Ten years ago, today, a rich defense contractor rented out the Rainbow Room for his daughter’s bat mitzvah and paid Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Kenny G, Don Henley, Fifty Cent, and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith to perform. Who knows how much that cost (reportedly, $10 million), but it definitely was more money than I’ve made in my entire life.
The contractor was named David Brooks and he was the CEO of DHB Industries Inc., a company that specialized in making body armor for our troops. Roughly a year prior to this bat mitzvah celebration, the issue of armor for our troops had been the top story in the country.
In December 2004, while visiting out soldiers in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was confronted with a question about vehicle armor. His answer was one for the ages.
Rumsfeld fielded a question from Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team who complained that military vehicles are not properly armored:
“Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up armor our vehicles, and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?”
Rumsfeld replied, “As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe — it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.”
It shouldn’t have been all that shocking that Rumsfeld hadn’t provided adequate protection for our soldiers. He told the Washington Post in January 2002 that “I’m not into this detail stuff. I’m more concepty.” And, in November of 2002, he told Steve Croft of CBS News, “I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.” Quite obviously, he didn’t have a clue.
Also, quite obviously, it soon became so lucrative to profit off the disaster in Iraq that a body armor supplier like David Brooks could throw quite a party for his 13 year old daughter. Things were looking quite bright for Mr. Brooks.
But it didn’t last. Five years later, he found himself in a bit of hot water. That’s why Loretta E. Lynch, then the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, indicted Brooks for pretty much everything under the Sun.
By August 2013, the FBI announced that Brooks was going to jail.
Earlier today, in Central Islip, New York, the former chief executive officer of a Long Island-based supplier of body armor to the U.S. military and law enforcement agencies was sentenced to 17 years in prison for his leadership role in a $200 million fraud and obstruction of justice case, to be followed by five years of supervised release. DHB Industries Inc. founder David H. Brooks, who was convicted in September 2010 on 14 counts of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, securities fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to auditors and subsequently pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the IRS and filing false income tax returns, was also ordered to pay a fine of $8.7 million and to forfeit approximately $65 million in illegally-gained profits to the United States. The court will determine the amount Brooks must pay in restitution to the victims of his fraud scheme within 90 days. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert.
The sentence was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; George Venizelos, Assistant Director in Charge, FBI, New York Field Office (FBI); and Richard Weber, Chief, Criminal Investigation, Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
“DHB Industries made body armor that protected the men and women of the U.S. military, who risk their lives to keep us safe. To David Brooks, it was merely a vehicle for plunder and a means to feed his own greed. Brooks fancied himself a master of the sport of kings. In reality, he was a selfish man who looted his company, defrauded his investors, lied to the SEC and the investing public, and sought to profit through insider trading right before the collapse of his house of cards. And he demonstrated time and time again that he believes he is above the law. Today, David Brooks learned otherwise,” stated U.S. Attorney Lynch. “Thanks to the hard work and dedication of law enforcement, the investing public can rest easier knowing that for the next 17 years, Brooks will not be able to lie, cheat, and steal from anyone else.” Ms. Lynch thanked the FBI and IRS for leading the investigation and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service for its assistance in the case.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Venizelos stated, “David Brooks repeatedly stole from his company, stole from investors, lied to auditors and regulators, and traded on inside information. He did all this to finance an obscenely lavish lifestyle paid for by his victims. Today’s sentencing is the justice the government has been seeking.”
“Tax fraud was integral to sustaining Brooks’s securities fraud schemes and fueling his lust for money,” stated IRS Chief, Criminal Investigation Weber. “Brooks falsified his income tax returns in order to prevent law enforcement from discovering that he was looting DHB. IRS-CI will turn over every stone to find where criminals are hiding and spending their illegal proceeds. This case should send a message to those who feel that they can commit fraud and evade taxes—their consuming greed will always leave a money trail.”
The FBI also announced that day that the prosecution of Brooks “was the result of efforts by President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF), which was created in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.”
I mention all this not just to point out that the fighting in Iraq lasted longer than five months and has now spread to Syria and the streets of Paris. I mention it because it’s a reminder of why you don’t start wars of choice. I mention it because there’s a lesson in here somewhere about violence and entertainment and greed and opulence and what it means to sell out. I mention it because the people we ask to fight our wars never seem to come first.
I mention it mostly because it’s disgusting, and I never want us to forget.
Take a good look at the boxed comments from the Secretary of Defense and the following paragraph. The concluding sentence, “Quite obviously, he didn’t have a clue” is the cautionary tale that we should remember and be prepared to bring up whenever someone starts waxing rhapsodic about Donald Trump and his flights of fancy.
Yes, we’d all really prefer to sweep our enemies away with the short-fingered hand of the four-times bankrupt vulgarian. Especially if it didn’t cost anything or endanger any lives stateside. But that concept sort of gets overwhelmed by pesky details. Anyone who says they can get the job done in five days or five weeks or maybe as long as five months doesn’t have a clue. Anyone who believes someone who says that is in even a worse state of self-delusion.
If he’d kept a lower profile like other war profiteers, he might not have gone to jail. It’s not like being a selfish person who loots companies, defrauds investors, lies to the SEC and the investing public, and seeks to profit through insider trading generally results in prosecution these days.
I’m told that war profiteering used to be thought of as a bad — even treasonous — thing. Now it’s a very profitable business strategy.
Alternately, Rumsfeld did have a clue, but knew they couldn’t sell an open-ended war to the public.
Most wars are promised to be a “short, victorious war”.
