Hope is not a plan

Al Jazeera reports in this article that machete prices in Nigeria have fallen from a pre-election high of $6 per machete to a post-election slump of $3 per machete. The fall in price is due to a fall in demand for armed thugs to coerce voters, which in turn has led to a fall in interest in machetes outside of their other use -- farming.

Congratulations on your strong support for perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying. With the commuting of Lewis Libby's sentence, you have made an impressive stand for immorality and lawbreaking.

I continue to be as proud of my nation as I am saddened to see you damaging it day by day. I do wish your behavior and policies matched your rhetoric.

(My letter to George Bush today, in light of his commuting of the sentence of Lewis Libby. Notice how he's too cowardly to not do this, yet also too cowardly to actually pardon the man. Also note that he rarely ever modifies a jail sentence -- less than any other president in a century, in fact. His fondness for perjuring sidekicks must be strong and abundant.)

As reported in this BBC article, BBC reporter Alan Johnston was freed today. Mr. Johnston was kidnapped about four months ago during his regular press work in Gaza. His kidnapping sparked more than the usual round of outrage, as his was seen as a fair voice that could publicize Palestinian needs and concerns to the world at large. After months in captivity, things sped up considerably when Hamas forcibly took control of Gaza and promised they'd secure his freedom. Despite initial threats to kill Mr. Johnston should Hamas try a rescue, the self-styled "Army of Islam" finally gave in and released him and a number of other captives, unharmed.

The BBC has a timeline of the process, which began on the third of July when Hamas flooded the Sabra district of Gaza, where Johnston was being held, with gunmen. The BBC and other sources describe Hamas's negotiation process in fairly vague terms, but I would not be surprised if the leverage they used on the "Army" involved some manner of threats not just to its members, but to their families.

The final words, from Mr. Johnston:

Johnston praised Hamas for winning his freedom. "If it hadn't been for that real serious Hamas pressure, that commitment to tidying up Gaza's many, many security problems, then I might have been in that room for a lot longer," he told the news conference later during the day.

Asked if he would return to Gaza, Johnston said: "After many months of kidnapping, I think I need a break."

The GAO just denied a protest by war profiteer KBR concerning the awarding of several global contingency contracts by the Navy to companies other than KBR. As big contractors who lose out on contracts tend to do, KBR complained about everything. However, GAO determined that the major points of failure in the comparison of KBR and the other bidders were entirely legitimate. For the record, KBR scored poorly in these areas (we want to see "excellent" and "good" here, just so you know):

• Contingency Response Plan: Satisfactory
• Management Approach: Satisfactory
• Accounting and Management Systems and Procedures: Marginal
• Past Performance in Small Business Utilization: Satisfactory

KBR's "Contingency Response Plan" rating took a big hit due to their poor performance in responding to hurricane Katrina. They complained that "that the agency ignored the unusual circumstances regarding performance of those projects and discounted KBR's overall record of "stellar" performance in a contingency environment." The Navy responded by explaining that it "gave "significant weight" to KBR's Hurricane Katrina response projects because this contingency relief work was "very recent and highly relevant to the RFP.""

The small business issue of interesting, too. Here's KBR's complaint:

KBR next argues that the agency misevaluated its proposal under the past performance in small business utilization subfactor of the small business utilization factor, under which KBR's proposal received a "good" rating. KBR complains that the agency miscalculated that KBR met only 31 percent of its small business subcontracting goals under prior contracts, when KBR in fact met at least 52.9 percent of its goals. KBR complains that the agency's math is incorrect and that it inappropriately considered an overseas contract.

That's a pretty big difference there. So what's going on?

For example, with regard to one of KBR's contracts (CONCAP III), KBR committed to a "small business concerns" goal of 74 percent, or $74,000,000, which was based on an estimated overall contract value of $100,000,000. However, KBR was in fact awarded $446,689,816 in contract dollars, which is more than four times the estimated contract value. Of this, KBR awarded $199,947,441 in subcontracts to small business concerns. While this dollar value exceeded the $74,000,000 identified as a goal, it constituted only 44.7 percent of the overall contract dollars actually awarded. Contracting Officer's Statement at 45; exh. 4. Although KBR asserts that it should be credited for exceeding its small business goal because it awarded subcontract dollars exceeding $74,000,000, we find reasonable the agency's consideration that the overall percentage goal had not been met.

