Bush's political corruption

Due to limited media and public attention the Bush administration has been allowed to award public service contracts in connection with the Katrina calamity to cronies associated with major companies, like Halliburton and Bechtel, just like it previously did with similar contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with unacceptable accountability.

It is amazing how this form of maladministation is allowed to go on, time and time again, when these contracts not only are unethical, Machiavellian, and greatly flawed, but frequently outright illegal and undemocratic, and this by a leader who touts democracy as the solution to all evils.   He obviously does not see anything evil, or wrong, with the way his administration conducts this underhanded and sleezy business practice.

Fortunately, there are people, and organizations around who keep tabs on these activities, and make their findings publicly available, as Pratap Chatterjee in his special to CorpWatch, an organization whose objective is to keep corporations accountable, titled Big, Easy Iraqi-Style Contracts Flood New Orleans, which can be accessed by clicking on the image below.

As can be seen from the blue sidebar in that article, these contracts were executed in record time, within hours.  As pointed out by Chatterjee in an associated interview that is found in transcript form at Democracy Now!, Chatterjee claims that Halliburton's so-called no-bid contracts are actually illegal, because "the Army Corps has no contract with Halliburton. The navy does. These are contracts in Mississippi to fix the navy facilities like the Stennis Space Center. They borrowed a contract from the sister agency and used it to have Halliburton come in and assess the floodwater damage, something they're not supposed to do."  I carried out contracts in the Canadian Public Service, and we would never be permitted to administer contracts in this fashion.


Finally, on the previously mentioned sidebar Chatterjee reports that On September 8, 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush issued an executive order suspending 1931 Davis-Bacon law that requires federal contractors to pay prevailing wage."   That clearly indicates not only how greedy Bush and his cronies are, but also how undemocratic the Bush administration is.  They want it all for themselves, and what is better than to exploit the workers as much as they can, and maximize their own gains?  With these actions Bush yet again clearly demonstrates that his form of democracy is illiberal democracy and political corruption, as defined by Wikipedia.