Inside the World of War Profiteers

By David Jackson and Jason Grotto
The Chicago Tribune
Thursday 21 February 2008

From prostitutes to Super bowl tickets, a federal probe reveals how contractors in Iraq cheated the US.
Rock Island, Ill. - Inside the stout federal courthouse of this Mississippi River town, the dirty secrets of Iraq war profiteering keep pouring out.
Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.
The graft continued well beyond the 2004 congressional hearings that first called attention to it. And the massive fraud endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors' pockets, records show.
Federal prosecutors in Rock Island have indicted four former supervisors from KBR, the giant defense firm that holds the contract, along with a decorated Army officer and five executives from KBR subcontractors based in the U.S. or the Middle East. Those defendants, along with two other KBR employees who have pleaded guilty in Virginia, account for a third of the 36 people indicted to date on Iraq war-contract crimes, Justice Department records show.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Rock Island sentenced the Army official, Chief Warrant Officer Peleti "Pete" Peleti Jr., to 28 months in prison for taking bribes. One Middle Eastern subcontractor treated him to a trip to the 2006 Super Bowl, a defense investigator said.
Prosecutors would not confirm or deny ongoing grand jury activity. But court records identify a dozen FBI, IRS and military investigative agents who have been assigned to the case. Interviews as well as testimony at the sentencing for Peleti, who has cooperated with authorities, suggest an active probe.
Rock Island serves as a center for the probe of war profiteering because Army brass at the arsenal here administer KBR's so-called LOGCAP III contract to feed, shelter and support U.S. soldiers, and to help restore Iraq's oil infrastructure.
In one case, a freight-shipping subcontractor confessed to giving $25,000 in illegal gratuities to five unnamed KBR employees "to build relationships to get additional business," according to the man's December 2007 statement to a federal judge in the Rock Island court. Separately, Peleti named five military colleagues who allegedly accepted bribes. Prosecutors also have identified three senior KBR executives who allegedly approved inflated bids. None of those 13 people has been charged.
A common thread runs through these cases and other KBR scandals in Iraq, from allegations the firm failed to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that it charged $45 per can of soda: The Pentagon has outsourced crucial troop support jobs while slashing the number of government contract watchdogs.
The dollar value of Army contracts quadrupled from $23.3 billion in 1992 to $100.6 billion in 2006, according to a recent report by a Pentagon panel. But the number of Army contract supervisors was cut from 10,000 in 1990 to 5,500 currently.
Last week, the Army pledged to add 1,400 positions to its contracting command. But even those embroiled in the frauds acknowledge the impact of so much war privatization.
"I think we downsized past the point of general competency," said subcontractor Christopher Cahill, who for a decade prepared military supply depots under LOGCAP. Now serving 30 months in federal prison for fraud, Cahill added: "The point of a standing army is to have them equipped."
KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton Co., says it has been paid $28 billion under LOGCAP III. The firm says it quickly reports all instances of suspected fraud and has repaid the Defense Department more than $1 million for questionable invoices.
In a statement, KBR said its roughly 20,000 employees and 40,000 subcontractors have performed laudably in a war zone where Army demands shift rapidly and local suppliers don't always maintain ledger books. Spokeswoman Heather Browne wrote: "Ethics and integrity are core values for KBR."
But a wiretapped transcript recently released in Rock Island underscores the brazen nature of the exceptions.
In October 2005, with federal agents tailing them, three war contractors slipped through London's posh Cumberland hotel before meeting in a quiet lounge. For the rest of that afternoon, the men sipped cognac and whiskey and discussed the bribes that had greased contracts to supply U.S. troops in Iraq.