In other words, on past contracts, KBR has massively lowballed the bid, then ended up raking in much more money than the said they would (over four times as much, in this example). The company then weaseled out of its commitment to assign 74% of that particular contract to small businesses by sticking to 74% of the original bid, rather than 74% of the money they were actually payed. The Navy legitimately called foul on this.

It's also worth considering, given this example of KBR ending up costing the government more than 400% of the original bid, that KBR being the lowest bidder on this new contract means very, very little.

I've spoken to so many service people in our military who couldn't get food and basic needs that were supposed to be provided by KBR that I'm happy to see them being taken to task for what they've done. It's not incompetence. It's negligence.

One of the "upshots" of a totalitarian government is the ability make radical policy changes very quickly. This may occasionally result in the violent overthrow of your government, but that's the risk you generally take when the options are "violent overthrow" or "business as usual." One imagines elections let off some of this pressure.

Last week, the government of Iran announced sharp fuel rationing, resulting in much public complaint and a number of riots.

This week, the government of Iran announced that within two weeks they'll stop making gasoline-only cars, instead switching over to dual-fuel vehicles that can run on both gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). This is so obviously an unworkable schedule, it's hard to see why "two weeks" was chosen, rather than a realistic-sounding time frame.

"The automobiles which have been supplied to the market prior to this will gradually be converted to dual fuel too," Mr Tahmasebi added.

But it is not clear the infrastructure is in place yet, either to produce enough gas or to provide enough filling stations, our correspondent says.

Notice how that's over a million vehicles manufactured last year alone? There are a lot of vehicles needing conversion, not to mention the need to rebuild fueling centers, and so forth.

The thing to watch in the coming months is whether this gradually transitions into a realistic policy, or joins the ranks of many other totalitarian train wrecks of days past.

BBC article

I was visiting the White House site today, and clicked through to "Iraq" on the "In Focus" index, only afterward noticing something curious:

Iraq was right there, just as I expected, but no "terrorism," or "global war on terror," or any variant on the name. Sure, there's a "Homeland Security" section, a "National Security" section, and a "Defense" section, but "Defense" overlaps heavily with Iraq, and Iraq continues to net its own topic area regardless. This suggests terrorism should as well.

So what's the deal? Isn't the global war on terror the real issue? Isn't that why we went to war in Iraq? If I go to the Iraq page today, the first thing I see is this excerpted remark, under the headline "President Bush Visits East Grand Rapids, Discusses Global War on Terror":

"So no matter how frustrating the fight in Iraq can be, no matter how much we wish the war was over, the security of our country depends directly on the outcome of Iraq. The price of giving up there would be paid in American lives for years to come. ... Success in Iraq would bring something powerful and new -- a democracy at the heart of the Middle East, a nation that fights terrorists instead of harboring them, and a powerful example for others of the power of liberty to overcome an ideology of hate."

If the war on terror is the larger issue, where is its focus area? Where do I, as a citizen, learn specifically what the executive branch is doing to tackle this biggest of all issues?

How curious that we have to hunt for that information, but not for information on Iraq.

Joe Lieberman spoke yesterday in the Senate against a number of amendments to a pending defense bill. Setting aside discussion of those amendments, consider his remarks:

Six months ago, this Chamber voted unanimously to confirm GEN David Petraeus as commander of our forces in Iraq. The fact is - which we all acknowledge - before that, the administration had followed a strategy in Iraq that simply was not working. It was a strategy focused on keeping the U.S. force presence as small as possible, regardless of conditions on the ground, and of pushing Iraqi forces into the lead as quickly as possible, regardless of their capabilities to do so.

General Petraeus oversaw - let me step back. General Petraeus was part of a process, along with others, that presented a dramatically different strategy to the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief. He accepted that dramatically different strategy, which was to apply classic principles of counterinsurgency that have been successful elsewhere, so that instead of our main goal being to get out of Iraq, our main goal became to protect the civilian population that the terrorists were persistently attacking, bringing chaos throughout the country, including particularly in the capital city of Baghdad, and making it impossible for a new Iraqi Government to take shape.

Wait...so Joe's saying our old strategy was to eschew decades of counterinsurgency strategy and keep our force in Iraq as small as possible, and now General Petraeus has turned this all around?

