Senate Democrats To Hold Friday Hearing On Iraq Contractor Abuses (Bunny Greenhouse testifying!)

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0917-18.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 17, 2007
3:32 PM


CONTACT: National Whistleblowers Center
Stephen Kohn [phone]
Marshall Chriswell [phone]

Senate Democrats To Hold Friday Hearing On Iraq Contractor Abuses
Former Top U.S. Contracting Official among Witnesses


WASHINGTON - September 17 - The Senate Democratic Policy Committee has announced that it will hear testimony this Friday regarding abuses by government contractors during the Iraq War. The hearing, entitled “The Mistreatment of Iraq Contracting Whistleblowers,” will focus on the experiences of the employee-whistleblowers who report contractor misconduct, and will include significant information about Iraqi contracting abuses. The hearing will be held in the Dirksen Senate Building, room 226.

Among those scheduled to testify is Bunnatine Greenhouse, who served as the top civilian contracting officer for the Army Corps of Engineers until she was demoted in retaliation for her opposition to “casual and clubby” contracting practices in the run-up to the War. Ms. Greenhouse has described a controversial five year, no-bid, multi-billion dollar contract awarded to Halliburton/KBR in 2003 as “the most blatant and improper contracting abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”

Also testifying will be Stephen M. Kohn, President of the National Whistleblower Center and co-counsel for Ms. Greenhouse.

Links:

Official Hearing Advisory

Established in 1988, The National Whistleblower Center is a public interest organization dedicated to supporting employee whistleblowers. The Center non-profit and non-partisan, and does not endorse candidates for public office.

For more information, please visit www.whistleblowers.org.

[DURHAM D]

1. 'bout time.

:bounce:

[AtomicKitten]

2. Go get 'em, Bunny. K&R

[babylonsister]

3. She definitely deserves to be heard and has been waiting a long time. nt

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

4. THAT explains the Iraq gvt's so-called rejection of Blackwater et al.!!!!

I knew there had to be something going on, there.

There's a hearing scheduled. BushCO calls the Iraqi PM and says, ",...tell 'em you are booting them out during this hearing so it appears our guys are already being booted. Meanwhile, we'll re-name and organize and locate our profiteers. Okey-doke, buddy?!"

Yup. Detract/distract/delude/elude. *hocus pocus*

[babylonsister]

5. But Bunny has the goods on no-bid contracts. From wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnatine_Greenhouse

Bunnatine (Bunny) H. Greenhouse is a former chief contracting officer (Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (PARC)) of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On June 27, 2005, she testified to a Democratic Party public committee, alleging specific instances of waste, fraud, and other abuses and irregularities by Halliburton with regard to its operations in Iraq since the Iraq War. She described one of the Halliburton contracts (secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR)—a subsidiary of Halliburton) as "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career."

A long-time government employee, Greenhouse was hired by Lieutenant General Joe Ballard in 1997 to oversee contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers. After Ballard retired in 2000, Greenhouse's performance reviews, which had been exemplary throughout her public career, suddenly soured. Greenhouse filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint alleging race and gender discrimination, which her attorney states has never been investigated. In August 2005, she was demoted in what her lawyer called an "obvious reprisal" for her revelations about the Halliburton contracts.

Ms. Greenhouse is a featured speaker on the National Whistleblower Center's Speakers Bureau.