project.
Kratz later told The Washington Post that he had never encountered such "arrogance" and "meddling" as he had from Cunningham and Wilkes. John Karpovich, who helped run the document conversion program at the Defense Department before his retirement, said Wilkes infuriated Pentagon staff by claiming that the document conversion money belonged to him.
"Brent came in and said, 'That's our money,' " Karpovich recalled. "He said, 'The congressmen put the money in there for us.' "
Kratz eventually freed the funds, delaying the Air Force and Missile Command projects. But he also asked the Inspector General to investigate how the projects got funding.
In June 2000, the Pentagon Inspector General reported that several important projects had lost funding because "two congressmen" pressured defense officials to shift the money to the Panama and Abrams tank projects. The shift in funding was causing some military officers to "lose confidence in the fairness of the selection process," the Inspector General reported.
Lavish living
The money from Panama and other ADCS contracts – ranging from Gateway computer systems to military sound technology – helped fund a heady lifestyle for Wilkes and his associates.
In 1999, Wilkes and his wife bought a $1.5 million home in the Poway hills. He soon bought a second home: a $283,500 town house in the Virginia suburbs near Washington, D.C. During his visits to Washington, he made his rounds in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes. At the Capital Grille, a favored hangout of legislators and lobbyists, he rented a personalized wine locker with his best friend Foggo.
Wilkes spread his taxpayer-provided funds throughout his company, taking executives on periodic retreats to Hawaii and Idaho.
In Honolulu, Wilkes stayed at suites at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel or rented the beachfront mansion of the late hairstyling mogul Paul Mitchell, which typically goes for $50,000 a week.
In Idaho, Wilkes' team stayed at the posh Coeur d'Alene Resort, where Wilkes paid $2,500 a night for a 2,500-square-foot penthouse suite, featuring an indoor swimming pool and outdoor Jacuzzi, said former employees and sources in Idaho.
For dinner, Wilkes would take his team to Beverley's restaurant, where a group meal could easily cost several thousand dollars. For recreation, they would fish, Jet Ski or play at the resort's exclusive golf course, famed for its 14th hole on a man-made floating island in Lake Coeur d'Alene.
There were retreats to Hawaii and Idaho at least once a year, said one source inside the company, with visits to Idaho typically occurring in spring or summer and visits to Hawaii in fall or winter.
Wilkes made no bones about where his money was coming from. His jet-black Hummer bore a license plate reading MIPR ME – a reference to Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests, which authorize funds in the Pentagon.
Wilkes shared the benefits of his largesse with the politicians who helped him. He took Cunningham on several out-of-state trips on his corporate jet. Cunningham has produced no records showing that he paid for food, lodging or transportation while traveling to resorts with Wilkes, although he does have receipts for several campaign trips on Wilkes' jet.
Wilkes also bought a small powerboat that he moored behind Cunningham's yacht, the Kelly C, at the Capital Yacht Club in Washington, D.C. The boat was available for Cunningham's use anytime Wilkes was not using it.
But what landed Wilkes in trouble with federal prosecutors was his gifts to Cunningham. According to Cunningham's plea agreement, "Co-conspirator No. 1," gave $525,000 to Cunningham on May 13, 2004, to pay off the second mortgage on Cunningham's home in Rancho Santa Fe.
Co-conspirator No. 1 also gave $100,000 to Cunningham on May 1, 2000, which went into Cunningham's personal accounts in San Diego and Washington, D.C. And he paid $11,116.50 to help pay Cunningham's mortgage on the Kelly C.
The plea agreement charged that in return for the payments, Cunningham "used his public office and took other official action to influence U.S. Department of Defense personnel to award and execute government contracts."
<h3>Wilkes befriended other legislators, too. He ran a hospitality suite, with several bedrooms, in Washington – first in the Watergate Hotel and then in the Westin Grand near Capitol Hill.
He also kept his donations flowing, targeting people with clout over the Pentagon budget: $43,000 to Jerry Lewis, who now heads the Appropriations Committee; $35,500 to Hunter, who heads the Armed Services Committee; and $30,000 to Tom DeLay, who flew on Wilkes' jet several times and has been a frequent golfing buddy.
Over the past three years, Wilkes' lobbying group in Washington – Group W Advisors – also paid about $630,000 in lobbying fees to Alexander Strategy Group, a firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff Ed Buckham and staffed with former DeLay employees.</h3>
The firm has a well-publicized reputation in Washington as a conduit to DeLay's office.
"The Alexander lobbyists' sales pitch was, 'Either you hire me or DeLay is going to screw you,' " an anonymous source identified as a top Republican lobbyist told the Congressional Quarterly weekly last month. "It was not really a soft sell."
Besides donating money to DeLay's campaign, Wilkes also has given money to a political action committee that DeLay helped organize: Texans for a Republican Majority. The group is under investigation for allegedly breaking Texas law to divert corporate contributions into its drive to redraw the state's election districts.
DeLay was indicted in late September over his activities with the group.
One of the group's biggest contributors was PerfectWave Technologies, one of Wilkes' companies, which donated $15,000.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert also flew on Wilkes' jet several times, sources say, although Hastert's expense records show no payments for such trips.
Besides its military work, ADCS also vied for state and municipal contracts, both for document conversion services as well as mapping systems to help speed police, firefighters and emergency workers to crime sites or fires.
As Wilkes vied for contracts, he donated to state and local politicians, such as San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts and Assemblyman George Plescia of Poway. The kickoff for Plescia's political campaign was held in ADCS' headquarters; Plescia was about to marry Wilkes' government affairs manager Melissa Dollaghan.
Other than Wilkes' donations to federal campaigns, his biggest contributions went to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Besides helping coordinate the Schwarzenegger campaign's finance activities in San Diego County during the 2003 recall election, Wilkes and his wife donated $42,400 to Schwarzenegger, the maximum allowable. The next year, Wilkes allowed Schwarzenegger to use ADCS' headquarters as a local office for his 2004 workers' compensation initiative campaign........
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powerclown you claim to "support the troops", but you diverted the discussion here by inserting the "no impact" NY Times video reporting of an American "KIA" in Iraq. You're on display here, objecting the "injury" to "the troops" of the least consequence, while they struggle in a deployment that the CIC knows, or worse....should know...but is too much in self-denial to admit, is impossible for the troops to "win"...whatever that word means to the CIC and others who use it in the context of Iraq. I'd advise you to spend time reading what I've posted, clicking on all of the links in the articles and reading what they contain, too. Then...examine what you are upset, or not upset about, and why??? Events have and will continue to unfold in ways that leave your posted positions exposed to even more scrutiny, unless you are prepared to whitewash this war, too, as a "noble" one, circa late '70's Reagan, on Vietnam.
Last edited by host; 02-02-2007 at 10:28 AM..
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