Former KBR procurement manager Stephen Seamans, who was wearing a wire strapped on by a Rock Island agent, wondered aloud whether to return $65,000 in kickbacks he got from his two companions, executives from the Saudi conglomerate Tamimi Global Co.
One of the men, Tamimi operations director Shabbir Khan, urged him to hide the money by concocting phony business records.
"Just do the paperwork," Khan said.
Party Houses, Prostitutes
In October 2002, five months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Khan threw a birthday party for Seamans at a Tamimi "party house" near the Kuwait base known as Camp Arifjan. Khan "provided Seamans with a prostitute as a present," Rock Island prosecutors wrote in court papers. Driving Seamans back to his quarters, Khan offered kickbacks that would total $130,000.
Five days later, with Seamans and Khan hammering out the fine print, KBR awarded Tamimi the war's first $14.4 million mess hall subcontract, court records show.
In April 2003, as American troops poured into Iraq, Seamans gave Khan inside information that enabled Tamimi to secure a $2 million KBR subcontract to establish a mess hall at a Baghdad palace. Seamans submitted change orders that inflated that subcontract to $7.4 million.
By June, Seamans and fellow KBR procurement manager Jeff Mazon, a Country Club Hills resident, had executed subcontracts worth $321 million. At least one deal put U.S. soldiers at risk.
The Army LOGCAP contract required KBR to medically screen the thousands of kitchen workers that subcontractors like Tamimi imported from impoverished villages in Nepal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
But when Pentagon officials asked for medical records in March 2004, Khan presented "bogus" files for 550 Tamimi workers, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Lang said in a court hearing last year.
KBR retested those 550 workers at a Kuwait City clinic and found 172 positive for exposure to hepatitis A, Lang told the judge. Khan tried to suppress those findings, warning the clinic director that Tamimi would do no more business with his medical office if he "told KBR about these results," Lang said in court. The infectious virus can cause fatigue and other symptoms that arise weeks after contact.
Retesting of the 172 found that none had contagious hepatitis A, Lang said, and Khan's attorneys said in court that no soldiers caught diseases from the workers or from meals they prepared. It remains unclear if that is because the workers were treated or because they did not remain infectious after the onset of symptoms.
Still, the incident shows how even mundane meal contracts can put troops at risk. Similar disease-testing breaches cropped up at cafeterias outsourced to firms besides Tamimi, former KBR Area Supervisor Rene Robinson said in a Tribune interview.
"That was an ongoing problem," Robinson said. "When the military asked for paperwork, it was spotty." KBR was forced to begin vaccinating the employees at their work sites, he added.
Tamimi and its U.S. lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. The company has said it is cooperating with federal authorities.
By July 2005, Tamimi had secured some 30 KBR troop feeding subcontracts worth $793.5 million, records show. Khan continued to negotiate Iraq war subcontracts for Tamimi until shortly before he was arrested in Rock Island in March 2006.
He is now serving a 51-month prison sentence for lying to federal agents about the kickbacks he wired to Seamans, who pleaded guilty and served a year and a day in prison. Both declined to comment.
Seamans, a 46-year-old Air Force veteran, once taught ethics to junior KBR employees. At his December 2006 sentencing hearing, he expressed remorse for taking the kickbacks, telling the judge: "It is not the way that Americans do business."
It was another repentant LOGCAP veteran standing before a Rock Island judge on Wednesday. Peleti, formerly the military's top food service adviser for the Middle East, wept as he admitted taking bribes from Tamimi and three other subcontractors between 2003 and early 2006.
Ribbons and badges glittered across Peleti's pressed green Army shirt. "I stand here before you today to convey my remorse and sincere regret," he said, then broke down.