I'll give him the latter half of that remark -- we did, indeed, fail to apply time-tested counterinsurgency techniques for much of our time in Iraq to date, despite a respected British officer clearly pointing out that we were screwing things up and despite many junior to mid-rank officers knowing we were screwing things up. If General Petraeus has finally reversed Lt. Col. Paul Yingling's failure in generalship, that can only be a good thing. In fact, it appears that Petraeus is on course to do one of the things Lt. Col. Yingling requires of a good general -- tell the truth. He recently said that the Iraq counterinsurgency could take quite a while, citing the long, long-term example of Northern Ireland, and saying the "average counter insurgency is somewhere around a nine or a ten year endeavour." Maybe he'll follow this up by discussing our troop totals in Iraq.

This brings us to the curious part of Lieberman's comment, where he says that our initial, incorrect goal was to keep the American presence "as small as possible, regardless of conditions on the ground." While that may have been the goal of the currently unnamed all-star moron who claimed U.S. force levels would be down to 5,000 troops on the ground within 12-18 months of the invasion, it doesn't fit the reality of our numbers in Iraq over the years, as highlighted in a recent GAO report. To summarize:

• Late 2003 - 127,000 troops in Iraq (+24,000 coalition troops)
• Mid 2004 - 127,000 troops in Iraq (+22,000 coalition troops)
• Late 2004 - 152,000 troops in Iraq (+25,000 coalition troops)
• Mid 2005 - 139,000 troops in Iraq (+23,000 coalition troops)
• Late 2005 - 155,000 troops in Iraq (+23,000 coalition troops)
• Mid 2006 - 133,000 troops in Iraq (+19,000 coalition troops)
• Late 2006 - 132,000 troops in Iraq (+15,000 coalition troops)
• Mid 2007 - 145,000 troops in Iraq (+13,000 coalition troops)

So, Joe, where were we trying to minimize that troop total? We actually had a huge spike in troop totals at the end of 2005 - more, in fact, than our current "surge," especially if we include our coalition partners into the tally, as we probably should. Although the "surge" added some troops back in, it still doesn't reach our troop total heights in years past.

Yeah, Joe's misrepresenting again.

I'm convinced, at this point, that Senator Lieberman does not have America's best interests at heart. He shares that neo-con dream of mechanically punching a hole in the midst of the Middle East, inserting a compliant democracy, and thus making the world safer for Israel. He has the gall to go on and say this:

But the plain truth is that Iraq in this month, July 2007, is a very different and better place than Iraq in January or February of 2000, and it is because of the so called surge counteroffensive strategy.

Really, Joe? So a repressive, totalitarian regime is clearly worse than random torture and mass murder and 600,000 extra violent deaths? No, Joe. Those are two bad choices, and Iraq now is plainly a more wantonly violent place than it was in 2000. It takes a gross disregard for human life to blithely claim that the "plain truth" is that Iraq is a better place now than it was before -- and by repeating that callous mantra, you deny anyone the chance to see the real situation, and actually make Iraq a better place than it was.

Remember, human life is valuable. And Israel is not our 51st state.

In late March of this year, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and Democratic Senator Jim Webb proposed a bipartisan amendment to the Iraq War supplemental spending bill, intended to protect the readiness of our troops and limit deployments. In the words of Senator Hagel's press release concerning the amendment:

The amendment:

- and requires the President to report to Congress on the comprehensive diplomatic, political and economic strategy of the U.S. regarding Iraq.

Hagel had this to say about the amendment and its intent:

"This amendment puts the focus where it should be: on the men and women of our military. No American wants to allow a single soldier or Marine to be deployed without meeting the military's standard of readiness. Yet that is what we are doing. We are breaking our military and this amendment will help put a stop to it. This amendment is about taking care of our troops."

He said this in support of the amendment during recent debate about allowing it to receive a vote:

"The war in Iraq has pushed the U.S. military to the breaking point. I, like most of my colleagues, have been told by military leaders, both on active duty and those who are retired, that we are doing tremendous damage to our Army and to our Marine Corps, as well as our Army National Guard. Our troops are being deployed longer than they should be, more frequently than they should be, and without full training and equipment. We are eroding our military power at a time when our country faces an increasing arc of challenges and threats across the globe. We are abusing our all-voluntary force in a dangerous and irresponsible way. Senator Webb recited a number of the facts--facts, not interpretations, not subjective analysis, but facts--as to what is happening to our military today because of the burden we are placing on them in Iraq, our fifth year in Iraq, our sixth year in Afghanistan.

