We all agree that Iraq has been a blunder and a terrible failure. But, what i think we are missing here is the fact that it has been extremely profitable, aka succesful, for a large group of powerful corporations and their elite controlers. These people are enjoying the failures (or should i say profits) of this war, and we just walk around letting them "stay the course". It is opretty sad that our tax wealth is being stolen right from under our noses, not to mention it is being used to rape and destroy a country and it's citizens.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/41083/

The 10 Most Brazen War Profiteers
By Charlie Cray
AlterNet

Tuesday 05 September 2006

The history of American war profiteering is rife with egregious examples of incompetence, fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement, bribery and misconduct. As war historian Stuart Brandes has suggested, each new war is infected with new forms of war profiteering. Iraq is no exception. From criminal mismanagement of Iraq's oil revenues to armed private security contractors operating with virtual impunity, this war has created opportunities for an appalling amount of corruption. What follows is a list of some of the worst Iraq war profiteers who have bilked American taxpayers and undermined the military's mission.

No. 1 and No. 2: CACI and Titan

In early 2005 CIA officials told the Washington Post that at least 50 percent of its estimated $40 billion budget for that year would go to private contractors, an astonishing figure that suggests that concerns raised about outsourcing intelligence have barely registered at the policymaking levels.

In 2004 the Orlando Sentinel reported on a case that illustrates what can go wrong: Titan employee Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, an Egyptian translator, was arrested for possessing classified information from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Critics say that the abuses at Abu Ghraib are another example of how the lines can get blurred when contractors are involved in intelligence work. CACI provided a total of 36 interrogators in Iraq, including up to 10 at Abu Ghraib at any one time, according to the company. Although neither CACI, Titan or their employees have yet been charged with a crime, a leaked Army investigation implicated CACI employee Stephen Stefanowicz in the abuse of prisoners.

CACI and Titan's role at Abu Ghraib led the Center for Constitutional Rights to pursue companies and their employees in U.S. courts.

"We believe that CACI and Titan engaged in a conspiracy to torture and abuse detainees, and did so to make more money," says Susan Burke, an attorney hired by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), whose lawsuit against the companies is proceeding into discovery before the Federal Court for the District of Columbia.

The private suits seem to have already had some effect: In September 2005 CACI announced that it would no longer do interrogation work in Iraq.

Titan, on the other hand, has so far escaped any serious consequences for its problems (in early 2005, it pleaded guilty to three felony international bribery charges and agreed to pay a record $28.5 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act penalty). The company's contract with the Army has been extended numerous times and is currently worth over $1 billion. Last year L-3 Communications bought Titan as part of its emergence as the largest corporate intelligence conglomerate in the world.

No. 3: Bechtel: Precast Profits

The San Francisco-based construction and engineering giant received one of the largest no-bid contracts - worth $2.4 billion - to help coordinate and rebuild a large part of Iraq's infrastructure. But the company's reconstruction failures range from shoddy school repairs to failing to finish a large hospital in Basra on time and within budget.

Recall that USAID chief Andrew Natsios originally touted the reconstruction as a Middle Eastern "Marshall Plan." Natsios should have known that all would not go smoothly with Bechtel in the lead: Prior to joining the Bush administration, he was chief executive of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, where he oversaw the Big Dig - whose costs exploded from $2.6 billion to $14.6 billion under Bechtel's lead.

In July, the company's reputation for getting things done unexpectedly plummeted like a 12-ton slab of concrete when Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), released an audit of the Basra Children's Hospital Project, which was $70 million to $90 million over budget, and a year and half behind schedule. Bechtel's contract to coordinate the project was immediately cancelled.

Now that the money is running out, American officials are beginning to blame Iraqis for mismanaging their own infrastructure. But as Bowen warns, contractors like Bechtel, the CPA and other contracting agencies will only have themselves to blame for failing to train Iraqi engineers to operate these facilities (esp. water, sewage and electricity) when they leave.

No. 4: Aegis Defense Services

The General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates 48,000 private security and military contractors (PMCs) are stationed in Iraq. The Pentagon's insistence on keeping a lid on military force requirements (thereby avoiding the need for a draft) is one reason for that astronomical growth, which has boosted the fortunes of the "corporate warriors" so much that observers project the industry will be a $200 billion per year business by 2010.

Yet the introduction of PMCs has put "both the military and security providers at a greater risk for injury," the General Accounting Office says, because PMCs fall outside the chain of command and do not operate under the Code of Military Justice.