One subcontractor, Public Warehousing Co., took Peleti and another top Army official to the Super Bowl, a defense investigator said in court Wednesday. The firm has denied wrongdoing. Khan also bribed Peleti to influence LOGCAP contracts with cash. Peleti was arrested in 2006 while re-entering the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base with a duffel bag stuffed with watches and jewelry as well as about $40,000 concealed in his clothing.
While prosecutors documented kickbacks in only the first two of Tamimi's mess hall subcontracts, they contend that the tone was set to corrupt the system.
"Tamimi and Mr. Khan have their hooks into Mr. Seamans, they have their hooks into KBR," Lang said in court last year. "It is difficult to assess the kind of damage that did to the integrity of the subcontracting process when the first two subcontracts are corrupted."
Auditors in the Basement
Military auditors say they closely monitor the layers of KBR subcontractors who actually perform most of the LOGCAP work, stationing teams in Iraq. But one Rock Island search warrant said auditors working back in the U.S. could manage only limited reviews of the cascade of deals.
In the basement of one of KBR's Houston office buildings, a 25-member team from the Defense Contract Audit Agency had "no communications" with "personnel on the ground," so they could not confirm whether goods and services actually were delivered, the search warrant application said.
In the absence of oversight, some Middle Eastern businessmen would offer "Rolex watches, leather jackets, prostitutes, and the KBR guys weren't shy about bragging about the fact that they were being treated to all that stuff," said Paul Morrell, whose firm The Event Source ran several mess halls as a KBR subcontractor.
Such questionable relationships continued long after early procurement managers like Seamans had been rooted out. Early subcontractors such as Tamimi became almost indispensable in part by outfitting Army cafeterias with expensive power generators and refrigeration systems, records and interviews show.
"If you ever gave Tamimi a hard time, you'd get a call," former KBR subcontract manager Harry DeWolf told the Tribune.
When subcontracts came up for renegotiation, DeWolf said, companies like Tamimi "would say, 'Fine, we're going to pull out all of our people and equipment.' They really had KBR and the government over the barrel."
Complicating the investigation of war-contract crimes, the government of Kuwait has denied a U.S. request to extradite two Middle Eastern businessmen accused of LOGCAP fraud. The country's ambassador last year sent letters to the Justice Department asking the U.S. to drop its case against one of them, arguing that international agreements forbid U.S. prosecution of Kuwaiti residents for crimes allegedly committed on Kuwaiti soil. Prosecutors disagree, but a judge is considering Kuwait's assertion.
Investigators also have faced challenges in dealing with KBR. The company has withheld some internal company documents relating to Mazon, Seaman's fellow KBR procurement manager, the firm's attorneys wrote in court filings.
In response to one subpoena, the firm gave agents about 2,760 of Mazon's computer files but withheld 398 others, saying they were covered by attorney-client privilege or other protections.
Federal prosecutors say they have given KBR no special treatment and that the company has legal rights afforded to all firms whose employees have been charged with wrongdoing. "We did withhold some documents as being privileged," a KBR spokeswoman wrote, but added that the company has provided statements and grand jury testimony.
Mazon has pleaded not guilty to charges that he inflated a fuel contract. His attorneys say the fuel subcontract was accidentally inflated when figures were converted from U.S. dollars to Kuwaiti dinars then back again. At least 22 KBR troop support subcontracts were inflated through similar errors, Mazon's attorney J. Scott Arthur wrote in papers filed in Rock Island.
KBR attorneys said the company informed federal officials of three similar "double conversions" on other subcontracts. But KBR said it "has not undertaken an exhaustive search of its millions of pages of procurement documents" to determine whether other such errors exist.
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dyjackson@tribune.com
jgrotto@tribune.com

