Stan Collender Wonders Why Nobody in the Bush Administration Has Gone to Jail
The Bush administration has, he believes, embezzled $15 billion:
The Bush Administration's Teapot Dome | Capital Gains and Games: Discussions about the federal budget like the ones we often engage in here at CG&G, typically focus on "formulation," that is, on the process and politics of putting the budget together and getting it enacted. That's the part we all generally agree is broken, not working properly, overly politicized, and...well...you get the picture.
But this story from Friday's Washington Post, which talks about $15 billion in spending on Iraq that can't be accounted for properly, or in some cases at all, shows that the other stage of federal budgeting -- implementation -- is similarly broken, not working properly, and...well...you certainly get this picture as well.
In fact, it appears as if virtually every procedure and law designed to prevent just this type of malfeasance was circumvented.... The Pentagon's own inspector general confirmed that this lack of concern for procedural safeguards was blatant and commonplace. That makes it hard to come to any conclusion other than that they were ignored rather than expedited or poorly executed. It's also hard to come to any conclusion other than that the spending of taxpayer funds in Iraq bordered on, or actually was, simple and straightforward corruption.
Given the magnitude of the spending involved, Iraq may be the Bush administration's contribution to the biggest public corruption scandals of all time like Boss Tweed in New York, James Michael Curley in Boston, and Teapot Dome.
My question is whether any one, that is, any individual, will be prosecuted for their actions. The hearing at which the Pentagon IG testified was designed to put the focus on the Bush administration's despicably bad implementation of the Iraq spending. That obviously had political overtones but was also, and very obviously given the IG's finding's, completely deserved. But the laws and spending rules were broken by individuals and there are three reasons why they should be cirninally prosecuted.
First, we need to know whether they were ordered to ignor the laws and regulations.... Second... the Antideficiency Act... calls for civil penalties and jail time.... Third, not prosecuting the individuals and instead allowing this situation to be nothing more than a political scandal will encourage others to do this again, or keep doing it now...
Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now.
