Who makes money on war in Iraq?

[Kulapavana]

Source: IPA News

Published: October 20, 2004 Author: PRATAP CHATTERJEE

Chatterjee is author of the new book Iraq Inc. and has traveled to Iraq twice. He said today: "Nineteen months after the invasion, most services [in Iraq] have not been restored, the bills have reached astronomical proportions and Iraqis have very few jobs. Iraqi security guards get less than 1 percent of their foreign counterparts for the same work, the average Iraqi worker is paid $100 a month while truck drivers from the United States are paid $8,000 for work with similar skills by Halliburton, and American consultants provide grants of less than $100,000 for Iraqi organizations for a full year of work while paying individual expatriate employees more than that. It is small wonder that most of the infrastructure is hardly improved from pre-war levels."

 

Chatterjee added: "Today, while [many of these private] companies continue to be guaranteed profits as high as 25 percent, few of them have done a decent job for the Iraqis, let alone the American taxpayer. Halliburton's overcharging for supplying oil to the military is only the tip of the iceberg -- private security companies are charging double by using shell companies in the Cayman Islands. Companies hired to supervise elections are squandering 90 percent of their money on expensive expatriate advisors while ignoring local experts. Television executives hired by the Pentagon pay themselves $200 an hour while refusing to pay local staff a similar sum for a whole month's work. And as if wasting money wasn't bad enough, private contractors have been caught raping prisoners and stealing equipment from the very places they were hired to repair. Today, 18 months after the fall of Baghdad, millions of Iraqis are still without proper electricity, clean water and health care despite having surrendered tens of billions of dollars of their own oil revenue." Pratap Chatterjee is the managing editor of CorpWatch.

 

 

ANTONIA JUHASZ, ajuhasz@ifg.org, www.commondreams.org/views04/1014-20.htm

Juhasz's op-ed article titled "A Nice Little War to Fill the Coffers" appeared in the Los Angeles Times on October 14. According to Juhasz: "Halliburton, far and away the largest recipient of Iraq reconstruction dollars with about $18 billion in contracts, has seen revenues increase by 80 percent in the first quarter of 2004 compared with the same quarter of 2003, according to the Financial Times. These revenues reflect 'steep profits from their Iraq operations.' Next in line is the Bechtel Group of San Francisco, with nearly $3 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts. In fact, revenues generated outside the United States have increased by 158 percent since 2003 for Bechtel -- turning around a three-year slump in that category. Helping to boost these bottom lines are rules [and orders] put into place by L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Bush administration's now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Among them are 'orders' that ensure that none of the profits made by contractors have to be reinvested in the fledging Iraqi economy or in helping with reconstruction. Instead, every last penny can be sent back to the United States. The orders also make it difficult, come January, for an elected Iraqi government to overturn such rules. ... Not surprisingly, some of the profits generated by the war in Iraq appear to be making their way into Republican Party coffers. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, each of these corporations is among the leaders in its industry in 2003-2004 election-cycle contributions, with most of the donations going to Republicans."

 

Juhasz also points out: "The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life -- from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. ... Orders No. 57 and No. 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector generals in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations. Order No. 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq's laws. Even if they, say, kill someone or cause an environmental disaster, the injured party cannot turn to the Iraqi legal system. Rather, the charges must be brought to U.S. courts. With few reconstruction projects underway and with Bremer's rules favoring U.S. corporations, there has been little opportunity for Iraqis to go back to work, leaving nearly 2 million unemployed 1 1/2 years after the invasion. ... Clearly, the Bremer orders fundamentally altered Iraq's existing laws. For this reason, they are also illegal. Transformation of an occupied country's laws violates the Hague regulations of 1907 (ratified by the United States) and the U.S. Army's Law of Land Warfare. Indeed, in a leaked memo, the British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned Prime Minister Tony Blair that 'major structural economic reforms would not be authorized by international law.'" Juhasz is a project director with the International Forum on Globalization and a Foreign Policy In Focus scholar.

[Kulapavana]

US taxpayers like you and me /images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

this is a legalized organized crime operation...

[AncientMariner]

I was listening to the coast to coast radio program with George Noory again last night and they had this guy who is a remote viewer for the government. He was saying that the government has already intercepted and prevented some major terrorist attacks on U.S. soil just this last summer. He was also saying that the next 7 years are going to be a phase of destruction for the U.S. Bush will get reelected and Mount Rainier will erupt. He also said like the guy the night before that the battle of Armageddon will be a war between China and the USA. This guy has worked for the UN and he said that it is well known that China is behind Al Qaeda and various other terrorist organizations and that China is planning to invade the U.S.

[Kulapavana]

"This guy has worked for the UN and he said that it is well known that China is behind Al Qaeda and various other terrorist organizations"

 

the stories I usually hear name another foreign power instigating terrorism: Israel. But my bet is on CIA. business has never been better for CIA & Company since they trained and recruited Mr. Binladen in 1980's...

[AncientMariner]

Another thing this radio guest said is that the US and Israel will go into Iran and forcibly remove Iran's nuclear weapons programs within the next year or two.

[Kulapavana]

yes, that is very possible, maybe even sooner than we think. Lord help us if these idiots really strike Iran. The ensuing mele would be 50 times worse than Iraq /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[AncientMariner]

The guy was also saying that once the dust settles and stuff that people will form spiritual communities and that ultimately America will be a strong force in bringing about a spiritual awakening in the world. He was saying the only hope of America not suffering a terrible invasion from China is if China reawakens their spiritual heritage as well.

[stonehearted]

I've heard Noory and Art Bell when in the car sometimes, and some of the people they have on are crackpots. Remember the crop circles a couple of years ago that were supposed to be exact replicas of the signal we sent from that radio telescope in Chile (or wherever)? Proof positive of contact and of imminent, enormous changes in our culture once the aliens came out into the open. Trouble is, nothing ever came of it. It's fun entertainment for some folks, and very little more.

 

Even my dad, who is an avid fan and believes a lot of that stuff (he's very intelligent and very unconventional), like anything Zecharaiah Sitchin writes, says plainly that remote viewing is horse hockey. But wouldn't it be fun? Have you investigated this technique yourself? How much does it cost to take those courses these guys talk about on Coast to Coast?

[Guest guest]

From manhattan beach. I even seen him at the LA temple (ca 1970). Not a bad guy, a little new agey. Shawn David Morton, I used to live next door to him, before I moved to hawaii.

 

His predictions are very accurate, but even he will say hes more of a trend analyst rather than a prophet. Hes pretty smart though, and when I knew him, he was a riot, very funny, very hip too. Used to hang with the venice beach hipsters in the 60s.

[AncientMariner]

Isn't he the guy who thinks human beings are a genetic hybrid between aliens and the abominable snowman? I aint buying into that horsehockey. Who knows if all this China stuff is going to happen etc. but I think the guy is right in essence that the next number of years are probably going to be trying times for Americans. It may all be karmic reactions for Americans not protecting cows and other animals or something I don't know. I don't think it takes any mystical abilities to make such a prediction. Like mahak says I am glad I live out in the tullies.