Global Eye - Dream Team

[CHIMO]

It's another story of the American Dream come true, the kind you see every day in George Bush's blessed realm. All the usual inspiring elements are there: a couple of plucky kids starting a business with nothing but hustle and a whole lotta heart; a few lucky breaks crowned with big-time success; a duffel bag stuffed with millions in cash from a war-zone slush fund; a father and son held hostage at gunpoint to block a corruption probe, then dumped in hostile territory with no papers, no money, no protection.

Yes, it's the story of Custer Battles LLC., a mercenary firm run by two former covert operators and Bushist Party bagmen who sharked up more than $40 million in the usual no-bid conquistador contracts from the rape of Iraq -- and may have skimmed an extra $50 million in fraudulent cream, the Los Angeles Times reports.

CB's alleged shortcomings in business integrity include setting up offshore front companies and sham sub-contractors to inflate costs in its lucrative, Halliburtonish "cost-plus" contracts, where the government covers all expenses and guarantees a set profit for favored cronies. The company's own documents also detail "forged leases and inflated invoices" and an outrageous $6 million overcharge on its expenses in the currency-exchange racket. When Isakson objected to the scams, two unnamed "top company officials" burst into his office with machine guns, held him and his 13-year-old son at gunpoint for hours, then stripped Isakson of his ID, money and gun and told them to find their own way out of Iraq, the LA Times reports. Father and son finally made their way through the hellhole of Fallujah to safety in Jordan.

Custer Battles still has friends in high places, however. In what legal experts say is a "highly unusual move," the Justice Department is refusing to join the case, which could recoup tens of millions of defrauded taxpayer dollars. The reason given for this coyness is the usual cartload of cowflop from Attorney General John "Jesus is King of America" Ashcroft. His office says the federal government has no jurisdiction in the matter because CB's contracts were not with the federal government but with the "Coalition Provisional Authority" -- i.e. the occupation authority appointed, led and funded by, er, the federal government. Such logical contortions are beyond the ken of mere mortals, of course -- but then the Lord works in mysterious ways, His cronies to reward.


http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/10/15/120.html