This amendment goes to the heart of ensuring the readiness of our military and the time between deployments. This amendment will ensure that all Active units that have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan have time at home that is at least equal to the length of the previous deployment. If we can't commit at least that to our forces, then what can we commit to them?"

So, did the Senate allow this to go to the floor for a vote?

No.

The vote to end debate was 56-41, short of the 60 votes needed.

So what was so wrong with this amendment that 41 Senators, largely Republican, felt the need to never let it see a vote? Perhaps it was the fact that a natural consequence of limiting deployment length is the inability to arbitrarily extend tours, which would in turn mean that the president would have to be honest about just how taxing the Iraq war is on our people. Maybe it was the presidential reporting requirement? If it's neither of those, it's hard to see what the issue was. Are 40 Republicans and Joe Lieberman so callous that they just don't give a damn about our soldiers being able to come home, rest, retrain, and go back out in proper order with the right equipment, instead of being overextended, worn down, and outgunned?

But then, maybe it's a matter of perspective. While Joe was off in law school, Chuck Hegel and Jim Webb were in Vietnam. That may explain why it's so easy for Joe to glibly lie in the face of the truth and support George Bush's phenomenal mishandling of this war.

The Congressional Record should have a bit more information, such as who voted against ending debate, tomorrow.

Update: Here's the list of Senators who voted against allowing this amendment to proceed to the floor for a normal vote.

We're currently in a boom time for detained aliens. In 2001, the INS had about 95,000 aliens in custody. In 2006, the INS's successor, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) held 283,000 aliens. Although the alien custody system is not a prison system, such a dramatic upswing in numbers suggests it might feel the same kinds of strains as overcrowded prisons do. As such, the system merited some GAO review.

In a report bearing the unwieldy title Alien Detention Standards: Telephone Access Problems Were Pervasive at Detention Facilities; Other Deficiencies Did Not Show a Pattern of Noncompliance, the GAO visited 23 alien detention facilities and looked for problems or concerns. As the title suggests, they only hit on one systematic problem, with the rest being more isolated issues like an unclean grill in the Denver facility or detainee populations exceeding rated capacity in four of the facilities.

The phone problem, however, is both systematic and kind of significant, at least for people stuck in custody. The GAO found that the free phone system, meant to let detained aliens resolve their situation, was often nonfunctional, with successful connections no more than 74% of the time. They also found that lists of consulate numbers posted in many institutions were out of date and as a consequence sometimes had dead numbers. These flaws with the phone system are especially significant because the phone is a primary means of resolving your custody, by speaking with your home nation's consulate, and of resolving issues relating to custody, such as health needs or complaints.

The GAO further determined that the problems with the phone system come from a lack of oversight -- there's just no one tasked with making sure the contractors who run the phones and the facilities keep things working and lists up to date. Fortunately, this suggests a reasonably straightforward fix, in the form of assigning a handful of people to do routine compliance checks on facilities to make sure these phone issues -- as well as other issues discussed in the report -- are handled in a timely fashion.

Yesterday, 41 Senators voted against the Hagel / Webb readiness and troop protection amendment. As I mentioned then, the Congressional record gives us their names. Here's the honor roll:

Wayne Allard - Republican, Colorado
John Barrasso - Republican, appointee from Wyoming
Bob Bennett - Republican, Utah
Kit Bond - Republican, Missouri - his son is a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps
Jim Bunning - Republican, Kentucky
Saxby Chambliss - Republican, Georgia
Tom Coburn - Republican, Oklahoma
Thad Cochran - Republican, Mississippi - served in the Navy
Bob Corker - Republican, Tennessee
John Cornyn - Republican, Texas
Larry Craig - Republican, Idaho
Mike Crapo - Republican, Idaho
Jim DeMint - Republican, South Carolina
Elizabeth Dole - Republican, North Carolina
Pete Domenici - Republican, New Mexico
John Ensign - Republican, Nevada
Mike Enzi - Republican, Wyoming
Lindsey Graham - Republican, South Carolina - served as a lawyer in the Air Force, and is currently a reservist JAG instructor
Chuck Grassley - Republican, Iowa
Judd Gregg - Republican, New Hampshire
Orrin Hatch - Republican, Utah
Kay Hutchison - Republican, Texas
James Inhofe - Republican, Oklahoma - served in the Army
Johnny Isakson - Republican, Georgia - served in the Air National Guard (from 1966-1972)
Jon Kyl - Republican, Arizona
Joe Lieberman - Independent, Connecticut
Trent Lott - Republican, Mississippi
Richard Lugar - Republican, Indiana
Mel Martinez - Republican, Florida
John McCain - Republican, Arizona - served as a Naval aviator during the Vietnam war
Mitch McConnell - Republican, Kentucky
Lisa Murkowski - Republican, Alaska
Pat Roberts - Republican, Kansas - served in the Marine Corps
Jeff Sessions - Republican, Alabama
Richard Shelby - Republican, Alabama
Arlen Specter - Republican, Pennsylvania
Ted Stevens - Republican, Alaska - served in the Army Air Corps during World War II
John Thune - Republican, South Dakota
George Voinovich - Republican, Ohio

