Bush used signing statement to stop investigation of Iraq money?

via Counterpunch

When the Boston Globe, this past April, broke the story that President Bush has been quietly setting aside over 750 acts passed by Congress, claiming he has the authority as "unitary executive" and as commander in chief to ignore such laws, it turned out that one of the laws the president chose to ignore was the one establishing the special inspector general post for Iraq. What the president did was write a so-called "signing statement" on the side (unpublicized of course), saying that the new inspector general would have no authority to investigate any contracts or corruption issues involving the Pentagon.

Well, since most of the missing money has been going to the military in Iraq, that pretty much meant nothing of consequence would be discovered by the inspector general.

So yes, as long as corruption goes to the Pentagon, there's no oversight.  The military is now a giant money laundromat.  

These signing statements need to be stopped.  It's pure dictatorship if he can overrule any law with one line.  It makes the Senate and Congress into a farce.

•  do regular Republicans even realize

  what Bush is doing? They still support him. are they this blinded?

  by redhatmandan on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 08:29:55 AM PDT

  •  They're not blinded at all.

    They fall into two groups: those who approve, and those who hate us more than they're embarrassed by their own.

    by corvo on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 08:41:09 AM PDT

  •  They just refuse

    to believe what's going on. HEADS IN THE SAND!

    by danger durden on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 09:35:58 AM PDT

•  Thanks to this Diarist! <NT>

  by Vigil Lante on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 08:38:47 AM PDT

•  Who has legal standing

  Who has legal standing to challenge this?  We need a test case to debunk this signing statement nonsense and this seems like a good one.

  Would a member of Congress have standing to sue?

  by nightsweat on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 08:50:31 AM PDT

  •  Yes

    If Congress actually worked its constitutional oversight responsibilities, then Bush could never get away with this.

    by redhatmandan on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 08:51:38 AM PDT

    •  So we need one Senator/Congressman?

      Hell, we sure should be able to dig that up.

      Nominees for critters to contact?

      by nightsweat on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 09:12:37 AM PDT

•  The signing statement is public

  It's available here:

  Title III of the Act creates an Inspector General (IG) of the CPA. Title III shall be construed in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authorities to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs, to supervise the unitary executive branch, and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The CPA IG shall refrain from initiating, carrying out, or completing an audit or investigation, or from issuing a subpoena, which requires access to sensitive operation plans, intelligence matters, counterintelligence matters, ongoing criminal investiga-tions by other administrative units of the Department of Defense related to national security, or other matters the disclosure of which would constitute a serious threat to national security. The Secretary of Defense may make exceptions to the foregoing direction in the public interest.

  by jorndorff on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 09:01:30 AM PDT

  •  Just an FYI

    Reading it over again, I realize he meant unpublicized by the media rather than not disclosed or made public. Nonetheless, good diary. Hopefully the ABA will really dig into this.

    by jorndorff on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 09:05:34 AM PDT

    •  what's 'unpublicized'?

      Sure we may know about the misssing 21 billion and counting, but do we know about the details of where that money went?  They leave these terms open so they can bury everything under national security.

      I understand the need for certain things to be hidden, but 21 Billion?  at what point can they say the whole government is secret for interests of national security?  No at this point they have failed with their "national security" secrecy, it's time they become more open about what they're doing.

      by ortsed on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 09:23:37 AM PDT

      •  asdf

        Unpublicized (ie., the signing statement wasn't covered by the media at the time). As for what the IG was supposed to cover itself, there remain many unanswered questions. Questions which are clearly outside any sort of "national security" area. But, as the Globe has reported recently, Bush's signing statements have imposed the use of national security-type secrecy to areas where it really has no direct relevance.

        by jorndorff on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 09:33:49 AM PDT

•  Who is ignorant and who is in collusion?

  Who can keep track anymore?  Sadly, depressingly, it does seem more and more that virtually everyone in government in both parties fall into one of these camps or the other - I don't guess it really matters which.

  Iraq Moratorium

  by One Pissed Off Liberal on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 09:17:42 AM PDT