Corruption as an issue in the 2006 US elections

I read Pincus's piece differently. It clearly shows that the administration twisted the intelligence to fit it preconceived notions. You mention the Brits. Have you forgotten about the Downing Street Memos, which prove pretty conclusively that nothing would sway Bush from doing his invasion.

Further, it is hard to believe that a president would put in the State of the Union speech information supporting an invasion without having that information very carefully vetted. That is, a president wouldn't do this unless he or she meant to mislead the country.

Someone mentioned before that the AARP interviewer of Powell was biased against Bush. That is nonsense inasmuch AARP is very conservative, probably because its membership is overwhelmingly conservative. Powell, and his assistant, Wilkerson, have made it clear that the administration, especially Cheney, were forcing the intelligence.

The following article, which was found through Factcheck, shows quite clearly that Bush lied about Niger.

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Anatomy of a lie

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Posted: July 15, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice insists neither she nor the president knew the CIA raised serious doubts about a nuke-weapons charge against Iraq in his last State of the Union speech.

"If there was a concern about the underlying intelligence there, the president was unaware of that concern, as was I," she told reporters Friday aboard Air Force One.

The language the White House originally wanted to use in its allegation was even more baseless and reckless - that Iraq recently sought up to 500 tons of uranium from Niger.

But CIA analysts strenuously objected, arguing that they could not verify such a charge, which we now know was based on forged letters.

Undeterred, the White House kept it in the speech, but dropped the specific references to amount and source. And, to be safe, it also attributed the charge to British intelligence.

Here's the final language Bush used on Jan. 28: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

CIA Director George Tenet acknowledges his analysts raised a fuss after receiving a draft "shortly before the speech was given." He revealed that "some of the language was changed" to assuage them. What was changed? "Some specifics about amount and place were taken out," Rice said, guardedly, in response to a reporter's question during the Air Force One gaggle.

According to news reports at the time, Bush began rehearsing the speech from a teleprompter in the White House theater on Jan. 24. It was one of the most important speeches in history, as it was laying the case for baldly starting a war overseas - an American first.

Assuming he wasn't in on the debate raging over the uranium language, Bush had to have at least wondered why at one point he was practicing to say "up to 500 tons" and "from Niger" (which isn't an easy country to pronounce), and then, sometime later on, "significant quantities" and "from Africa." If these revisions didn't catch his attention, surely the addition of the reference to the "British government" did. It's not every State of the Union that an American president cites foreign intelligence.

Yet we are led to believe that Bush remained in the dark about the reasons for the changes in the line.

It's been reported that Tenet believed Bush to be oblivious.

But that's not what Tenet said. Here's the relevant quote in his carefully worded statement:

"The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound [emphasis added]," Tenet said.

Sure, the text, as revised, was technically correct (and therefore an acceptable lie that apparently everybody thought they could live with, at least at the time). However, the content that the text represented - that is, the substance of the charge - was another story entirely.

Tenet didn't let Bush off the hook. All he said was that the president had every reason to believe that the British believed the uranium charge to be true, even though his own intelligence didn't. That's hardly an exoneration.

Did Bush know he was passing off bad intelligence? Depends on what the meaning of "text" is.

Rice, meanwhile, claims even she was in the dark.

Yet a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's banned weapons programs cast doubt on the uranium claim last October - just months before the speech. In the high-level secret report, which went to Rice, the CIA said it couldn't confirm any African link to Iraq involving uranium sales, let alone the alleged Niger one. And the State Department called the claim "highly dubious."

It strains credulity that Rice, a hands-on manager who goes by the nickname "Warrior Princess," would not have read the Iraq report in full at the time it was sent to the White House. Her boss was beating the war tom-toms pretty hard then.

If she failed to brief Bush about the report's reservations, and let him go into a key State of the Union speech blind to them, Bush needs to get himself a new security adviser.

Rice, for her part, blames Tenet for the bogus charge getting in the speech. So does Bush (yet he won't fire him, oddly enough).

