There has been scant information regarding the 2008 American/Iraqi agreement that President Bush wants to have in place by July 31st when the current agreement that the UN has for having military troops in Iraq expires. What information that has come out is mostly from the Iraqi government commenting publicly in frustration of their disagreements with what President Bush proposed and wants in the agreement.
I was reading that the agreement that the Bush Administration has been trying to pass on the Iraqi government is very similar to what the British tried to enforce back in the 30's. as seen below.
1930 Pact Between Iraq and Britain
1.) Iraq had to consult with Britain on security issues.
2.) Iraq had to allow Britain use of all road, airports, ports, railways, and rivers.
3.) Iraq had to allow Britain to have two major military bases within Iraq.
4.) Britain could station troops through out Iraq.
5.) Iraq had to grant personnel immunity from Iraqi laws and prosecutions.
Proposed 2008 Pact between Iraq and United States
1.) Would allow officials to detain or arrest suspected terrorists with out the approval of Iraqi government.
2.) Would allow the United States complete control over Iraqi airspace.
3.) Would allow approximately 58 U.S. military bases in Iraq.
4.) Would give the U.S. troops, contractors, and personnel immunity from Iraqi laws.
The pact of 1930 did not go well, the Iraqi populations rioted in the streets and protested violently. The 2008 pact will undoubtedly be met with about the same enthusiasm. With the lesson of the history of the pact in 1930 why would anyone propose basically the same pact? One reason is by calling our occupation in Iraq a pact the Bush Administration claims that the process doesn't have to go through with getting Congressional approval to stay in Iraq. Something the administration is pretty concrete about. Also by not having to get approved by Congress the Bush Administration is hoping to keep most terms of the pact secret, most likely until the end of their term in office, at least until after the pact is agreed on. KBR, a large contractor who Vice President Cheney was formally a chief executive over working for Halliburton, for food and housing for the troop has just received a big $150 billion, 10 year contract for a Iraq.
The answer became clear about a day later when news that the five major oil corporations have been awarded no bid contracts for working Iraq's oil reserves. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to figure out, ok we'll concede some of these crazy issues in our proposed pact if you give my buddies in the oil industry non bid contracts to work your oil fields.
Speaking about oil industry buddies... President Bush lately has been pushing to have federally owned land and the coastal shelves opened up to drilling for oil saying that we need this to bring down the price of gas, but here's the kicker, the companies that make the big drilling rigs are already five years behind on their orders for deep water oil drilling rigs. If American oil companies put in their orders for oil rigs right now, it would be over five years before they would posess any new oil rigs. American oil interests already own the drilling rights on big areas of land that they are not utilizing yet. So why is it that there is a push to open coastal areas to drilling now? Well we have to set our oil buddies up now before the Bush Administration leaves office this fall, it has nothing to do with the price we are paying for gas right now. In fact many of the articles are carefully worded as this move would' "help surpress the high price of gas", that means to slow the rising of the cost of gas, not the reduction of the cost of gas.
It's just business as usual for the Bush gang. Their eithics seem to be that nothing is wrong with gouging the American public and their tax contrabutions and giving as much of that money as possible to their friends in high places before leaving office. Oh what a way to get by with a little help for my friends.
Showing posts with label KBR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KBR. Show all posts
Friday, June 20, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Bend Over America
In the latest news of the fleecing of America as reported in the New York Times. Charles M. Smith a former civilian overseer for the Army, overseeing the largest contractor of the Iraq war for food services, KBR, said he was ousted from his job because he refused to pay one billion dollars for questionable charges that were not substantiated by KBR. The Bush Administration must hate the New York Times.
KBR is a Houston-based company that provides food, housing and other services to the troops stationed in Iraq. KBR stands for Kellogg, Brown and Root and is the subsidiary of Halliburton, the Texas company that Vice President Dick Cheney previously served as chief executive. Mr. Smith's position was then given to a colleague and KBR received all the money it was asking for, including the one billion that didn't have supporting records for.
So we have a war that support was gotten from Congress and the American people through the lies and misstatements from members of the Bush Administration, which included Vice President Dick Cheney, who has had strong ties with the KBR company. Doesn't this sound a bit like conflict of interest on the part of Vice President Dick Cheney? Hmmm, can we say kickbacks? For someone that came into a very high level of government from being a chief executive of the company in question, it would be hard to not imagine some kind of benefits coming back Cheney's way in some form or another. I suppose we will learn later, as this story breaks, that this is probably another one of the Bush Administration's no-bid contracts. If we are getting fleeced for at least one billion in food services, what about the other services that KBR supplies like in troop housing and other services? We'll see huh? It's a big surprise,not, that in our failing economy the only businesses doing well, extremely well, are businesses that the president and vice president are/were involved in, oil companies and companies involved with supplying services and weapons for the war in Iraq. Now Bush is pushing for the oil companies to be allowed to drill off shore, something that oil companies have been pushing for for some time, coincidence? I think not.
