From the Los Angeles Times, 8/29/05, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-082905halliburton_lat,0,4375226.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=morenews:
Is there any justification for this? Anybody care to defend the Army’s decision here?
We don’t have enough data from this one cite to know that one way or the other BG. She makes a lot of claims in the article but there is no additional information provided as to what she is basing those accusations on. She could have a good case…or be full of shit. No way to know from what I can tell here. One thing though…she testified to Congress appearently, yet I’ve heard of nothing planned by Congress on the Fraud, Waste and Abuse side of things. Unless I missed it.
Well, I don’t see how anyone can pick a side here, at least not from just this cite…not unless you have preconceived prejudices one way or the other coming in. The Army could be dead wrong here…or Mrs Greenhouse could be full of gas. The only think that seems to be certain is that Mrs Greenhouse’s temperature seems to be rising on this issue…
-XT
It’s nice to know I can always count on xtisme to take the endless-benefit-of-a-doubt-for-the-Bush-Administration position.
Yeah, I’m sure a Republican-controlled Congress would leap at the chance to investigate corruption coming out of the Bush Administration, just like the way they’ve been so eager to hold hearings on any White House manipulation of pre-Iraq-war intelligence. I’m sure they could squeeze in that effort between their unending quest to track down the $9 billion that got embezzled from Iraq. :rolleyes:
As for the OP, Ms. Greenhouse should know by now that the only way to advance your career with this President is to screw up royally and dumbly agree to whatever the bosses want. Look at Paul O’Neill or Richard Clarke for examples of what competency gets you from the Bush White House.
There was a much more in depth article on this topic in the March issue of Vanity Fair. Enjoy.
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9567
Sorry, I don’t take truthout.org as unbiased gospel truth. I concur that we don’t have all the information. Did Bunny get so focused on Halliburton contracts that she neglected the rest of her job duties? Did her hatred of Halliburton contracts make her unfairly biased against the contractors she was supposed to be supervising? Did she lose millions of dollars in cash or equipment and lose her job for reasons totally unrealted to Halliburton? Maybe she started coming in late, leaving early and taking a long lunch. Last time I checked, correlation still does not prove causation.
xbuckeye: Sorry, I don’t take truthout.org as unbiased gospel truth.
Er, as RTA noted (and as the linked article makes clear), the truthout.org link is merely reprinting an article by Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Shnayerson. Do you have any specific reason to consider either Shnayerson or Vanity Fair an untrustworthy source? It makes no sense to discount what they published simply because their piece happened to be picked up post-publication by a website you don’t happen to like.
And its nice to know that rjung will still be the same old knee jerk Bush hater we’ve all come to know and, er, whatever. Yeah rjung…I’m supposed to just leap up and blame Bush et al for this, even if the facts are a bit light, ehe? Otherwise I’m a Bush supporter. When I know more facts then I’ll make an assessment…until them I’ll provisionally give Bush the benifit of the doubt. If you have more facts from an unbiased source (if you know what one is) then by all means, trot em out and I’ll re-evaluate my position. Until then, you might want to think that maybe, just maybe, there could be another side to this story. Just a thought…
As to your dig about Republicans controlling congress…fine. You saying that there are no Democrats left to raise a stink?? Or are they so beaten down and cowed by Republican superiority that they won’t raise a peep? I haven’t exactly seen the Democrats in Congress getting all worked up about Halliburton either. If the corruption is as wide scale as Mrs Greenhouse seems to be saying I’d think there would be at least one Democrat out there with the balls to make a stink about this.
-XT
So far, the putative “other side to the story” seems to be limited to the suggestion that Greenhouse might have been deservedly demoted for poor performance. While that’s certainly a possibility, the linked Shnayerson article had this to say about it:
From the highest job-performance rating to the lowest in a mere two years? For the highest-ranking civilian in the Corps? At a time when she was actively opposing what she and numerous other whistle-blowers have described as corruption and favoritism in high-level contract awards? Hmmm.
Coincidence? Maybe: it’s true that we don’t have an unbiased source of evidence as to whether Greenhouse deserved to keep her job. But given that accusations of Iraq-related waste, fraud, and abuse against profiteering contractors and wheeler-dealers in the Pentagon have been widely made and strongly supported, and that the Corps seemed to have a very high opinion of Greenhouse until she started accusing top brass of improper dealings with federal contracts, I’d have to say that this does smell rather fishy.
Nope, I’m not automatically declaring the Corps or the DoD guilty, but I certainly think they’ve got their work cut out for them in defending their actions. Firing a whistle-blower always looks kind of suspicious, and firing a whistle-blower who was your star employee, until she started publicly complaining about massive corruption in your organization, even more so.
And indeed there is. Thank heaven for the notoriously ballsy Henry Waxman (D-CA), who has been repeatedly calling for inquiries into allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse by US military contractors in Iraq. (Whistle-blowers providing info to Waxman are also discussed in the previously-linked Vanity Fair article.)
If there is another side to this story, nobody is telling it yet. Not in this thread, nor can I seem to find any pro-Admin take on it by googling. At this point, what it appears to be is, that on the one side there are Greenhouse and Waxman, telling their story; and on the other side, there are persons who apparently would rather this not be a story at all.
Yeah, there is only one side of the story written. The only sources are the ‘victim’ and her lawyer, who got his information from the ‘victim’. The writting style describes her handwriting and her childhood in more depth than the actual issue at hand, and implies that she is some sort of uber-hero that is just lookin’ out for li’l ol’ me. I want more facts before I pass judgement.
Real journalism looks more like the link you posted to the Washington Post, factual narrative, equal sources on both sides of the debate, relevant background information, lack of touchy-feely descriptives. I can formulate my own opinions, I don’t need ‘journalists’ to tell me what they should be.
They are probably prevented by the impending legal action. Responsible people don’t comment on legal actions they are involved in for fear of saying something that the other side will turn against them.
Yes, that’s how it works in ordinary, low-profile lawsuits. But when a case gets any media attention and only one side keeps quiet, it’s usually because there’s nothing they can say that would not justly convict them in the court of public opinion.
I counted three paragraphs that describe her personal background, briefly, and ninety-five paragraphs that describe the “actual issue at hand”.
Among the many other sources are Marie deYoung (another whistleblower); Wendy Hall (a corporate spokesperson for Halliburton); James Warren and David Wilson, (two truckers contracted by KBR who became disillusioned by what-all they saw in Iraq); Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA); and the “real journalism” of your factual, equal, & relevant Washington Post.