Truth is, Tenet thought so little of the uranium story that he personally got Rice's deputy to yank it from Bush's October speech on Iraq in Cincinnati. And he never once used it in any of his congressional testimonies or public statements prior to the State of the Union.

Neither did Secretary of State Colin Powell. In fact, he chose not to use it in his own speech to the U.N. eight days after the State of the Union.

Powell claims the uranium allegation was just a throw-away line in the president's 5,500-word speech, and was not integral to the case against Iraq - unlike, apparently, Bush's related assertion that Iraq had attempted to buy aluminum tubes to make weapons-grade uranium (oops, that also turned out to be false).

But intervening bad press might also have influenced Powell's decision to leave the African uranium claim out of his own speech.

The day after Bush made the claim before Congress, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, shot it down in a Washington Post interview.

"We haven't gotten anything specific," he argued in the Jan. 29 Post story. "Niger denied it, Iraq denied it, and we haven't seen any contracts."

And if it was just a throw-away line, as claimed, why was the White House so desperate to keep it in the president's speech?

We know in hindsight that his October speech didn't convince the U.N. to back his war. Three months later, the uranium charge reappeared, this time in the State of the Union - despite another row with the CIA.

The issue isn't why Tenet didn't object more strenuously to it, as the White House is trying to spin the scandal, but why the White House resisted CIA objections so strenuously? And why, of all things, did it defer to foreign intelligence over its own?

Why did it want that dubious information in there so badly?

For one, it's the only thing in Bush's whole speech that conveys any real sense of urgency about the alleged Iraqi threat (the rest is based on old U.N. arms reports from last decade, many of which are now available on the Internet). The key word in the 16-word uranium charge is "recently," implying Iraq was reactivating its nuke-weapons programs and, if we didn't act fast, we'd all be toast.

But that explanation begs another, more disturbing question about overall motives: Why did this administration want to invade and occupy Iraq so badly that it was willing to scare Congress and the American people with ginned-up intelligence in order to sell its war scheme?

It's incumbent upon Congress to find out. It can start by calling Tenet and Rice to testify - under oath and in open hearings - before the intelligence committees about what really happened in the days leading up to the State of the Uranium.

The following Article will show that President Did not Lie about Niger:




Which brings us to Joseph C. Wilson, IV and what to my mind wins the palm for the most disgraceful instance of all.

The story begins with the notorious sixteen words inserted?-after, be it noted, much vetting by the CIA and the State Department?-into Bush's 2003 State of the Union address:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

This is the "lie" Wilson bragged of having "debunked" after being sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to check out the intelligence it had received to that effect. Wilson would later angrily deny that his wife had recommended him for this mission, and would do his best to spread the impression that choosing him had been the Vice President's idea. But Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, through whom Wilson first planted this impression, was eventually forced to admit that "Cheney apparently didn't know that Wilson had been dispatched." (By the time Kristof grudgingly issued this retraction, Wilson himself, in characteristically shameless fashion, was denying that he had ever "said the Vice President sent me or ordered me sent.") And as for his wife's supposed non-role in his mission, here is what Valerie Plame Wilson wrote in a memo to her boss at the CIA:

My husband has good relations with the PM [the prime minister of Niger] and the former minister of mines . . . , both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.

More than a year after his return, with the help of Kristof, and also Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, and then through an op-ed piece in the Times under his own name, Wilson succeeded, probably beyond his wildest dreams, in setting off a political firestorm.

In response, the White House, no doubt hoping to prevent his allegation about the sixteen words from becoming a proxy for the charge that (in Wilson's latest iteration of it) "lies and disinformation [were] used to justify the invasion of Iraq," eventually acknowledged that the President's statement "did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address." As might have been expected, however, this panicky response served to make things worse rather than better. And yet it was totally unnecessary?-for the maddeningly simple reason that every single one of the sixteen words at issue was true.

That is, British intelligence had assured the CIA that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country of Niger. Furthermore?-and notwithstanding the endlessly repeated assertion that this assurance has now been discredited?-Britain's independent Butler commission concluded that it was "well-founded." The relevant passage is worth quoting at length:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium, and the British government did not claim this.