Bush: No Compromise on Phone Immunity in Spy Bill

By Deborah Charles
Reuters
Thursday 21 February 2008

Aboard Air Force One - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would not compromise with the Democratic-led Congress on his demand that phone companies that took part in his warrantless domestic spying program be shielded from lawsuits.
Bush has demanded Congress protect companies like AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications from civil lawsuits that accuse them of violating Americans' privacy rights in the administration's anti-terrorism program.
The Senate approved a measure that would grant the companies retroactive immunity but the House of Representatives has opposed it. The surveillance program began in 2001 after the September 11 attacks and some 40 lawsuits are pending.
House and Senate Democrats said they would try to find a compromise even as they said their Republican counterparts refused to permit staff to meet with them on Thursday.
"I would just tell you there's no compromise on whether these phone companies get liability protection," Bush told reporters as he traveled back from a trip to Africa.
A temporary law expired this weekend that expanded the federal government's power to track communications of suspected terrorism suspects without a court order.
Bush has contended that companies would become increasingly reluctant to help U.S. intelligence agencies without immunity and he argues that without listening to those communications, the United States is in greater danger of attack.
The issue will likely be at the forefront next week when Congress returns from a 12-day recess. Bush said his strategy for breaking the deadlock will be to keep talking about why it should be passed with immunity.
"The American people understand we need to be listening to the enemy," he said.
Democrats have countered that Bush was unnecessarily whipping up fears and said last week they were searching for common ground on the matter. Suggestions have included a secret court look at companies' actions before getting immunity or holding the government liable instead of phone companies.
"While we are disappointed that today's meeting could not reflect a bipartisan effort, we will continue to work and hope Republicans will join us to put our nation's security first," the Democratic lawmakers said in a joint statement.
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Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro
Writing by Jeremy Pelofsky; editing by Mohammad Zargham

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GOP Aides Boycott Staff Talks on Surveillance Overhaul

By Tim Starks
Congressional Quarterly
Thursday 21 February 2008

Republican staff boycotted Thursday's meetings between House and Senate aides seeking to hammer out a final version of legislation to overhaul the nation's electronic surveillance law.
Two Democratic aides said Republicans were invited to an afternoon meeting to hash out a compromise between House and Senate versions of the legislation (HR 3773) to revamp the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But none showed up.
Democratic staffers for the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees met anyway, as they had earlier this week, and planned to meet again Friday.
Republican staffers are not participating, because their bosses have objected to holding the negotiations at all. Instead, Republicans want the House to accept the FISA bill passed by the Senate, without change. That measure, passed by a bipartisan 68-29 vote, was drafted with input from the administration and has the support of the White House.
Senate Republicans objected to the appointment of conferees Feb. 14, seeking to force the House to accept the Senate bill. But House Democrats refused, and launched informal negotiations over a final measure.
"The meeting today was a silly sham to draw attention away from the fact that House Democratic leaders seem more interested in protecting the profits of their trial lawyer campaign contributors than they are in protecting the American people," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio.
"There is no need for further negotiations. The only question is when the House Democratic leadership will bring the bipartisan FISA bill to the floor for a vote."
The Democratic chairmen of the four committees assailed the GOP stance in a statement.
"In what should have been a bipartisan, bicameral meeting, staff members of the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees met today to work in good faith to reach a compromise on FISA reform," they said. "Unfortunately, we understand our Republican counterparts instructed their staffs not to attend this working meeting, therefore not allowing progress to be made in a bipartisan, bicameral way."
The four chairmen said they and their staff would "continue to work and hope Republicans will join us to put our nation's security first."
Immunity Dispute
A key difference between the two chambers is over retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies being sued for their alleged assistance with the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program. The Senate-passed FISA bill would grant the retroactive immunity, while the House bill would not.
The administration has vowed to veto any legislation that does not provide immunity, and President Bush made clear that he sees no room for compromise on that score.
"How do you compromise on something like granting liability for a telecommunications company?" Bush said aboard Air Force One as he flew home from Africa Thursday afternoon. "You can't. If we do not give liability protection to those who are helping us, they won't help us. And if they don't help us, there will be no program. And if there's no program, America is more vulnerable."
Earlier, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. , D-Mich., wrote the White House this week to express his appreciation for its decision to allow all members of Conyers' committee to review legal documents related to the warrantless surveillance program and to renew his request for other documents from numerous previous committee inquiries.
Only some members of the House Judiciary Committee had previously been granted access to legal documents related to the warrantless surveillance program. Democrats had asserted they needed to review those documents to decide whether to grant immunity. Now all members of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees in both chambers have been granted access to the documents.
The Judiciary chairmen in both chambers have expressed the most opposition to retroactive immunity. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV , D-W. Va. has been an active proponent, while House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes , D-Texas, said last week that he was still reviewing the documents.
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Kathleen Hunter contributed to this article.

