Iraqi See, Iraqi Do

It was recently discovered that a group of 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials sidestepped anti-corruption measures and the process of obtaining competitive bids while agreeing to an $833 million weapons deal with Serbia. Somewhere in Texas, a teary-eyed oil tycoon said to himself, "They grow up so fast."

U.S. officials were unaware of the contract for quite some time. Several of those officials have spoken out against the deal. Meanwhile, out of the other side of their mouths they are saying Iraqis need to start taking more responsibility for their own defense.

The Iraqis soon found they were being overcharged for what they ordered, and worse yet, the weapons they received were sub-par and not what they had been told they were going to get. As a result, the deal was scaled down to $236 million. This example raises the question: Who is supposed to be the role model around here, anyway?

The Iraqi officials that completed the illegal deal were clearly trained well by American officials. Like America and the war contracts they agreed to, high-ranking officials in Iraq sidestepped the law and awarded a massive contract that ended up coming back to bite them in the ass. Both nations were victims of price gouging and both wound up receiving a product or service of much lower quality than they were promised.

There are a few differences, though. The Iraqis, unlike the Americans, decided to do some damage control and scaled the contract back. It has yet to be proven, but it is not likely that any of the Iraqi officials who negotiated the deal are former presidents of Serbia who were still being paid by Serbia when the contract was agreed upon.

In case it wasn't clear already, the above refers to Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton/KBR. Throughout the Iraq War, the legality and morality of the no-bid contracts awarded to Cheney's former company have been questioned. Unfortunately, the American people are not worthy of the answers.

The company that was still paying Cheney through at least 2005 have been awarded more taxpayer money than any other company for services in relation to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not only that, they have gotten away with price-gouging and have provided a sub-par product that has actually hurt the war effort.

Is this the reason people get into politics these days? I'd sure like to think differently, but the numbers are hard to ignore. Cheney was paid around $200,000 a year by Halliburton from 2000 to 2005, roughly the same as his salary as the nation's number two. He resigned as the company's CEO in 2000, around the time that George Bush's vice presidential selection committee (which was headed by Cheney) found Cheney to be the ideal running mate.

When he resigned, he had several million dollars worth of stock options, and he made an agreement to donate the proceeds from those options to charity once exercised. Normally, a taxpayer is only allowed to deduct 50 percent of their income as charitable contributions. However, in 2005 that limit was removed for one year because of the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when Cheney exercised his stock options.

Cheney contributed $6.9 million of his $8.8 million income for 2005 and ended up with a tax rebate check of almost $2 million. Talk about economic stimulus, hoo boy. It should also be noted that the destruction of Hurricane Katrina was heightened by the Bush administration's lack of any pre-emptive measures and that Cheney's contributions went mostly to three organizations – George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates, the University of Wyoming, and Capital Partners for Education for the benefit of low-income high school students in the Washington, D.C. area – all of which have nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina.

It is important to consider these issues when choosing who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election. Which candidates would put up a fight? Which would stand idly by and let the abuse of power continue? These are hard, and unfortunately unasked, questions.

John McCain is called a maverick and has fought for anti-corruption legislation in the past. However, he has dropped nearly all of his maverick-y tendencies in order to win the support of a wider base of conservatives. It is hard to believe he would want to ruffle any conservative feathers by doing something about this particular act of corruption because it may send an anti-corporate message to some of his financial supporters.

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama has made much of an issue out of war profiteering, focusing more on the war in general. They both seem to be interested in making Washington more transparent. Obama has gone as far to suggest that government meetings be broadcast on C-SPAN. At the very least, they apparently wouldn't do anything to block honest discussion on the matter with labels such as unpatriotic and hurtful.

Ralph Nader has made this one of the biggest issues of his campaign. This kind of corruption would surely be heavily prosecuted under his administration as his entire political career is based on fighting corporations. The question with Nader, though, is will he go too far?

Whoever is eventually elected president, we must begin to hold these companies accountable for their actions, or it will set precedent for gross misuse of billions of dollars of taxpayer money. It has gotten to the point where Iraq is beginning to follow our lead and we have the choice of looking like a fool and telling them to do what we say, not what we do or just accepting the fact that they want to be like us. This is not a good place for either country to be.