As if that were not enough to settle the matter, Wilson himself, far from challenging the British report when he was "debriefed" on his return from Niger (although challenging it is what he now never stops doing6), actually strengthened the CIA's belief in its accuracy. From the Senate Intelligence Committee report:

He [the CIA reports officer] said he judged that the most important fact in the report [by Wilson] was that Niger officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Niger prime minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium.

And again:

The report on [Wilson's] trip to Niger . . . did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original CIA reports on the uranium deal.

This passage goes on to note that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research?-which (as we have already seen) did not believe that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons?-found support in Wilson's report for its "assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq." But if so, this, as the Butler report quoted above points out, would not mean that Iraq had not tried to buy it?-which was the only claim made by British intelligence and then by Bush in the famous sixteen words.

The liar here, then, was not Bush but Wilson. And Wilson also lied when he told the Washington Post that he had unmasked as forgeries certain documents given to American intelligence (by whom it is not yet clear) that supposedly contained additional evidence of Saddam's efforts to buy uranium from Niger. The documents did indeed turn out to be forgeries; but, according to the Butler report,

[t]he forged documents were not available to the British government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine [that assessment].7

More damning yet to Wilson, the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered that he had never laid eyes on the documents in question:

[Wilson] also told committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article . . . which said, "among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because ?'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'" Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports.

To top all this off, just as Cheney had nothing to do with the choice of Wilson for the mission to Niger, neither was it true that, as Wilson "confirmed" for a credulous New Republic reporter, "the CIA circulated [his] report to the Vice President's office," thereby supposedly proving that Cheney and his staff "knew the Niger story was a flatout lie." Yet?-the mind reels?-if Cheney had actually been briefed on Wilson's oral report to the CIA (which he was not), he would, like the CIA itself, have been more inclined to believe that Saddam had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger.

So much for the author of the best-selling and much acclaimed book whose title alone?-The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity?-has set a new record for chutzpah.




But there is worse. In his press conference on the indictment against Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald insisted that lying to federal investigators is a serious crime both because it is itself against the law and because, by sending them on endless wild-goose chases, it constitutes the even more serious crime of obstruction of justice. By those standards, Wilson?-who has repeatedly made false statements about every aspect of his mission to Niger, including whose idea it was to send him and what he told the CIA upon his return; who was then shown up by the Senate Intelligence Committee as having lied about the forged documents; and whose mendacity has sent the whole country into a wild-goose chase after allegations that, the more they are refuted, the more they keep being repeated?-is himself an excellent candidate for criminal prosecution.

And so long as we are hunting for liars in this area, let me suggest that we begin with the Democrats now proclaiming that they were duped, and that we then broaden out to all those who in their desperation to delegitimize the larger policy being tested in Iraq?-the policy of making the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy?-have consistently used distortion, misrepresentation, and selective perception to vilify as immoral a bold and noble enterprise and to brand as an ignominious defeat what is proving itself more and more every day to be a victory of American arms and a vindication of American ideals.

?-November 7, 2005


NORMAN PODHORETZ is the editor-at-large of COMMENTARY and the author of ten books. The most recent, The Norman Podhoretz Reader, edited by Thomas L. Jeffers, appeared in 2004. His essays on the Bush Doctrine and Iraq, including "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win" (September 2004) and "The War Against World War IV" (February 2005), can be found by clicking here.

1 Hard as it is to believe, let alone to reconcile with his general position, Joseph C. Wilson, IV, in a speech he delivered three months after the invasion at the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, offhandedly made the following remark: "I remain of the view that we will find biological and chemical weapons and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons."

2 Fuller versions of these and similar statements can be found at http://www.theconversationcafe.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-3134.htmland. Another source is http://www.rightwingnews.com/quotes/demsonwmds.php.

3 These and numerous other such quotations were assembled by Robert Kagan in a piece published in the Washington Post on October 25, 2005.