Court extends Sarbox protection to whistleblowers outside US

By Jeremy Grant in Washington
Published: February 15 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 15 2008 02:00

Employees of US-listed companies who blow the whistle on fraud that took place in the US can be protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley law even if they are based beyond US shores, according to a landmark court ruling.

The decision, involving Accenture, the consultancy, overturns years of refusal by US courts to allow the extra-territorial application of Sarbox's whistleblower protection laws.

Sarbox contained new pro-whistleblower provisions when it was passed in 2002 in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals. They were intended to strengthen the protections available to employees who bring to light cases of fraud.

Until now, US federal courts addressing cases involving whistleblowing employees outside the US have decided there should be no protection for them because this would represent application of US law abroad in a way that the US Congress did not intend.

But in the latest case, a judge in New York this week found that Rosemary O'Mahoney, a Paris-based Accenture employee who claimed that Accenture had carried out tax fraud, could be protected because measures allegedly taken against her by the company were orchestrated in the US.

Judge Victor Marrero, of the US district court, southern district, said that because the "alleged wrongful conduct and other material acts occurred in the United States . . . the exercise of jurisdiction by this court to resolve the dispute before it would not implicate the extraterritorial application of American law".

David Mair, a partner at Kaiser Saurborn & Mair, the law firm acting for Ms O'Mahoney, said: "This is going to send an important ripple through the global corporate community."

Ms O'Mahoney, an Irish citizen, alleged in a lawsuit that she had been demoted and suffered a pay cut after she claimed that the firm had deliberately avoided paying more than $3m in French social security contributions on her behalf from 1997 to 2004.

She alleged that Accenture's California-based global tax partner had decided "that Accenture's 'interests' would be better served by not making any of the French social security contributions".

Ms O'Mahoney said she would "not be a party to tax fraud". Her claims have yet to be decided on by the court.

James McAvoy, an Accenture spokesman, said that Ms O'Mahoney's accusations were "totally baseless and without merit".

Top Scientists Want Research Free From Politics

By Adrianne Appel
Inter Press Service
Thursday 14 February 2008

Boston - Leading U.S. scientists called on Congress Thursday to make sure the next president does not do what they say the George W. Bush Administration has done: censor, suppress and falsify important environmental and health research. "The next president and Congress must cultivate an environment where reliable scientific advice flows freely," said Susan Wood, a former director of women's research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Wood resigned her post in 2005 in protest over the FDA's delay in getting emergency, over-the-counter birth control onto the market.

"Serious consequences can result when drug safety decisions are not based on the best available scientific advice from staff scientists and experts," she said.


Wood joined a panel of prominent scientists in Boston - convened by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an activist group - to announce a joint statement asking Congress to protect scientific integrity. Among the more than 15,000 government scientists signing onto the statement are Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre and former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and Anthony Robbins, professor of medicine at Tufts University and former director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.


"Although surely the worst, the Bush Administration is not the first, nor will it be the last administration to mistreat and misuse science and scientists," Robbins said. The White House itself has been directly involved in the suppression and falsification of science, Robbins stressed.

But interference from the White House is just part of the problem, said Francesca Grifo, a former government researcher and now a director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Industry lobbyists are all over government agencies, trying to influence research that will impact their corporations, she said. "These special interest groups are being given access at the highest level."

"Government scientists have had their findings subjected to censorship and misrepresentation," said Kurt Gottfried, professor of physics at Cornell University and a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The public and Congress have often been deprived of accurate and candid scientific information."

"The pursuit of science in an open society has had a long and fruitful tradition in America," Gottfried said. "Unfortunately, this tradition has been violated in recent years by the government itself."

The Union of Concerned Scientists has been tracking the Bush Administration's activities within the scientific community. No fewer than 1,191 scientists employed at nine federal agencies have reported to the group that they fear retaliation from their superiors because the results of their research are threatening to corporate or other interests, according to Grifo.

