PoliSci 101

My logic is go after the lowest hanging fruit first - in this case, something we've already identified, can still be readily catalogued (i.e. it's no cold case), and would yield a high return on investment - and the Halliburton fraud is so blatantly out there, it just needs to be properly added up.

I would love all government/corporate fraud to be investigated and/or exposed, no matter which administration. Keeps guys like me in business. Such an undertaking would require tremendous resources, but it's the sort of thing that pays for itself over time. Just create a special non-partisan commission and open up the books. I assure you it would cost less than a week of wartime deployment. And if we see corruption of this nature and scope in the current administration, you will hear me somewhere calling for heads to roll.

Agreed, cronyism is an old adversary, but when the numbers are in the billions, it's no longer "same old same old," especially given the times. We do not want fraudsters to become any more emboldened than they already are.

Trivia - What's the greatest deterrent to fraudsters? Answer: The perception of detection (they won't do it if it they think they'll get caught).

 

Might as well start calling for those heads then.

I'm not saying I disagree with going after fraud, but I do think you appear to think this is far more simplistic than it seems. There are some massive consequences that have to be thought through before we open that can of worms.

As for the last part, I disagree. People will always go after the quick and easy buck whether you catch them or not. The only thing that changes are the tactics, and even those get recycled.

 

Re-read what I worte: deterrant, not eliminator. You begin to eliminate the incidence of fraud when you increase the perception of detection. There will always be fraud at every level - but people typically commit fraud because of a) opportunity b) rationalization, such as "it's owed to me" c) some type of pressure, such as living beyond one's means. Tactics come later, but only after a decision to do it, and weighing the chances of success.

 

No, I read what you wrote. I just think there's enough A, B, & C to ensure plenty of fraud regardless of what is done. I'm just more cynical (or pessimistic) about this than you are apparantly. The primary reason is that I don't believe you can do it w/o the Government involving itself in some capacity (Congress or otherwise), which would amount to the inmates running the asylum.

 

Admittedly, I havent followed the Halliburton accusations too closely for a lot reasons:

1). No bid contracts sound bad but is the alternative any better? If its during a war do you really want to send out an RFQ, wait for bids, vet the bids, etc when you already know who can get the job done.

2). Also, competitive bids have their downside. When I was at NASA, they would bid out parts of the space station program every four years. Inevitably the lowest bid (for political reasons mind you) would win. This resulted in the current NASA contractor laying off employees who would then be hired by the new NASA contractor who would proceed to perform work over budget because they had underbid in the first place. End result was a lot of wasted time and money and a bunch of skilled employees who lose any accrued or vested benefits because they had to switch companies in order to continue doing the same job for the government.

3) The media and politicians have repeatedly sensationalized the outrageous costs charged for defense spending. My favorite was the $2,000 coffee pot. Well that coffee pot did cost $2,000, but what very few bothered to say was that it was for a stealth bomber. The coffee pot could not be allowed to compromise the plane's ability to evade radar, so yeah, there was some testing, analysis, retrofitting, etc that needed to be done so that those pilots could have a cup of coffee on their 30 hour missions. There are outrageous claims about Halliburton employees behavior in Iraq and I havent looked into how grounded they are in evidence. Just lost my stomach for that after failing to find any truth or fact to the claims that US soldiers were kicking around, "like a soccer ball" the decapitated head of an Iraqi civilian.

3) Halliburton is a large, well establhished company that adds value to the economy and employs lots of people at home and overseas. In fact someone very very special to FulhamUSA is employed be them. My French Canadian bro-in-law also works for them and is often miffed by the popular portrayal of the company. If reputable companies contiue to get slandered by the media and politicians for the sake of news or politics what will happen? Either good companies will say "no thank you" or the cost of doing government business will go up. We all know the latter will and already has happened.

That being said the law is the law, and if Halliburton has broken a law then by all means prosecute. Especially if they are taking advantage of a war. However, as FulhamAg rightly points out, you quickly get into slippery slopes on that subject. Can you really subject the same sort of scrutiny in a war zone; when people are having to ad-lib, make-due, just get the job done ?

You cant really apply standards of practice to situations that have no standard.

