DUNCAN HUNTER-- EVEN WORSE THAN RANDY "DUKE" CUNNINGHAM

When you examine the patterns of defense contractor donations a very interesting pattern arises-- oodles and oodles of bribes going to 3 far right wing Republican congressloons from Southern California: confessed felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham and his 2 so-far unindicted partners in crime, Jerry Lewis and Duncan Hunter. Lewis, who was very much in cahoots with Cunningham, is yet to be adequately investigated but Duncan Hunter is probably next up for a well-deserved career-ending indictment, trial and prison term.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed from defense contractors, eager to do business with the government, to Hunter, Republican Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, including at least $50,000 from Brent Wilkes, one of the crooks who was caught bribing Cunningham. Fact of the matter is, Cunningham was a rank amateur compared to the far more corrupt-- and far smarter (remember, for all the millions of dollars he stole, Cunningham was just an amoral sly sociopath, neither educated nor intelligent)-- Hunter.

Hunter had a hand in virtually every military scandal involving large sums of money that has gone down over the past 2 decades. He was a key participant in getting Air Force funds questionably diverted to his campaign contributor, Boeing (the bi-product of which was the disgrace and resignation of Air Force Secretary Jim Roche). Bush replaced Roche by an even sleazier Air Force Secretary, Peter Geren (who owns a cabin with Hunter and who continued pushing Hunter's outrageous schemes for funneling taxpayer dollars to Boeing-- a percentage of which was, of course, always kicked back to his campaign coffers). Two Boeing executives and an Air Force procurement official were convicted and imprisoned in these matters but Hunter was protected by the Bush Regime, which kept his name out of the public records. After Geren was indirectly implicated in the religionist scandal that rocked the Air Force academy this year he resigned (last month) and Bush put in another crooked operative/Duncan pal tied in with Boeing wheeling and dealing, Michael Wynne.

Duncan's local paper, the SAN DIEGO UNION, in an article last week called LEGAL LOOTING: CUNNINGHAM CASE ONLY HINTS AT EXTENT OF ROT there is the beginnings of what is sure to earn Hunter the nice long prison sentence he's been working towards so diligently. "Cunningham and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, worked closely with two local companies – ADCS Inc. of Poway and Audre Inc. of Rancho Bernardo – to make the Pentagon pay for converting printed documents to computer files. They and a few other lawmakers got Congress to allocate $190 million for 'automated data conversion' projects from 1993 to 2001. Did the Pentagon want this 'help'? No. As a 1994 General Accounting Office report noted, it already had the tools for such work. But Cunningham, Hunter and their House allies didn't care. Audre and ADCS were generous with contributions."

Hunter's graft and corruption led to incredibly wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars-- MILLIONS of dollars that should have been used for armor for our front line troops dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. The UNION points to what they call "absurdities" like "a $9.7 million contract for ADCS to digitize historical documents from the Panama Canal Zone that the Pentagon considered insignificant. This isn't governance. This is looting." Indeed and the looters and war profiteers should be severely punished, although under Bush they are, of course, always protected until their greed and avarice goes beyond the pale and they wind up like Cunningham. In the twisted, self-serving mind of Duncan Hunter "if the Joint Chiefs of Staff think the military's bucks should go toward protecting soldiers and not the pointless preservation of old documents, well, tough luck." The pay-offs to criminal scoundrels like Cunningham, Jerry Lewis, and Duncan Hunter were from Wilkes and if Wilkes needed a multimillion dollar unnecessary contract to preserve useless documents while Army vehicles went unarmored in Iraq... well, making sure it happened was the job of the best friend a corrupt contractor could ever have: the all powerful Duncan Hunter.

And Brent Wilkes was always eager to reciprocate-- big time-- when it came to Hunter. So far hundreds of thousands of dollars have been traced going from Wilkes to Hunter, not to mention a disgraceful SALUTE TO HEROES gala Wilkes concocted for his criminal pals, Cunningham and Hunter in 2002 and 2003 and lots and lots of other not-so-little perks (like private jet rides).

And one thing everybody in DC knows-- or at least everybody in DC who matters-- is that when you buy Duncan Hunter, you always get your money's worth. I mean who would block an investigation of the scandal at Abu Ghraib that has so seriously damaged American credibility and prestige everywhere in the world? Well, follow the money and you will find... Duncan Hunter! A quarter million dollars from missile defense contractors like scandal-plagued Titan (who gave their boy Hunter over $40,000 and nearly as much to Jerry Lewis and Randy Cunningham) has kept Congress from looking into Titan's role in the torture of Iraqi prisoners at the infamous American-run prison. We now know exactly why Hunter has single-handedly blocked the Abu Ghraib investigation. Now we need to find out why Hunter is also blocking a congressional investigation of 9/11.