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CounterPunch
October
26, 2002
Is Thomas White
Fit to Lead the Army?
by JASON LEOPOLD
Secretary of the Army Thomas White is preparing
to lead thousands of the nation's soldiers into war with Iraq
and still, not one journalist has spilled any ink on White's
knowledge of the suspect accounting practices at Enron Energy
Services, the division he ran for several years before being
tapped to run the Army.
This is the same man who admitted in
sworn testimony before a Senate committee in July that he phoned
dozens of his former colleagues at Enron last year to get information
on Enron's financial condition and whether it would impact the
value of his stock he still held in Enron. White's phone conversations
with his Enron buddies took place shortly after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. and while
military personnel were being sent to break up the Taliban government
in Afghanistan.
White clearly did not have his priorities
in order. It's a valid question to ask whether Thomas White is
suited to oversee the Army's $82 billion budget and one million
of the Army's soldiers who are on active duty. This is the same
man who dozens of former Enron employees say headed up a division
at Enron that contributed heavily to Enron's collapse. We are
now expected to trust that our soldiers will be in good hands
as White leads them off to war.
The media, be it out of laziness or because
journalists just don't give a damn, gave up on pursuing any leads
that suggested White took part in the dubious accounting practices
that destroyed Enron, one of the biggest corporate scandals in
American history. The fact that Thomas White, a highly placed
executive at Enron, has said publicly that he was unaware of
the suspect accounting practices that took place at the division
he ran calls into question his capability of leading the United
States Army, especially at a time when war with Iraq seems inevitable.
I spent one-year investigating Thomas
White's role at Enron. In my conversations with more than 50
former employees at Enron Energy Services I was told that White
was well respected as a person, a likeable guy, but, at best,
he knew that Enron was hiding losses and possibly took part in
some of those schemes. White has not yet explained how Enron
Energy Services booked a $1.3 billion profit from a contract
the unit signed with Eli Lilly even though Enron paid the pharmaceutical
company $50 million in cash as an incentive to sign the contract
and hid this fact from investors and the public. White's signature
is on the approval sheets and he earned a hefty bonus from the
Eli Lilly deal despite the fact Enron Energy Services never performed
any of the services described in the contract.
I wonder whether the editorial and op-ed
columnists for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal
who called for White's resignation earlier this year will take
White to task again. This time lives are at stake.
Jason Leopold
can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com
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October 14,
2002
Harry Browne
Ireland:
No to War; No to Nice
Don Atapattu
The Tragedy of Alan Dershowitz
Linda Heard
So You
Think You Live in a Democracy?
Bob Feldman
Flashback: Inspecting Nuclear Israel
Adam Engel
The Anger
of Achilles
Anthony Gancarski
The
Washington Post and the Wal-Mart Way
Philip Farruggio
Sleepers
Harold Gould
Islamic
West Asia and US Foreign Policy:
A Tale of Strategic Self-Delusion
Dan Brook
An Open Letter to Barbara Lee
October 12
/ 13, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Vindication
Through Violence:
Jimmy Carter and the DC Sniper
Robert Jensen
The American
Political Paradox:
More Freedom, Less Democracy
Ben Tripp
Congratulations! It's a War!
Susan Davis
Proverbial
Wisdom:
Red!
David Krieger
A Bleak Day for America
Anis Shivani
George W. in Therapy
Ken Paff
Where Do Hoffa's Tactics Belong in a Mob-Free Teamsters?
Carol Norris
The Politics of Fear
Elaine Cassel
The Lynne Stewart Case:
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Musa AlShaer
Scenes
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Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen: a serialized
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M. Shahid
Alam
I Will Fight Your Enemies
October 11,
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Jeffrey St.
Clair
Montana
Fusion
Steve Kelly's Wild Ride for Congress
Ralph Nader
Whirlwind
Wheelchair Intl.
Anthony Gancarski
Stayin'
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Romi Mahajan
What
War Means to the Iraqi People
Uri Avnery
Israel:
the Jewish Demographic State?
Francis Boyle
Bush's
Banana Republic
Lee Sustar
Taft-Hartley,
Bush and the Dock Workers
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk
Syndrome and George W. Bush
Jerre Skog
The Blessings
of Growth:
The Greatest Deception of All Time
October 10,
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Elson E. Boles
Iraq and
Chemical Weapons:
The US Connection
Senator Russ Feingold
"Confused Justifications and
Vague Proposals": Why I Oppose Bush's War Resolution
William A.
Cook
What Bush
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Jorge Mariscal
Chicanos
and Chicanas Say:
"No a la Guerra"
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Rio's
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Amir Boroomand
Just
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Condoleezza
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Resources:
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About 9/11
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Days That
Shook The World:
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By
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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