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They’re calling it “Hookergate.”
But what's lost in that gleeful name is that the
massive corruption exposed by last week’s indictment
of former CIA apparatchik “Dusty Foggo” and
defense-contractor-cum-bagman Brent Wilkes is the
biggest national scandal, in terms of dollars, in
American history.
It's
light years more serious than just another Washington
sex scandal.
According to the company’s own website,
Randy Cunningham steered $500 million in defense
contracts in less than a decade to Brent Wilkes’
start-up San Diego software firm.
A
secret cabal of former Iran Contra “players”—Wilkes
and Foggo both spent their salad days practicing in
Honduras during the Contra war—have engineered the
theft of hundreds of millions of dollars.
America's national security has been seriously
compromised.
The U.S. Defense budget had enough money to photocopy
old maps of Panama, and pay for Randy the Duke-ster's
"incidentals" like yachts on the Potomac and hookers
in Hawaii, but could not find the money
to pay for effective body armor for
American troops.
Some lethal-ass 'Monkey
Business'
This is no comic burlesque.
This
is a scandal that’s cost hundreds of American
lives.
When the limousine of the powerful
Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was pulled over
beside the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. by U.S.
Park Police late one night in 1974, and stripper
Fannie the "Argentine Firecracker" Foxe
used the opportunity to jump out and dive into
the water, it was bad news for Wilbur Mills...

But nobody died.
When photos taken on a luxury yacht in Miami called
the “Monkey Business” turned up in the National
Inquirer showing party girl and
future anti-porn advocate Donna Rice perched on
leading Presidential candidate Gary Hart’s bony knees, it
ended Hart's 1988 presidential campaign.
But nobody died.
Life During Wartime

When
Congressman Wayne Hayes gave a raise to a staffer on the House Administration
Committee named Elizabeth Ray who also just
happened to be his long-time mistress, he suffered
acutely when she famously
admitted: “I can't type. I can't file. I can't even
answer the phone.”
But nobody died.
Monica
Lewinsky lost her favorite blue dress.
Gennifer Flowers scored a book deal...
But nobody died.
The
true cost of Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s Watergate
“Poke-her” parties and Hawaiian Islands blowjobs,
however, will
ultimately not be reckoned by the several hundred
million dollars he squandered of what should
have been money used to strengthen America’s national defense...
The
misappropriation of millions from the defense budget
of the United States of America didn’t occur in an
historical vacuum.
It occurred in the middle of a war.
Fiddling in Hawaii while
Americans died

The incident most often cited in news accounts about
the indictment against Cunningham’s alleged
partner-in-crime, Brent Wilkes involves a vacation stay in a $6,600-per-night suite at the Hapuna Beach
Prince Hotel in Hawaii, during which Wilkes felt the
need to engage the services of two prostitutes on
successive nights for his client Cunningham and
himself.
“On or about August 16, 2003, at approximately 11 pm,
defendant Wilkes arranged to have Prostitute ‘A’ and
Prostitute ‘C’ available for himself and coconspirator
Cunningham. Pursuant to Cunningham’s request, Wilkes
arranged for the Congressman to get a different
prostitute for the second evening.”
The press had a field day. Questions were even raised
about the gender of the prostitutes...
Hilarity ensued.
But the mirth leaves a bitter aftertaste when you
consider what else was going on in the world at the
same time as Wilkes and the Duke-ster were romping
with prosties in Hawaii on U.S. Defense Department
cash.
In
plain terms,
because of the crimes of Cunningham, Wilkes,
Foggo, and numerous un-indicted co-conspirators...
American soldiers died.
"Non-priority" items were
"not a priority."

Just one month after the Duke-ster was getting his
rocks off in Hawaii, a story in the Los Angeles Times
contained this headline: “Why must Americans in
Iraq face death because of outmoded body armor?”
Reported Jonathon Turley:
“SUZANNE Werfelman is a mother and a teacher who has
been shopping for individual body armor. This is not
in response to threats from her elementary-class
students in Sciota, Pa.; it's a desperate attempt to
protect her son in Iraq.
“Like many other U.S. service members in Iraq, her son
was given a Vietnam-era flak jacket that cannot stop
the type of weapons used today. It appears that
parents across the country are now purchasers of body
armor because of the failure of the military to supply
soldiers with modern vests.
“For many GIs, Iraq appears to be a strictly BYOB war
-- Bring Your Own Bulletproofs.”
“Most
U.S. troops were supplied with Vietnam-era flak
jackets, designed to protect the wearer from shrapnel
but not modern-day ammunition. The new vests, called
Interceptors, are made of Kevlar; they're a third
lighter than the old ones, and have pockets for
ceramic plates to protect vital organs.
“Seven
months after the end of the war, there were still
approximately 40,000 soldiers-nearly one-third of the
troops in Iraq-without fully functioning Kevlar vests
designed to stop a round from an AK-47, the most
common automatic rifle in the world.”
When Turley called the Pentagon to talk about the
vests, a procurement officer told him new vests were a
"non-priority" item," like tents.
Military brass "spending in other areas."