"What we've been seeing is that when certain programs produce research results that are considered inconvenient they are being penalized by having their funding cut," Grifo told IPS. One such program is an annual listing of pollutants released by private companies, called the Toxic Release Inventory.


"We have seen it undermined," Grifo said. The NASA satellite research program Mission to Planet Earth, which documents environmental degradation, also has been the target of severe budget cuts, Grifo said.

"When science is falsified, fabricated or censored Americans' health and safety suffer," Grifo said.
This interference has been directed at climate change research, new birth control drugs, species protection, consumer safety studies and agricultural research, the scientists said.


The suppression of health data by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may cost many people who were at Ground Zero in New York City - or lived nearby on Sep. 11 - their health, the scientists said. Following the attacks of Sep. 11, then-EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman went before the public and safety personnel on numerous occasions and said that the dust hovering over Ground Zero and settling over New York was not harmful. Many rescue workers and local residents have since become gravely ill due to the toxicity of the air they breathed.

The fate of the Greater Sage grouse is unknown since a top government official interfered with scientific studies showing that the bird and its habitat needed protection from development, the scientists said. Julie MacDonald stalled the release of studies on the grouse by questioning the methodology and conclusions. An expert panel never saw the studies and so recommended the bird not be protected.


Robin Ingle, a former statistician with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said the commission refused to warn the public about gross problems with products like all-terrain vehicles even when research made clear how dangerous they were. "A political appointee at my agency prevented my research on all-terrain-vehicle safety from reaching the public, even when deaths and injuries occurred," she said.

"It's very important that scientific and mathematical research on consumer products be free of the push and pull of politics because you don't want it to be biased in favour of the industry," Ingle told IPS.

In another example, a microbiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture was prevented 11 times from publicizing his research about the dangers of bacteria in the air near massive pig farms in Iowa and Missouri - a big business that supplies America's pork. His research found that the bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. But his supervisor refused to allow him to discuss his results, saying in one memo to him: "politically sensitive and controversial issues require discretion."

Advice For Would Be WhistleblowersPosted (admin) in ethics on February-18-2008

They say no good deed goes unpunished and sadly that is the truth in the world of the whistleblower. The theory on ‘whistle blowing’ is that the individual is helping the community, and following their ethics, by reporting the offending person or company. The risk of recrimination is very high and usually results in a long and difficult fight for the whistleblower. This battle will likely including legal threats and character assassination.So what can you do to protect yourself when you do blow the whistle? Having been through this process I have gain some insight on how best to handle the situation.

1. Documentation: Once you suspect that something is wrong you should begin documenting. Start by taking notes in a log book or note pad. This information will be helpful when you need to tell your story and will provide the detail needed to track down further evidence of wrong-doing. Next, start collecting pertinent documents. The best way is to copy documents (photocopy, computers docs, etc.). When you think you have enough, double it. Pictures, phone recordings, documents, conversations, e-mails are all important and should be noted when possible. There can never be enough documentation. Once the authorities begin investigation documents had a tendency to disappear.Many people who don’t know the laws will try to tell you that these methods are illegal. The fact is they are not. In Canada it is legal to record a conversation or phone call as long as one of the parties is participating in the conversation. The removal of documents from the workplace is a gray area. Under normal circumstances removing company information is illegal, however when it is evidence it can be collected. In a Canadian court all evidence will be considered. Check with your government’s laws or speak with a lawyer before taking any risks.

2. Minimize Your Exposure: When you draw up the courage, and support, to finally report the issues there are a few things you need to do. First, it is best if you stay at your job while you report the issues. Sometimes the authorities will ask you questions, that will help them with their investigation, and being at the location is beneficial. Ask to be kept anonymous, if possible, but sometimes this can’t be done. Next, get your resume polished up and start sending it out. Then prepare financially by locating your employment insurance office. Tell them that you are blowing the whistle on your employer and you may be fired for it. Provide the person with the contact names of whichever authority you contacted. The idea is to build a rapport, so if bad things happen, people will know the facts. Don’t loose that all important safety net.

