Fired Army Whistleblower Receives $970K for Exposing Halliburton No-Bid Contract in Iraq

[formercia]

Democracy Now! / By [e-mail] (Democracy Now!)

EXCLUSIVE: Fired Army Whistleblower Receives $970K for Exposing Halliburton No-Bid Contract in Iraq
Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse, the former chief oversight official of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, has reached a $970,000 settlement six years after she was demoted for publicly criticizing a multi-billion-dollar, no-bid contract to Halliburton—the company formerly headed by then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Greenhouse had accused the Pentagon of unfairly awarding the contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root. Testifying before Congress in June 2005, she called the contract the worst case of government abuse she had ever witnessed in her 20-year career. Just two months after that testimony, Greenhouse was demoted at the Pentagon, ostensibly for "poor performance." She had overseen government contracts for 20 years and had drawn high praise in her rise to become the senior civilian oversight official at the Army Corps of Engineers. With the help of the National Whistleblowers Center, Greenhouse filed a lawsuit challenging her demotion. In a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive, Greenhouse announces that a settlement has been reached in what is seen as a major victory for government whistleblowers. We're also joined by Greenhouse's attorney, Michael Kohn, and by Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center.

More at the link:

http://www.alternet.org/rss/breaking_news/640194/exclusive%3A_fired__army_whistleblower_receives_%24970k_for_exposing_halliburton_no-bid_contract_in_iraq/

[Selatius]

1. That money should be tax free if it isn't. She's earned every cent of it and more. nt

[sixmile]

2. Good

Who pays the settlement?

[Shagbark Hickory]

6. Take a wild guess.

[DURHAM D]

3. Good for Bunnie.

Now I hope she is everywhere in the media talking about the waste.

[JudyM]

4. Finally some justice, but this is just the EEO claim, not the Halliburton conflict of interest claim

It's not clear what happened with the whistleblower part of the case -- the interview wasn't long enough!

(snip)
"MICHAEL KOHN: Well, the one bad thing about this case is we tried very hard to get her whistleblower case in federal court, but the courts wouldn’t allow it in. So we had to separate her whistleblower claim from her EEO claim, her discrimination claim. And the bad thing is, on the discrimination claim, you get, you know, compensatory damages, $300,000 cap. But on the whistleblower claim, you’re not entitled to it under federal law, which really forced us to stay in federal court on her discrimination claim and not be able to litigate much of her whistleblower allegations, which is a real setback in—for whistleblower rights. Now, the Obama administration—

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.

MICHAEL KOHN: Everyone should be calling their representatives and telling them they want federal employees to have better laws protecting whistleblowers."

[Scuba]

5. Front page news! Encourage other whistleblowers? Fat chance. Thanks for posting. n/t

[formercia]

9. You're welcome

keep it kicked for visibility.

[Octafish]

11. 'The Wages of Whistleblowing' -- more on Ms. Greenhouse...

From CounterPunch (FTR, one of the few information resources on the subject at the time):

The Wages of Whistleblowing

Why Bunny Greenhouse Sits in a Corner

By SHERWOOD ROSS
CounterPunch
Weekend Edition
October 27 / 29, 2006

Bunnatine Greenhouse sits in a cubicle in a far corner of an office in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers(USACE) headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., where, she says, "I am treated like a non-person." Months crawl by yet her immediate supervisor just can't seem to find the time to meet with her to discuss a work assignment. The taxpayers of the United States of America pay her salary, but, oddly, no demands are made of her.

That's a sad plight for a dynamic woman executive who is the cover girl of the July/August issue of "Fraud Magazine." She's not written up for being on the wrong side of the law, only on the wrong side of the Bush White House, now a law unto itself. "Fraud" is published by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and Ms. Greenhouse is the recipient of the association's coveted 2006 Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award. She's been showered with honors and the subject of laudatory press. In another America in another time, an Administration might well have been proud of her.

Instead, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has trashed the American Dream of this African-American woman who rose by her own bootstraps from poverty in Rayville, La., to become the highest U.S. contracting civilian in USACE. Hers was the responsibility for passing on $23-billion in contracts annually. A personnel file stuffed with gold star evaluations attests to her zealous guardianship of the public's money.

So why is the woman everyone calls "Bunny" made to sit in a corner, punished like a spoiled child? As she told "Fraud" editor Dick Carozza, it's over her refusal to sign off on billions of dollars worth of no-bid, no-compete contracts that are enriching Halliburton Corp., the government contractor previously headed by Vice President Richard Cheney.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross10272006.html

FTR2: Dick Cheney's the BFEE turd who in 1992 greenlighted the privatization of the Pentagon.

Truth wins a round!

[Mimosa]

13. I saw her on 60 minutes or Dateline (forget which)

Ms Greenhouse is a strong admirable woman.

[formercia]

14. Pigeonholing people that make waves.

Standard practice in the 'Government.'

[formercia]

7. By the time she pays off all of her debts for the last 6 years,

hopefully there will be something left to help her get on with her life.

[Octafish]

8. Couldn't happen to a nicer person...

...or truer Patriot.

Thanks for the heads-up, formercia!

[formercia]

10. You're welcome.

A deserving Patriot, proving again that no good deed goes unpunished.

[Mimosa]

12. Wow, thanks for the story

They've figured out how to stop whistleblowers now, I guess. I haven't heard of any recent cases.

[Major Hogwash]

15. Oustanding!!!! I hope this sends a message to the current occupant of the White House.

Because exposing waste, fraud, and corruption is what these government workers should be doing if they get in trouble for trying to thwart it in the first place!!