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Brand New ABM Fraud by Al Martin ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Fraud is getting a new shot in the arm with an additional $3.6 billion being delivered to defense contractors at the Huntsville Arsenal. At the weekly meeting of the Group, one of the generals, who smokes cigars and dribbles when he smokes (he looks just like Carroll O'Connor on Archie Bunker, except he wears a uniform) was overheard saying, "Well, we'll have that $3.6 billion gone - right quick." Since the new defense budget has been passed, there will be plenty of fresh money for the Huntsville Scamscateers. Naturally all the retired colonels and generals are now setting up offshore supply corporations to bid on billions of dollars of new defense contracts -- contracts for which they will either not deliver, or they will deliver sub-standard materials. The Group is licking their chops at the amount of money they're going to make in these new frauds. In the $2 trillion budget, defense gets $265 billion, and there's $3.6 billion of fresh money just for Huntsville, for all the facilities there combined. In fact, Huntsville gets a bigger increase than any other place in the country. A lot of that is for NASA and the continued testing of the ABM system, the Anti Ballistic Missile System. It's the usual cast of characters - Rockwell, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, etc. The colonels and generals, acting under the auspices of the major defense contractors are setting up offshore companies that can be recognized by their distinctive names, like "ACME Supply Company" of the Netherlands Antilles, for example. They'll make bids on behalf of the contractors. The Friendly Colonel says that the biggest private transportation company in Huntsville, which is moving these illegal weapons systems, is a German company called Nordhausen. They have quietly built a warehouse that's three city blocks long, located at the end of the airport where conveniently you can't see it from the street. It was full of illicit weapons -- even before they got the building permits. Only after it was built, did they get the permits. This company is evidently controlled by Siemens, the giant German transnational corporation. Even though it's on a military base, they still have to get local building permits -- but they wouldn't let any of the county building permit people into the building. So now all the county and city inspectors got these special Lufthansa credit cards, which are unlimited. They never run out. Lufthansa gives them out to special VIPs, or people who do favors for Lufthansa. With one of these cards, you can fly anywhere in the world first class, forever, and it'll never cost you a dime. Of course, the county inspectors are aware of the enormity of the fraud being committed. Nobody cares - they just want their piece. The Friendly Colonel also notes that the retired colonels and generals drive up in a different Mercedes every week They get special lease deals that they don't have to pay for. Everyone knows that's the best kind of lease you can get - the kind you don't have to pay for. Meanwhile, the infamous lobster lunches have been moved off base to the Red Lobster Restaurant. In his introductory remarks, the general said, "This dinner is sponsored by the US taxpayer. Oops. I wasn't supposed to say that. Actually it's sponsored by McDonnell Douglas, who then in turn will bill the US taxpayer for it." The representative from McDonnell Douglas then quickly added, "Oh, that's alright. We'll just add $78,000 onto the next contract." The Group, consisting of about seventy men this time, feasted on specially flown-in two-pound deluxe Maine lobsters and deluxe Alaskan King crab, as well as an unlimited free bar and all you can eat of the usual Red Lobster menu. After the feast was over, they take Styrofoam doggy bags stuffed full of lobster home with them. The new byword is Carpe Fraudum. Tempus Fugit. One of those frequenting the weekly meetings is a man we'll call Signal Officer Ted. Unlike the colonels and generals who dress in uniforms they've outgrown (they usually can't even button their buttons), Ted dresses in overalls and says he doesn't really understand the generals' frauds. What he does understand is his own "simple" fraud. Since he controls the office supply contract at Staples, he says he can put $500 in his pocket at the end of each week Even the retired major general refers to himself jokingly as the head of the "Department of Fraud." That refers to part of the ABM system that's being built at the Huntsville Arsenal. Most of the fraud that's going on is centered around the infamous Anti Ballistic Missile Program. This is, after all, the same Anti Ballistic Missile System that President Carter first funded. This is a fraud that's been going on for a very long time. Only a few missiles have actually been built. And they've never been able to hit any kind of a target. Danny Graham and the High Frontier are, of course, just paid shills. They have a lot of "enthusiasm" for it because it's such a choice fraud. The fraud that can be committed against the ABM program is unlimited. It's not a full weapons system program that has to actually produce so many missiles. In other words, it's