Last week, the Supreme Court of Argentina revoked a pardon previously given to Santiago Omar Riveros. Mr. Riveros, formerly General Riveros, was one of many in charge of the Dirty War in the late 70s and early 80s, during which about 30,000 people were killed. Riveros was pardoned by the president of Argentina in 1989, along with hundreds of other military and police officials.

This revoking sets a precedent for opening up many other pardoned individuals to trials for their crimes against humanity, which is a key step forward.

BBC article

Sixteen Saudia national were transferred from the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabian custody this week, following a review process at Gitmo. They follow in the footsteps of sixty-one other Saudis who were previously released from American custody. According to Saudi officials, most of the prisoners who were previously transferred from our custody were subsequently released by the Saudis.

al Jazeera article

As befits its generally cluttered, clumsy, and often ill-thought-out nature, defense procurement is a common target for budget and risk concerns from the GAO. In a recent report titled Defense Contracting: Improved Insight and Controls Needed over DOD's Time-and-Materials Contracts. The basic gist of the report is that the Department of Defense may well be using one high-risk type of contract, the "Time-and-Materials" contract, far more often than it should.

Knowing that readers might not be familiar with the range of available contract types, the GAO begins its discussion with this handy table:

Note in particular the second set of entries that distinguishes between "Fixed price," "Cost reimbursable," and "Time-and-materials." Very briefly, each one might be described this way:

• Fixed price - The government pays a fixed price, and the contractor delivers a product or service as required. Even if costs are higher or lower than expected, the amount paid by the government is the same.
• Cost reimbursable - The government pays allowed costs for the contractor, as well as a possible additional fee. The contractor tries to stick within reasonable costs.
• Time-and-materials - The government pays fixed per-hour labor wages.

Looking at all three, you'd hope the government would pick the "Fixed Price" option most of the time. In fact, I suspect most people intuitively think that's how it works, because that's how most contracts in our daily life tend to work (even if we don't always think of them as contracts). Indeed, when the GAO interview commercial businesses, they found that these businesses almost never stray from fixed price contracts, viewing all the others as unacceptably risky.

It might surprise you, then, to find that somewhere over $9.6 billion ("over," because GAO knows for a fact another chunk of similar spending has not been reported) of DOD spending was done via time-and-materials contracts in 2005, and the percentage of money going to these kinds of contracts is rising somewhat higher than the overall amount of money going to service contracts. More problematically, GAO found that contracting officers rarely provided justification for going with a time-and-materials contract instead of some other format. Notably, this isn't how it's supposed to be done:

Because of the risks involved, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) directs that time-and-materials contracts should only be used when it is not possible at the time of award to estimate accurately the extent or duration of the work or to anticipate costs with any reasonable degree of confidence.

The suggestion, then, is that time-and-materials is used because it's easier, and no one really cares to check on these things. This is a problem, however, because it lets contractors bill heavily without much oversight.

Functionally, it's going to the emergency room for $500 when you could probably have seen your GP for a $40 co-pay.

The GAO recommends requiring greater diligence in justifying use of riskier contracts, with an eye toward keeping it from becoming the default type of contract.

During his three decades in office, Mobutu Sese Seko stole quite a bit of money from his nation of Zaire, squirreling it away in Swiss bank accounts. Estimates of the money stolen place the amount in multiple billions of dollars, money that could really help former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) deal with any number of current problems. The DRC's government was hopeful that the Swiss government would repatriate something on the order of a billion dollars or so up until yesterday, when the Swiss announced that they'll be handing back $6.6 million instead.

