10-07-05, 9:57 am
Pratap Chatterjee, Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation, New York, Seven Stories Press, 2004.
The author is a well-known commentator on Pacifica Radio, particularly 'Democracy Now' where his reports on the illegal US invasion of Iraq have garnered a wide and appreciative audience. Here he provides a useful overview of the obscene profits gained by the military-industrial complex as a result of their criminal brigandage in Iraq. It is a book well worth reading.
Naturally, Halliburton – the Texas-based firm formerly headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney – figures prominently in these pages. This rapacious corporation is a regnant symbol of unscrupulous tactics in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Halliburton 'was found guilty of fixing the prices of marine construction in the oil industry over a sixteen-year period in the Gulf of Mexico, paying out over $90 million in claims and fines in the 1970s. In 2002 the company admitted that one of their employees in Nigeria was caught attempting to bribe a tax inspector for $2.4 million. For 'transportation services' alone, this monopoly 'billed the taxpayer $327 million by the end of spring 2004 and was expecting to get another $230 million more.' Halliburton is 'easily the biggest contractor to the United States government in Iraq, earning three times as much as Bechtel, its nearest competitor. The company earned $3.9 billion from the military in 2003, a dizzying 680 percent increase from 2002 when it earned just [sic] $483 million.'
Halliburton’s role is problematic in more ways than one. Its grazing at the government trough provides an incentive for shareholders to push for war in order to profit. Moreover, as Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, averred, Halliburton’s existence 'makes it too easy to go to war. When you can hire people to go to war, there’s none of the grumbling and the political friction.’ he said, pointing out that many of the least-liked jobs (setting up tents, cleaning toilets, washing clothes, cooking food, doing guard duty) that are now being contracted out to firms like Halliburton were traditionally performed by reserve soldiers, who often complain the loudest.'
So is J.P. Morgan Chase. It was one of 'several insurance companies that provided life insurance to slave owners for their slaves' and is now being pressed by African-Americans and their allies for reparations. This firm 'assisted the Third Reich by seizing the bank accounts of Jewish customers' and has 'been the subject of a lawsuit for providing financial assistance to South Africa’s apartheid government to expand its police and security apparatus.' In 2002 the federal Securities and Exchange Commission 'indicted' this firm 'for assisting Enron to manipulate its financial records…this manipulation left Californians with skyrocketing power bills while at the same time causing rolling power outages throughout the state.' Now it too is reaping profits in Iraq.
Then there are the firms that provide mercenaries e.g. Dyncorp, which has contracts in Afghanistan and supplies pilots to Colombia, while monitoring the border with Mexico. Dyncorp’s 'police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking.' Its depredations may be exceeded by North Carolina based Blackwater, founded in 1998 by former Navy Seals. They specialize in hiring personnel from apartheid-era South Africa. Other mercenary firms e.g. Titan and CACI 'were heavily implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture scandals….'
These firms are all profiting handsomely from lucrative contracts. Their existence provides a macabre incentive for war-making, as the present debacle in Iraq amply demonstrates. They are the leading edge of 'privatization,' a cause that has been pushed promiscuously by Washington. Ending the 'profitable occupation' of Iraq means handcuffing these private enterprises in the first place.
--Gerald Horne is a contributing editor of Political Affairs. Send your comments to pa-letters@politicalaffiars.net.