(Unless it’s a “war” on poverty, drugs, terror, or some other amorphous thing that doesn’t involve lots of very public boots on the ground and conspicuous body bags.)
Also missing: clear objectives that define victory. I would think having a clear objective would seem to be a pretty basic requirement for any such large scale endeavor. But what do I know? I am not a professional war-monger just someone who implements large global and national projects.
They did have clear objectives for Iraq, namely the eradication of Saddam Hussein, and the transformation of Iraq into a Christian Western Democracy. The first objective was achieved. The second was a fantasy.
This was better than LBJ’s objective of just keeping up the body count until Asians became more impatient than Americans and decided to quit. That was an even bigger fantasy.
Let’s also recall that Halliburton/Kellogg, Brown & Root was toast financially after Bush/Cheney were installed. (I did have a front row seat as to how deep the financial distress was and it was deep and ugly.) In part due to the purchase of Dresser Ind. when Cheney was CEO. HAL/KBR made out like bandits from the Bush/Cheney policies and Iraq war.
You go through life with the ethics you have, not the ethics you might want or wish to have at a later time.
Brooks?
A fall guy.
Like Madoff.
On a larger level, like Lehman Bros.
No more and no less.
In a vast criminal conspiracy such as the one that now rules the U.S., every once in a while the marks have to be mollified. A big deal is made about prosecuting some fool who conveniently got caught; the marks are happy again for another few years and the massive con game continues..
So what.
Give me a break!!!
It’s 2015 and (“legal”) credit card/loan scams continue to help bankrupt the country.
The entire federal electocracy…top to bottom, from the president on down to the lowliest Representative of the poorest state…is owned lock, stock and barrel by Big Corp. Inc. How do I know this? Because the cost of winning an election is more than almost any of them could possibly afford if the did not take massive corporate money. “Oh, but that doesn’t mean that they are in the pocket of their contributors,” you might say. C’mon. WTFU.
The only good thing to come out of Trump’s run so far was that he publicly called out the political system by saying that HRC “had” to come to his wedding because he contributed big money to Clinton campaigns. “That’s the way it works.” he said, and as a result many heretofore sleeple Americans woke the fuck up about how this shit really works.
The military-industrial branch of said criminal conspiracy is doin’ jes’ fine, thank you very much…about to hustle yet another major war effort and also keeping the armaments rolling out in case big bad Russia or China wanna get it on with us.
Please.
Credit Obama for some sort of token prosecution?
Look at your damned logo, Booman. I’;ve been here long enough to remember that your trussed-up frog was supposed to represent the fates of the BushCo war criminals.
How’d that work out under Barack Obama?
Not very well.
Not very well at all.
AG
Documentation of the prosecution and lengthy jailing of a multimillionaire arms dealer by the Obama Administration’s Justice Department is judged an appropriate time by AG for him to “show” how the Obama Administration is in total and corrupt servility to the money powers.
Just as the State Department’s successful negotiation of a deal with Iran “proves” that President Obama is a bloodthirsty servant of the PermaGov and its MIC.
Perhaps Arthur might pick his spots more appropriately? This is an embarrassing display of insecurity from him.
It ain’t just the U.S.
Bet on it.
From Counterpunch:
Like I said…
Brooks?
So what?
Piffle.
A nouveau riche who got caught with his greedy hand in the cookie jar.
Meanwhile, the big boys don’t eat no cookies, let alone try to steal them. Too busy with their truffles and $1000 bottles of wine.
And of course their wars of economic imperialism.
Bet on it.
AG
I hate to defend a thoroughly despicable excuse for a human being, but that is a correct statement for any Secretary of Defense. The technical details of the weapon systems are the provenance of the technical experts deep in the bureaucracy. I say this assurance as one who was formerly one of those engineering experts. I don’t know if we still have any, since Saint Ronnie eliminated literally thousands of civil service engineers and replaced them with contractors. So that now we ask the contractors what we should buy from the contractors. Still, organizationally, the Secretary is not responsible for technical details. He is not supposed to be a Super Engineer. That responsibility lies lower. You don’t blame the Secretary of Health if he/she is not up on every detail that is the responsibility of the medical staff.
Shinseki was fired. So, I don’t accept your premise.
Shinseki was fired for not knowing about systemic failure to provide service, which was the Secretary’s responsibility to know. An closer analogy to Rumsfeld would be Shinseki not knowing the details of the conposition of this year’s flu vaccine. Another analogy would be Rumsfeld not knowing that he had troops in Iraq. That would be like Shinseki’s fault.
BTW, I’m ambivalent about Shinseki. It looks like there was a conspiracy to keep the truth from him. OTOH, shouldn’t a top executive have defenses against things like that? Wouldn’t we blame a bank CEO who was unaware of a massive embezzelment? I keep thinking of the Court-Martial charge “Knew or should have known…” It’s the top bosses responsibility to know, not how many paper clips are used annually but how well his organization is performing it’s mission.
Agree to disagree.
Agreed!
When the detail men go to the grand visionary that his concept isn’t workable, the head cheese is supposed to listen. Donald Rumsfeld, famous for conducting interviews by asking and answering his own questions, doesn’t strike me as the sort of fellow who heard bad news. Also not the sort of fellow who received the bearers of bad news all that graciously.
The thing that no one’s commented on is the hypocrisy of a Bat Mitzvah paid for with stolen funds. A ceremony and celebrations that’s supposed to be the beginning of a young person’s adult journey as a Jew gets funded with stolen money. What a great example to set for the young lady whose day it was. Yet another example of religion getting hijacked for other purposes.
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