4 Whereas both John Edwards, later to become John Kerry's running mate in 2004, and Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, actually did use the word in describing the threat posed by Saddam.

5 In early November, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who last year gave their unanimous assent to its report, were suddenly mounting a last-ditch effort to take it back on this issue (and others). But to judge from the material they had already begun leaking by November 7, when this article was going to press, the newest "Bush lied" case is as empty and dishonest as the one they themselves previously rejected.

6 Here is how he put it in a piece in the Los Angeles Times written in late October of this year to celebrate the indictment of Libby: "I knew that the statement in Bush's speech . . . was not true. I knew it was false from my own investigative trip to Africa. . . . And I knew that the White House knew it."

7 More extensive citations of the relevant passages from the Butler report can be found in postings by Daniel McKivergan at www.worldwidestandard.com. I have also drawn throughout on materials cited by the invaluable Stephen F. Hayes in the Weekly Standard.

First, the DSM have never conclusively been proven to be genuine although most politicos will "neither confirm nor deny". Further the memos themselves were admittedly retyped from the originals and the stupid reporter no longer has the originals thus making any validation impossible. If we set aside these troublesome issues, and assume they have a grain of truth, you still haven't proven your point. The DSM, if genuine, simply confirm that Bush and Blair agreed the need for Iraqi regime change, by force if necessary, in Jul 2002.

This is not news, your original premise was that Bush was planning to invade before he was elected the first time.



Are you at least willing to admit your obvious error in that statement?

This is a commentary from Worldnet Daily...and has no more legitimacy than any other editorial. Not sure how you found it on FactCheck, but if you can give me the link on the FactCheck site, I'll give it some consideration.

It ought to be noted here that Ralph Reed went down to defeat in Georgia.

So with Bilbray's win in the California 50th, republicans seem to be even on the corruption charge.

Odd equation. Not merely because Reed's defeat was to another Republican but also because the series of indictments and guilty charges related to Abramoff and Delay (with more to come) do not involve other than Republicans.

Reed's was also in a primary...Bilbray's was in a special election against a democrat. All in all, I'd give more credence to the "non-stickworthiness" of the corruption charge to Bilbray's win, then Reed's loss.

The Abramhoff scandal appears to be a largely Republican fiasco (although that remains to be seen). However I still contend that painting republicans as "the party of corruption" will not win any elections this fall. There's too much corruption on both sides of the aisle. What is far more likely to help the democrats is continued high gas prices and continued violence in the middle east...in essence hoping we americans stay mired in as much misery as possible until the fall elections.

You have no disagreement with me on the general spread of corruption across the entire system. Often, those corrupt corners have been purposefuly constructed to afford just that outcome. Congress's failure to act meaningfully on campaign finance issues and on the consequences of lobbyist access demonstrate this proposition. The new Speaker appears to be surpassing even Delay now, regardless of the noises made earlier when the spotlight was on.

But the Abramoff/Delay KStreet matter is acutely pernicious and conservatives of the more responsible sort, eg David Gergen, set aside their partisan preferences in acknowledgement of this.

Mr. Blotham wrote:

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You have no disagreement with me on the general spread of corruption across the entire system. Often, those corrupt corners have been purposefuly constructed to afford just that outcome. Congress's failure to act meaningfully on campaign finance issues and on the consequences of lobbyist access demonstrate this proposition. The new Speaker appears to be surpassing even Delay now, regardless of the noises made earlier when the spotlight was on.

But the Abramoff/Delay KStreet matter is acutely pernicious and conservatives of the more responsible sort, eg David Gergen, set aside their partisan preferences in acknowledgement of this.

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But since there is general spread of corruption across the entire system, I must ask if it has reached the Incorruptable Canadian Mounted Police.

Somehow, I know that Mr. Blatham would not allow it!!!!!!

Some small fry..

That is terrible, Mr. Nimh. Such corruption should never be allowed. Why, it offends me almost as much as the Oil for Food Scandal that took place in the UN in which the illustrious Mr. Annan and his son were involved up to the eyebrows. It may be that Mr. Annan still thinks he is in an African state where such behavior is part of the daily procudure.