“It is unclear how we got into this predicament, but
it is worthy of a congressional investigation --
particularly when it comes to the failure to equip all
military units with the modern vests before the Iraq
war. After all, the military brass appears to be
spending in other areas."
With hindsight this seems to be particularly
prescient... Did Turley know about the hookers?
The answer to
what this all means in terms of now-dead American
soldiers can be found in a story in the January 7, 2006
New
York Times with the headline: “Pentagon Study Links
Fatalities To Body Armor.”
“A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as
80
percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq
from wounds to the upper body could have survived if
they had had extra body armor.
“The
ceramic plates in vests now worn by the majority of
troops in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back.
In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were
analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March
2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck
the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso
where the plates do not reach.
“The shortages come down to money and
priorities. In 1998, Interceptors (state of the art
vests) were available and issued to armies around the
world."
“Almost from the beginning, some soldiers asked for
additional protection to stop bullets from slicing
through their sides. In the fall of 2003, when troops
began hanging their crotch protectors under their
arms, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force shipped several
hundred plates to protect their sides and shoulders.
Individual soldiers and units continued to buy their
own sets."
Screaming louder than
Cunningham's hookers
“The
Pentagon has been collecting the data on wounds since
the beginning of the war in March 2003 in part to
determine the effectiveness of body armor.
"The
military's medical examiner, Dr. Craig T. Mallak, told
a military panel in 2003 that the information
'screams to be published.'"
“The findings and other research by military
pathologists suggests that an analysis of all combat
deaths in Iraq, including those of Army troops, would
show that 300 or more lives might have been saved with
improved body armor.”
The information may have been screaming, but
apparently couldn’t be heard over the moans of “Duke!
Duke!” coming from Cunningham’s hookers.
At the time the analysis was done, 1,706 American
troops had died in combat. Do the math: today twice as
many have died.
So
600 American soldiers might still be alive, had they
had state of the art body armor.
Cunningham's hookers: Late model, or
older?
The
Wilkes indictment doesn't specify whether the prostitutes Cunningham was poking in Hawaii
were brand new shiny models or ones whose treads had already
begun showing
some wear. But the answer seems pretty obvious.
What makes all this tragic almost beyond words
is this statement from the story in the N.Y.
Times: Even at retail prices, it would
have cost less than $97 million to outfit each of
the 150,000 soldiers in Iraq with state-of-the-art
vest plates.
Hell, the Defense Department's 'black budget' spent
more money than that with Wilkes’ company just
to Xerox old maps.
But "600 American soldiers" is just a
number, an abstraction.
We need to bring the story down to the human
level, to the death of one American soldier.
Meet Mark Evnin.
"Left lower abdomen! I
can't feel my toes!"

A powerful story in the
April 20, 2003 New York Times Sunday magazine by Times
editor
Peter Maass
contained a vivid description of the death of one
American soldier:
“The attack began at dawn with an artillery barrage
that had excited marines next to my vehicle. They
yelled "Bam! Bam!" as each shell was fired into the
air.
"Tanks led the way into town, and as I stayed a
kilometer behind at a medic station, the sounds of
battle commenced, mortars and machine-gun fire that
were accompanied, as ever, by the visuals of war --
smoke plumes that were an arsonist's dream.
“A half-hour into the battle, a Humvee raced out of
the city and stopped at the medic station. A marine,
whose body was rag-doll floppy, was pulled out and put
on a stretcher. A marine doctor and medics surrounded
him. His clothes were stripped off and needles and
monitors placed on and into his body, and the dialogue
of battlefield medicine began among the team, all of
whom had slung their M-16's over their backs as they
tried to save their comrade's life.
"Left lower abdomen."
"He's in urgent surgical."
"Wriggle your toes for me."
"Ow, ow."
"He needs medevac, now."
"Iodine."
"My arms are numb."
"Keep talking, Evnin."
"Chaplain, I'm not going
to die."

"His name was Mark Evnin. He was a corporal, a sniper
who was in one of the lead vehicles going into Al Kut.
Iraqi fighters were waiting in ambush and had fired
the first shots; one of them got him.
"Keep talking to us. Where are you from?"
"Remon," he mumbled.
"Where? Where are you from?"
"Verrrmon."
"Evnin was not doing well. The battalion chaplain, Bob
Grove, leaned over him, and because the chaplain knew
Evnin was Jewish, he pulled out of his pocket a sheet
with instructions for "emergency Jewish ministration."
"Grove read the Sh'ma, which begins, "Hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God." Then he began reading the 23rd
Psalm, at which point Evnin said, "Chaplain, I'm not
going to die."
"A Chinook landed 50 yards away. Evnin's stretcher was
lifted from the asphalt and rushed to the chopper.
Shortly after he was airborne, he went into shock and
died.”
"Can we please come inside
ma'am?"
Several
months later the New York Times
did a story on June 1, 2003 about the
growing number of deaths in Iraq focusing on their
loved ones.
They
interviewed Mark Evnin’s mom about how she heard
the news of her son's death...
“Mindy Evnin had changed into robe and slippers,
preparing for bed, when she heard the knock on the
front door. For a second, a thought flashed through
her mind. Could this be "the knock?" Had something
happened to her son Mark, a Marine corporal serving in
Iraq?
“Of course not, she thought. But there, on her porch
in Burlington, Vt., stood three men in uniform.
"Just tell me if he's been wounded, dead or missing,"
she asked immediately.
"Could we please come inside, ma'am?" asked one of
them, a Marine major.”
Where's there's life,
there's hope.

Responding to the charges against him in a statement
late last week, Brent Wilkes stated:
“Nothing in life prepares you for the helpless feeling
of trying to comfort a child who cries in anger or
fear resulting from a false 'news' story or a cruel
comment from a classmate.
"The
overwhelming nature of the attack robs you of the
ability to do that which a father and husband put
first, to care for and comfort his family."
“Leaks of false information had destroyed his
reputation, family and business,” said Wilkes, and
made his life “a living hell.”
Not yet, Mr. Wilkes. But there's
reason for hope.
NEXT: DUNCAN HUNTER, Presidential Candidate &
Un-indicted Co-conspirator
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