We can count on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will look into this and find in this case, as it has for other cases in the past, misconduct on the part of the Bush Administration. Yet, Hello Democrats, there will be no push by Democrats to follow through on impeachment proceedings against Bush or Cheney as there are already articles of impeachment that have been sent to the Judiciary Committee that are basically sitting on ice. I agree with Democrats on most things, but when it comes to doing their constitutional duties in regards to protecting the American people against a corrupt administration they are nutless. I can't understand why that is? I can't believe that Democrats are so afraid that people, who voted them into office on their platforms of fixing a corrupt government and getting us out of the Iraq war, are going to chastise them during an election year because they would be doing what the American people put them in office for. Where is the justice? Instead they give lame reasons that they have more important things to do during the remainder of their terms.
What is more important than protecting the Constitution? What's more important than impeaching the people in office, who have done so much damage to the American people's constitutional rights. What's more important than making sure that the people who got us into an illegal war with Iraq which cost over 4 thousand American solders their lives and countless Iraqi lives, costs to the American people of trillions of dollars, a failed economy and high gas prices, are brought to justice. Instead the Democrats are content to piddle with trying to pass bills that have no chance to pass because even if they can get enough support from the House and Senate, the crook of a president we have will veto them. What's more important than fixing that?
Most of this doesn't make sense. About the only way any of this makes sense to me is:
The Democrats don't really want to bring this war to and end as the American public wants. The Democrats think that they will get more support, or more support for a Democratic president, from the American people passing bills that are repeatedly vetoed by a Republican president. The Democrats secretly want to keep the executive powers that President Bush claimed for their own use when they get one of their own in the president's chair. The Democrats are completely clueless as to their jobs in office. What ever their excuses are, they don't make sense. If they don't watch it, it will back fire this fall and the American public will be so fed up with their inaction that they will vote independent or even Republican cause even if the Republican's objectives are different than the people's objectives, they at least know how to get what they want, specially when no one is willing to call them or stand up to them on their illegal procedures and activities.
KBR is a Houston-based company that provides food, housing and other services to the troops stationed in Iraq. KBR stands for Kellogg, Brown and Root and is the subsidiary of Halliburton, the Texas company that Vice President Dick Cheney previously served as chief executive. Mr. Smith's position was then given to a colleague and KBR received all the money it was asking for, including the one billion that didn't have supporting records for.
So we have a war that support was gotten from Congress and the American people through the lies and misstatements from members of the Bush Administration, which included Vice President Dick Cheney, who has had strong ties with the KBR company. Doesn't this sound a bit like conflict of interest on the part of Vice President Dick Cheney? Hmmm, can we say kickbacks? For someone that came into a very high level of government from being a chief executive of the company in question, it would be hard to not imagine some kind of benefits coming back Cheney's way in some form or another. I suppose we will learn later, as this story breaks, that this is probably another one of the Bush Administration's no-bid contracts. If we are getting fleeced for at least one billion in food services, what about the other services that KBR supplies like in troop housing and other services? We'll see huh? It's a big surprise,not, that in our failing economy the only businesses doing well, extremely well, are businesses that the president and vice president are/were involved in, oil companies and companies involved with supplying services and weapons for the war in Iraq. Now Bush is pushing for the oil companies to be allowed to drill off shore, something that oil companies have been pushing for for some time, coincidence? I think not.
We can count on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will look into this and find in this case, as it has for other cases in the past, misconduct on the part of the Bush Administration. Yet, Hello Democrats, there will be no push by Democrats to follow through on impeachment proceedings against Bush or Cheney as there are already articles of impeachment that have been sent to the Judiciary Committee that are basically sitting on ice. I agree with Democrats on most things, but when it comes to doing their constitutional duties in regards to protecting the American people against a corrupt administration they are nutless. I can't understand why that is? I can't believe that Democrats are so afraid that people, who voted them into office on their platforms of fixing a corrupt government and getting us out of the Iraq war, are going to chastise them during an election year because they would be doing what the American people put them in office for. Where is the justice? Instead they give lame reasons that they have more important things to do during the remainder of their terms.
What is more important than protecting the Constitution? What's more important than impeaching the people in office, who have done so much damage to the American people's constitutional rights. What's more important than making sure that the people who got us into an illegal war with Iraq which cost over 4 thousand American solders their lives and countless Iraqi lives, costs to the American people of trillions of dollars, a failed economy and high gas prices, are brought to justice. Instead the Democrats are content to piddle with trying to pass bills that have no chance to pass because even if they can get enough support from the House and Senate, the crook of a president we have will veto them. What's more important than fixing that?
Most of this doesn't make sense. About the only way any of this makes sense to me is:
The Democrats don't really want to bring this war to and end as the American public wants. The Democrats think that they will get more support, or more support for a Democratic president, from the American people passing bills that are repeatedly vetoed by a Republican president. The Democrats secretly want to keep the executive powers that President Bush claimed for their own use when they get one of their own in the president's chair. The Democrats are completely clueless as to their jobs in office. What ever their excuses are, they don't make sense. If they don't watch it, it will back fire this fall and the American public will be so fed up with their inaction that they will vote independent or even Republican cause even if the Republican's objectives are different than the people's objectives, they at least know how to get what they want, specially when no one is willing to call them or stand up to them on their illegal procedures and activities.
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