But, Mr. Gallagher certainly appears to be guilty and I am certain that a trial will bring out the truth. Perhaps the government can save money and try him in the same venue as Representative Jefferson, the African-American from Louisiana caught on tape by the FBI, Jefferson evidently believes that money is "cool". He put $90,000 in his refrigerator!!!

Candidate 'war veteran' and 'Harvard degree' claims challenged

RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday August 2, 2006

A GOP challenger to Rep. Alan Mohollan (D-WV) has come under scrutiny after accusations he falsely claimed to be a veteran of the first Gulf war. Republican candidate Chris Wakim (right) has also been questioned about the type of graduate degree he received from Harvard University, ROLL CALL is reporting today.

Wakim currently serves as a member of the House of Delegates in West Virginia.

He has claimed to be a veteran of the first Gulf War, honorably discharged for injuries sustained "in the line of duty." However, the Delegate was actually stationed at Fort Devens in Massachusetts from 1988 to 1991, the period encompassing the war.

Waskim has also been questioned about his claim of earning a "Masters Degree in Public Policy from Harvard." Wakim did not attend Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the only school at Harvard that awards such a degree. ROLL CALL reports he "graduated from the Harvard Extension School, and he received a Masters in Liberal Arts." Harvard Extension School has open enrollment, meaning everyone is accepted for courses. The school is not a part of Harvard University, although the two schools are affiliated.

Excerpts from the registration-restricted article follow:

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Wakim, a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates for the past four years, said in his official campaign biography that he is a "Gulf War veteran," and he repeated the claim in a speech to the American Legion on May 29 and in other public appearances and interviews. The National Republican Congressional Committee, in its own release, called Wakim a "disabled Gulf War veteran honorably discharged for injuries sustained in the line of duty."

Wakim, however, actually was stationed at Fort Devens in Massachusetts from 1988 to 1991, and he never went to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or the Persian Gulf region during the war, which lasted from August 1990 to April 1991.

. . . . . .

Wakim also was asked by reporters to explain his claim to have earned an [sic] master's degree in public policy from Harvard. Only the prestigious John F. Kennedy School of Government can award such a graduate degree.

Wakim, though, did not attend the Kennedy School. Instead, he graduated from the Harvard Extension School, and he received a "Masters in Liberal Arts."

The Harvard Extension School, which is affiliated with but not part of Harvard University, has an "open" enrollment policy, meaning that anyone can take its courses, while the Kennedy School is much more exclusive.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/GOP_challenger_claims_war_veteran_status_0802.html

It's not true that the Extension School is not part of HArvard. It is. And while the open enrollment means that anyone can pay for and take classes, in order to receive a degree, one must be accepted by that division of Harvard.

The thesis writing process at the Extension School is as rigorous as at FAS (Faculty of Arts and Sciences). Many of the classes are the same at FAS and Extension.

This story is inaccurate.

Speaking of faking Harvard credentials, about 25 years ago or so, a man named John Lakian ran for governor of MA and did just that.

He claimed to be a self-made, multi-millionaire (this was when $1M still meant something other than the price of a rather ordinary family home in this state) and businessman. Actually, he was a prosperous real estate agent whose holdings were comfortable but did not total $1M, let alone multiples.

He claimed to have been a highly decorated VietNam veteran. I frankly never paid attention to what medals he was supposed to have won, but, although the Army readily verified that he was a good soldier, his service record was average, not stellar.

Finally, he said that his degree came from Boston University but that he took classes at HArvard every semester. Strangely, Harvard had no record of Lakian's attendance.

Harvard-We are speaking of governmental corruption and the leader in this parade is the UN.Such corruption should never be allowed. Why, it offends me almost as much as the Oil for Food Scandal that took place in the UN in which the illustrious Mr. Annan and his son were involved up to the eyebrows. It may be that Mr. Annan still thinks he is in an African state where such behavior is part of the daily procudure.

