Page 2 of 3 SPEAKING
FREELY Riches keep the US in
Iraq By Ismael Hossein-zadeh
include "contracts for services that are
highly sophisticated, strategic in nature and
closely approaching core functions that for good
reason the government used to do on its own. The
Pentagon has even hired contractors to advise it
on hiring contractors." [4]
Private
security contracting, a lucrative and rapidly
growing industry, is a good example of the
Pentagon's policy of outsourcing. These
contractors operate on the periphery of US
foreign policy by training
foreign "security forces", or by "fighting
terrorism". Often these private military
corporations are formed by retired special-forces
personnel seeking to market their military
expertise to the Pentagon, the State Department,
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or foreign
governments.
For example, MPRI, one of the
largest and most active of these firms, which "has
trained militaries throughout the world under
contract to the Pentagon", was founded by former
US Army chief of staff Carl Vuono and seven other
retired generals. The fortunes of these
military-training contractors, or modern-day
mercenary companies, like those of the
manufacturers of military hardware, have
skyrocketed by virtue of heightened war and
militarism under Bush. For example, "The per-share
price of stocks in L3 Communications, which owns
MPRI, has more than doubled." [5]
As the
Pentagon's manufacturing contractors, such as
Lockheed Martin, make fortunes through the
production of the means of death and destruction,
they also create profit opportunities for service
contractors such as Halliburton that, like
vultures, follow the plumes of the smoke of
deconstruction and set up shop for
"reconstruction".
For example, in the same
month (last October) that US forces lost a record
number of soldiers in Iraq, and Iraq lost many
more citizens, Halliburton announced that its
third-quarter revenue had risen by 19% to $5.8
billion. This prompted Dave Lesar, the company's
chairman, president and chief executive officer,
to declare, "This was an exceptional quarter for
Halliburton."
Jeff Tilley, an analyst who
does research for Halliburton, likewise pointed
out, "Iraq was better than expected ... Overall,
there is nothing really to question or be
skeptical about. I think the results are very
good."
This led many critics to point out
scornfully that when around the same time Vice
President Dick Cheney told political commentator
Rush Limbaugh that "if you look at the overall
situation [in Iraq] they're doing remarkably
well", he must have been talking about
Halliburton. [6]
The service and
"rebuilding" contractors are frequently called
"reconstruction rackets" not only because they
obtain generous and often no-bid contracts from
their policymaking accomplices, but also because
they habitually shirk on their contracts and skimp
on what they promise to do.
For example,
an investigative on-the-ground report from Iraq,
sponsored by the Institute for Southern Studies
and titled "New Investigation Reveals
Reconstruction Racket", showed that despite
"billions of dollars spent, key pieces of Iraq's
infrastructure - power plants, telephone exchanges
and sewage and sanitation systems - have either
not been repaired or have been fixed so poorly
that they don't function".
The report,
carried out by Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert
Docena and published in the institute's
Publication Southern Exposure, further
revealed that the giant Pentagon contractor
Bechtel "has been given tens of millions to repair
Iraq's schools. Yet many haven't been touched, and
several schools that Bechtel claims to have
repaired are in shambles. One 'repaired' school
was overflowing with unflushed sewage."
The report also showed that out of a $2.2
billion "reconstruction" contract with
Halliburton, the company spent only 10% on
"community needs - the rest being spent on
servicing US troops and rebuilding oil pipelines.
Halliburton has also spent over $40 million in the
unsuccessful search for weapons of mass
destruction." [7]
The spoils of war and
devastation in Iraq have been so attractive that
an extremely large number of war profiteers have
set up shop in that country to get a share of the
booty: "There are about 100,000 government
contractors operating in Iraq, not counting
subcontractors, a total that is approaching the
size of the US military force there, according to
the military's first census of the growing
population of civilians operating in the
battlefield," reported the Washington Post in its
December 5, 2006, issue.
The report,
prepared by Renae Merle, further points out, "In
addition to about 140,000 US troops, Iraq is now
filled with a hodgepodge of contractors. DynCorp
International has about 1,500 employees in Iraq,
including about 700 helping train the police
force. Blackwater USA has more than 1,000
employees in the country, most of them providing
private security ... MPRI, a unit of L-3
Communications, has about 500 employees working on
12 contracts, including providing mentors to the
Iraqi Defense Ministry for strategic planning,
budgeting and establishing its public affairs
office. Titan, another L-3 division, has 6,500
linguists in the country." [8]
The fact
that powerful beneficiaries of war dividends
flourish in an atmosphere of war and international
convulsion should not come as a surprise to
anyone. What is surprising is that, in the context
of the recent US wars of choice, these
beneficiaries have also acquired the power of
promoting wars, often by manufacturing "external
threats to our national interest". In other words,
profit-driven beneficiaries of war have also
evolved as warmakers, or contributors to
warmaking. [9]
The following is a sample
of such unsavory business-political relationships,
as reported by Walter F Roche and Ken Silverstein
in a July 14, 2004, Los Angeles Times article
titled "Advocates of war now profit from Iraq's
reconstruction":
Former CIA director R James Woolsey is a
prominent example of the phenomenon, mixing his
business interests with what he contends are the
country's strategic interests.
Neil Livingstone, a former Senate aide who
has served as a Pentagon and State Department
adviser and issued repeated public calls for
[Saddam] Hussein's overthrow. He heads a
Washington-based firm, GlobalOptions, Inc that
provides contacts and consulting services to
companies doing business in Iraq.
Randy Scheunemann, a former [defense
secretary Donald] Rumsfeld adviser who helped
draft the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
authorizing $98 million in US aid to Iraqi exile
groups. He was the
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