3. Go with your Instincts: Most people will tell you not to blow the whistle because there are no winners. They are partially right, but without your courage people will get hurt, the rich will get richer and abuse their powers. You can change that by doing what you feel it right. We often cloud our thinking with other people’s perceptions, but only you can determine what to do. Most of the time your instinct are right and you should trust them. If you listen to others and they convince not to go with your instincts, and then something bad happens, you have to live with the consequences, not them.

4. Be Patient: Nothing happens quickly no matter how fast you want to be done with it. The reality is that things will go much slower than you ever expected them too. The best way to make sure things are moving is to do some research. For example, if you file a complaint against a medical professional, the regulatory College that receives the complaint will have a complaints process. However, this is usually regulated by a government agency that has legislation regarding complaints. In Ontario all complaints must be handled in 120 days. If not, you can contact the Health Professions Appeal & Review Board and they will contact the College and accelerate the process.Some other tips to accelerate the process include contacting your local politician, begin a letter writing campaign to media outlets and compiling your story onto an internet site. Be persistent when dealing with each agency, don’t accept their statements at face value and always follow up.

5. The Media is Not a Solution: They can help but you have to convince them to write the story. Many times it may take months for them to move. Remember they don’t want any liability, they are a profit-motivated company and will only publish story’s that make them a dollar. If your former employer is litigious, they will probably be too scared to publish. The media has no problem reporting history, so once a final verdict is reached, by the authorities, they will write a story. Unfortunately it will be to late to help you.Some of the smaller media outlets may be more willing to help you. Take a look at freelance writers, who may spend more time working on your story and getting the facts. They also have the contacts you need to get it published.

6. Prepare for an Attack on your Character and Legal Threats :: The person or company you are dealing with will not let things go easily. The first response will be to discredit you. If you look like an disgruntled employee or someone with a vendetta then your story will be less believable. It’s easy for the person or company to do this. If they were unethical to start with, it’s not a huge leap for them start lying about you after you report them. There isn’t much you can do except try to disprove they’re statements. Use the document you gathered to clearly show that they are the guilty party and you were just being ethical. In the end your efforts will be recognized. You will probably receive a cease and desist letter, don’t be overly concerned as this is most likely posturing. If you are worried, speak with a lawyer.

7. Use Lawyers Sparingly: Nobody can fight with the passion you have and no lawyer will ever put the amount of effort you already have into your fight. Replying to a cease and desist letter is easy, just stick with the facts, provide the evidence and take the high road. Most lawyers will act like an 600 lb gorilla, your job is to be bigger. In all likelihood they won’t want to take this issue to a public forum, like a court room, especially if you have documented the case very well. That would give you a perfect opportunity to invite the media and lay your case out.

Examples of cease and desist responses can be found at http://www.snakeoil.ca.If you need legal advice, get it, but don’t let the lawyer bleed you dry. Have your questions prepared on paper and sit down with the lawyer and discuss the issue. If they charge a minimum of one hour time, use it all. One good thing to do is prepare a short summary of the facts in your case, and fax it in to the law office. Don’t ask question in the letter. Blowing the whistle is stressful enough without having thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Some people will tell you not to let the event consume you. If it does consume you, it will affect other parts of your life. But sometimes focussing your energy can be better if it will resolve the issue quicker. It’s better to throw your whole heart into the matter, rather than fight with yourself. It is difficult to not be consumed. My advice is to simply go with it. The harder you work the quicker the issue will be resolved and the sooner you can get on with your life.

There is no reward for doing a good deed, that’s only in movies. In the end however you should have the satisfaction that you made your community or country a better place. People will respect you for your efforts and hopefully inspire then to do something good and that is a reward in itself.

Darcy O’Neil is a chemical technologist who became a pharmaceutical whistleblower. His experiences, including the evidence, legal threats and decisions can be found at http://www.snakeoil.ca. Darcy is currently working as a bartender and a freelance writer.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Darcy_O’Neil