 

Thank you, mo... that was the most definitive and reasoned post on the subject of Halliburton's role one could want. Since I live next door to WPAFB, I know a fair amount of what goes on in procurement and you are exactly right about how vendors operate.
What's not said is the money wasted by frontloading overhead and burden in order to cover the costs of change in management. Though, it's probably well worth it to keep vendors from stagnating.

An additional point not brought up is the well known Whistleblower paradigm. If there's egregious corruption within any corporation, it's evident enough that someone will call attention to it. And in Halliburton's case they would leak those incidents to the GAO or a capitol oversight committee member.

And it seems to me that NYT or WaPo would be on that like ticks on dogs. Especially those 'missing billions' and especially now. Well, we will see.

If you are interested in this stuff.. meaning military procurement.. there's a site that does a great round-up of all things mil-industrial establishment pertaining to weapons systems.
strategy page

 

I promosed myself I wouldn't comment anymore on this topic, but thank you both for what you have to say on Halliburton. Look, when I was in Baghdad, I didn't care about if a contract got pushed through too quickly for some. Mo is right. I wanted my rounds. I wanted my soldiers to have food. I had enough equipment that was made by the lowest bidder -- I wanted something that was a little better quality. If that didn't cut the mustard for the folks at NYT or CNN, well, I saw a lot of journos over there and I didn't see any of them fighting the war. I'm telling you now, Halliburton does a lot more good then bad.

Also, all federl employees are briefed pretty thoroughly on the whistleblower program, even military personnel who are reminded that they are are required under the UCMJ not to obey any unlawful orders (to me that is an equivalent).

Brad, thanks for tle idea -- I will check it out.

 

Eric Holder and the Smoke Machine

Next on the Poli-Sci curricula is how to handle the populist voter segment on the notorious torture memos. In other words, make the most something out of a carefully choreographed nothing.

Anyone who has been a fan of lawyer shows knows you cannot hold the defendant's attorney accountable for giving him legal advice. Suppose a guy asks his tax attorney to define what is legal and what is not in the realm of off-shore tax havens. The attorney writes memos outlining various schemes and what he thinks will pass muster to the IRS and in case of litigation.

The attorney wont be held to account if he is wrong... in fact the most likely grounds for peer {state bar} censure is if he does not represent and serve the client's interest. Not if he is 'wrong'.

Now we come to those torture memos. All that was done there is the outline of the attorneys' best views in regard to 'propriety and legality of interrogation methods'.
But the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility began an investigation into the activity almost as soon as it came to light. Obviously these are also lawyers.. got that? They know the law and the duties of the practitioner.

Now we get to the interesting part: This is a five year investigation. The OPR knew about the bar's statute of limitations.. 4 years.

So why do it? Maximum smoke and NO REVIEW, because a peer review would call for at least a precis on the justification for investigation.. and might uncover at least a suspicion of an underlying political agenda... not that a liberal group would have one, of course.

Not to mention the chilling effect on any future legal mavens who might be appointed to advise the executive. I mean who wants a job where your career can be ruined at whim?

So there will be no review, let alone disbarment, the Bush policy can safely be carried forward -sub rosa, of course- in fact it already has been filed for the record with the Sixth Circuit. There will be no prosecutions of anyone on those grounds, the Executive will be satisfied with letting Spanish Loonies carry the water for a show trial and the current government can say..
"Well, we tried.. but it didnt work out"

That, ladies and germs, is Political Science.

Sources:
Tortured Timing
The Torture Memo Follies
Note: Blown Deadline'? How can it be blown if it was designed that way?

 

Fair enough, Spencer... looks like a convergence of morons can happen anywhere. But it almost seems classic addendum to 'Catch-22'.

Meantime, here's an example of how an old and honorable federal vendor can get itself in more trouble than it deserves just by association with shady lobbyists:

Gentex under scrutiny

This brings up two things:
That $2000 coffee pot.
Note we're talking about the plating on a screw on the chinstrap of a helmet. In the consumer market that would only lead to poor public opinion of the product. And many wouldnt even notice it. Such things never seemed to hurt VW and Audi much.
Like Mo said.. and this illustrates it perfectly.

Why Gentex even NEEDS a lobbyist? This caught my attention because I recognized the name. And I havent been around the procurement side since the seventies.. maybe it was when I was in the Navy.. who knows.