Naturally, the government of the DRC is a little disappointed. The Swiss government insists that's all the embezzled money they have on hand. Did the dictator somehow spend the other $990 million while he was still alive?

Unfortunately for the government of the DRC, they're going to have very, very little leverage over the Swiss.

BBC article

Researchers from Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing have used satellite-based radar imaging to find a massive underground lake in the northern Darfur region in Sudan. This lake, about the size of Lake Erie, ranks as the tenth largest in the world and could potentially drastically alter the political situation in Darfur by suddenly removing water as a limited resource.

The discovery is "very significant", Hafiz Muhamad from the lobby group Justice Africa told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

He also said that it has long been known there was water in the area but the government had not paid for it to be exploited.

Around a thousand wells will be drilled in the region.

Assuming this does induce peace in Darfur, the important follow-up question will be "How long does it take the inhabitants of Darfur to drain Lake Erie?"

BBC article

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia just charged Kang Kek Ieu (also known as "Duch") with crimes against humanity. This is a significant step for both the Cambodian people and the human race, and it's coming sooner than many expected to see it happen.

Duch was in charge of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison during the time of the Khmer Rouge. He personally oversaw the torture and subsequent murder of 17,000 of his fellow Cambodians, as part of the Khmer Rouge's program of "resetting" their nation.

As with the charges levied against war criminals from Bosnia and Rwanda and the dogged pursuit of Pinochet, this action shows that there is never a statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. The message is clear -- you are subject to the law until you die.

It's the best message we can send.

BBC article

British-based defense giant BAE Systems recently acquired American defense company Armor Holdings. Despite the "special relationship" between America and the UK, this might not be the happiest marriage in terms of our national interest. Armor Holdings manufacturers notable life-saving tools for American troops, including the SAPI plates that let our infantry survive sniper fire and armored variants of the HMMWV to help our troops live through IEDs. BAE, on the other hand, may well have bribed its way into the Saudi Arms market, and is under investigation by the Department of Justice.

BAE says this on their website:

Armor Holdings' customers will benefit from enhanced logistics and support through integration with BAE Systems' well established reset, upgrade and support capability. In addition, BAE Systems' global marketing presence will enhance Armor Holdings' ability to offer tactical wheeled vehicle replacement in overseas markets.

I can't tell you how happy I am to have even more weapons systems offered to overseas markets. How could that possibly hurt us in the future?

BBC article

It took fame to make it happen, but it seems as if the Army may be starting to follow Lt. Col. Paul Yingling's advice. As you may recall, Lt. Col. Yingling recommended several fixes for our military's critical failure in generalship. Here's one of them:

Finally, Congress must enhance accountability by exercising its little-used authority to confirm the retired rank of general officers. By law, Congress must confirm an officer who retires at three- or four-star rank. In the past this requirement has been pro forma in all but a few cases. A general who presides over a massive human rights scandal or a substantial deterioration in security ought to be retired at a lower rank than one who serves with distinction. A general who fails to provide Congress with an accurate and candid assessment of strategic probabilities ought to suffer the same penalty. As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war. By exercising its powers to confirm the retired ranks of general officers, Congress can restore accountability among senior military leaders.

Congress has not yet exercised this right, but the principal may potentially be applied to retired three-star general Phillip Kensinger. Kensinger has been officially censured for his role in misleading the family of Corporal Pat Tillman about his unfortunate death by friendly fire during action in Afghanistan (you can read the censure letter by clicking here). Despite the fact that the circumstances of his death were clear nearly from the beginning, Tillman's family were mislead for quite a while about exactly what happened to him. It seems likely the Kensinger and others did not want to have to publicly admit that a famous individual who'd volunteered to serve his country had died by friendly fire (although this is a simple fact of war, and happens much less often now than it did during earlier wars). The same fame that motivated their fibbing also gave Tillman's family enough pull to get the truth out, and demand accountability for the lies.

The reduction in rank would hack a thousand dollars a month off of Kensinger's pension. Although I can't comment on Kensinger's attitudes or thoughts, it seems fair to say that the risk of direct, financial punishments during retirement might curb the ethical laziness of such extreme cases as Tommy Franks, who could not be bothered to properly plan for Iraq nor to care about American casualties as they occurred.

CNN article