Prosecutors mull pre-election indictments in Congress

RAW STORY
Published: Friday August 4, 2006

Federal prosecutors are unsure whether they should issue indictments for members of Congress prior to the November elections, as the decision might "throw their congressional races into disarray," The WALL STREET JOURNAL is reporting today.

Two Congressmen, Bob Ney (R-OH) and William Jefferson (D-LA) are both under investigation currently, in separate cases. GOP leaders are concerned that the investigations may harm their effort to retain control of the House of Representatives, the Journal reports.

While some members of the party are worried about the possibility of indictments, others remain hopeful that prosecutors will wait until after the election. Some have said that the issuing of indictments prior to the November elections would be seen as partisan, the report adds.

The Justice department maintains that politics and the date of the election will not affect their decisions to indict and prosecute the cases. "There is no deadline on indicting incumbents or anyone else in an election year. Our view is, we can ask a grand jury to indict whenever the evidence allows, a Justice Department spokesperson told the Journal."

Excerpts form the article follow…

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With election season kicking into high gear, federal prosecutors investigating a handful of lawmakers may face a tough call on whether to secure indictments that could throw their congressional races into disarray.

While several lawmakers face continued scrutiny, two have publicly confirmed they are targets of criminal investigations: Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney, who has been mentioned in guilty pleas by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates; and Louisiana Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, who is being investigated for taking bribes.

.......

"This is a really difficult issue for prosecutors," says Randall Eliason, who oversaw public-corruption cases in the U.S. attorney's office here during the Clinton administration. "You are damned if you do and damned if you don't, and either course is going to potentially affect the election."

NYT: Contractor caught in bribery scandal claims lawmaker taught him how to 'grease palms'

RAW STORY
Published: Saturday August 5, 2006


A defense contractor implicated in a bribery scandal claims his hometown congressman taught him how to "grease palms," according to an article slated for Sunday's edition of The New York Times.

"In 1992, Brent R. Wilkes rented a suite at the Hyatt Hotel a few blocks from the Capitol," write David Johnston and David D. Kirkpatrick for The Times. "In his briefcase was a stack of envelopes for a half-dozen congressmen, each packet containing up to $10,000 in checks."

"Mr. Wilkes had set up separate meetings with the lawmakers hoping to win a government contract, and he planned to punctuate each pitch with a campaign donation," the article continues. "But his hometown congressman, Representative Bill Lowery of San Diego, a Republican, told him that presenting the checks during the sessions was not how things were done, Mr. Wilkes recalled."

"Instead, Mr. Wilkes said, Mr. Lowery taught him the right way to do it: hand over the envelope in the hallway outside the suite, at least a few feet away," The Times reports. "That was the beginning of a career built on what Mr. Wilkes calls "transactional lobbying," which made him a rich man but also landed him in the middle of a criminal investigation."

Excerpts from the Times article:

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Last November, Mr. Wilkes was described as "co-conspirator No. 1" in a plea agreement signed by Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. In the plea deal, Mr. Cunningham admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in cash and gifts from Mr. Wilkes and other contractors. A former Wilkes associate, Mitchell J. Wade, pleaded guilty to paying some of the bribes.

....

Speaking publicly for the first time since Mr. Cunningham's plea agreement, Mr. Wilkes said in recent interviews that he had done nothing wrong and did not believe that Mr. Lewis and Mr. Lowery had broken the law. Mr. Wilkes, who has not been charged in the Cunningham case, has refused prosecutors' appeals to plead guilty.

But Mr. Wilkes acknowledged that he was a willing participant in what he characterized as a "cutthroat" system in which campaign contributions were a prerequisite for federal contracts. "I attempted to get help and advice from people who could show me the way to do it right," Mr. Wilkes said. "I played by their rules, and I played to win."

#
FULL TIMES ARTICLE CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/NYT_Contractor_caught_in_bribery_scandal_0805.html

I gather that a lot more information of this sort is soon to come out. Abramoff and others are talking, and many conservatives are not sleeping too well.