being kept alive in what's called the research and development phase. It stays in R&D forever. There's about $13 billion in expenditures every year, and nothing ever has to be produced. Like the general said, not only does nothing have to be produced, but the way they account for the expenditure of the money is also very loose. All the money just gets spent on unspecified research and development. Since it's a classified program, the expenditures become classified. What the general is talking about is specifically what the Comptroller of the Currency has been complaining about. The head of the GSA has been complaining about it too. It's the Department of Defense's habit of classifying financial expenditure documents all the time and not letting them go through the normal auditing procedure. The appropriation is legitimate and it comes from Congress. But even so, the Republicans have enough votes to keep this thing alive endlessly. The problem is that every time they've actually built one of these missiles and tried to test it, it can't hit any kind of a target. Bush is able to say that there's enough support within the conservative Republicans that we'll spend ten or fifteen billion dollars a year just to keep the project alive - until the technology improves to make the system work. But, of course, as the general points out, since they have the ability to do so, they will dummy up all the tests, and even when they say the system is developed and works, it really never will anyway. So nobody really cares because they never have to produce a product that actually works. This is reminiscent of the ASAT Fraud, the anti-satellite missile system of the mid 1980s, part of SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) in which DoD dummied up all its test results and subsequently admitted as much. You have to remember that the Department of Defense controls everything involved in the Anti Missile Ballistic Defense "test." They control the file footage. They control everything that's going to be sent out for broadcast, for television, or for print. So it is very easy for them to say that the missile in fact did hit the target. They just take file footage at night of something else that did hit the target. It doesn't even have to be the right missile. As the general points out, publicly, a picture has never been released of what one of these things actually looks like. In some cases, the Department of Defense, in order to show a missile test that worked, had to buy missiles from the Russians. These missiles actually did work, but they had to paint over the red stars. In fact, Signal Officer Ted in his overalls actually does the painting. It's one of the things he does on the side, he says. He paints the red star off the Russian missile and paints USA over it. He says he gets a thousand dollars to do it. In order to get a missile that works, so they can show the media, they have to buy it from Russia - to get anything that actually works. The Russian general was talking to the American general, and he was asked whether Russia is going to buy this technology, and the Russian replied, "No, we only buy things that work." Russia and China have publicly complained about the Great ABM Program, that it will be "destabilizing," but in fact the Russians and Chinese already know that the system doesn't work. They also know that the Americans aren't interested in making the system work. The ABM has never even got out of the generic name stage. Carter first authorized research and development for the program. The Reagan-Bush Administration tried and tried to actually develop the thing. They tried to get the ASAT program into it. They couldn't develop the technology so they just kept it alive. The Clinton Administration then reactivated it to try to make it work. That was when all those tests took place that didn't work, and then the Department of Defense would say, "Well, the test was 40% successful." And you know what the Department of Defense's parameters are? If the missile they knew wouldn't work was expected to miss the target by a 100 meters and it missed the target by only 40 meters, they called that test 40% successful. In other word, if it got within 10 meters of the target, then the test was 90% successful. So remember Signal Officer Ted and his trusty can of white spray paint. He is the latest symbol of the Anti Ballistic Missile Fraud. (Stay tuned for upcoming Al Martin radio and TV media interviews. As part of his new improved presentation, Al will be singing this famous song as a revival of the 1950s Red Scare days -- "If your mommy is a commie, then you've got to turn her in") AL MARTIN, a retired US Navy Lt. Commander and former officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence, is America's foremost whistle-blower on government fraud and corruption, having testified before the congressional Kerry Committee and the Alexander Committee. Al Martin is the author of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider" (2001, National Liberty Press, $14.95, To order call 1-877-776-9000.) He lives at an undisclosed location, since the criminals named in the book have been returned to national power and prominence. His column "Behind the Scenes in the Beltway is published regularly on Al Martin Raw. |
