The Bush Administration's Ten Most Outrageous Scandals -

ANNALS OF OUTRAGE

Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation

The Bush administration's ten most outrageous scandals --
an orgy of fraud, mismanagement and corruption.

http://www.alternet.org/story/21018/


In 2004 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Inspector Generals (IG) in various departments of the federal government issued reports revealing fraud, mismanagement and corruption. Here is my list of the Bush administration's Ten Most Outrageous Scandals thus far uncovered by government investigators:

1. Halliburton's Corruption. Nine different reports compiled by the GAO, the Coalition Provisional Authority's IG and the Defense Contract Audit Agency faulted Halliburton's performance in Iraq, where it has been awarded more than $10 billion in U.S. contracts. The government investigators cited, among other things, significant cost overruns, the overcharging of the Defense Department (and taxpayers) by $61 million, illegal kickbacks, failure to police subcontractors' billing and unauthorized expenses at the Kuwait Hilton Hotel. The list of abuses will likely get longer in 2005, as multiple criminal investigations into Halliburton's work pick up steam.

2. Iraq's Decline. In June 2004 the GAO provided a bleak assessment of Iraq after 14 months of U.S. military occupation, documenting that in critical areas like security, electricity and the judicial system Iraq is worse off now than it was before the war.

3. Abu Ghraib Prison Torture. In late August Maj. Gen. George Fay released an official Army report charging that U.S. military personnel committed torture and that civilian contractors and military intelligence interrogators played a greater role in abusing prisoners than previously thought. The Fay report blamed "a lack of discipline on the part of leaders and soldiers" and a "failure or lack of leadership" by senior military commanders in Iraq.

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just a reminder