George Washington University professor Deborah Avant, author of Market for Force and an expert on the industry, says that while established PMCs may act professionally, the government's willingness to contract with a few cowboy companies like Aegis - a U.K.-based firm whose infamous founder and CEO Tim Spicer was implicated for breaking an arms embargo in Sierra Leone - only reinforces the fear that U.S. foreign policy is being outsourced to corporate "mercenaries."

An industry insider told Avant that the $293 million contract was given despite the fact that American competitors had submitted lower bids, suggesting the government wanted to hire the foreign company to shield both sides of the transaction from accountability for any "dirty tricks."

Industry critics, including Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., say that, at a minimum, Spicer's contract suggests that government agencies have failed to conduct adequate background checks. While it's hard to say how often PMCs have committed human rights violations in Iraq, the Charlotte News-Observer reported in March that security contractors regularly shoot into civilian cars. The problem was largely ignored until a "trophy video" of security guards firing with automatic rifles at civilian cars was posted on a web site traced back to Aegis.

Although the Army's Criminal Investigation Division says no charges will be filed against Aegis or its employees, critics say that only proves how unaccountable contractors are under current laws. Since the war on terror began, just one civilian, CIA contract interrogator David A. Passaro, has been convicted for felony assault associated with interrogation tactics.

Even The International Peace Operations Association, a fledgling industry trade association that insists the industry abides by stringent codes of conduct has rejected Aegis' bid to join its ranks.

No. 5: Custer Battles

In March, Custer Battles became the first Iraq occupation contractor to be found guilty of fraud. A jury ordered the company to pay more than $10 million in damages for 37 counts of fraud, including false billing. In August, however, the judge in the case dismissed most of the charges on a technicality, ruling that since the Coalition Provisional Authority was not strictly part of the U.S. government, there is no basis for the claim under U.S. law. Custer Battles' attorney Robert Rhoad says the company's owners were "ecstatic" about the decision, adding that "there simply was no evidence of fraud or an intent to defraud."

In fact the judge's ruling stated that the company had submitted "false and fraudulently inflated invoices." He also allowed the jury's verdict to stand against the company for retaliating against the whistleblowers that originally brought the case under the False Claims Act, the law that allows citizens to initiate a private right of action to recover money on taxpayers' behalf. During the trial, retired Brig. Gen. Hugh Tant III testified that the fraud "was probably the worst I've ever seen in my 30 years in the Army."

When Tant confronted Mike Battles, one of the company's owners, with the fact that 34 of 36 trucks supplied by the firm didn't work, he responded: "You asked for trucks and we complied with our contract and it is immaterial whether the trucks were operational."

The Custer Battles case is being watched closely by the contracting community, since many other fraud cases could hinge on the outcome. A backlog of 70 fraud cases is pending against various contractors. Who they are is anyone's guess (one case was recently settled against Halliburton subcontractor EGL for $4 million), since cases filed under the False Claims Act are sealed and prevented from moving forward until the government decides whether or not it will join the case. The means some companies accused of fraud have yet to be publicly identified, which makes it difficult for federal contracting officers to suspend or debar them from any new contracts. The U.S. Air Force moved to suspend Custer Battles from new contracts in September 2004, after the alleged fraud was revealed.

In May, however, the Wall Street Journal reported that attempts were made to bypass the suspension order by two former top Navy officials who had formed a company that purchased the remnants of Custer Battles. Meanwhile, Alan Grayson, the attorney who filed the Custer Battles case, says that because of orders passed by the CPA, Iraqis have no chance of recovering any of the $20 billion in Iraqi money used to pay U.S. contractors. The CPA effectively created a "free fraud zone," Grayson says.

No. 6: General Dynamics

Most of the big defense contractors have done well as a result of the war on terror. The five-year chart for Lockheed Martin, for instance, reveals that the company's stock has doubled in value since 2001.

Yet The Washington Post reported in July that industry analysts agree that of the large defense contractors, the one that has received the most direct benefit from the war in Iraq is General Dynamics. Much of that has to do with the fact that the company has focused its large combat systems business on supplying the Army with everything from bullets to tank shells to Stryker vehicles, which made their debut during the 2003 invasion.

In July, the Post reported that the company's profits have tripled since 9/11. That should make some people happy, including David K Heebner, a former top aide to Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, who was hired by General Dynamics in 1999, a year before the Stryker contract was sealed. According to Defense watchdogs at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), General Dynamics formally announced it was hiring Heebner on November 20, 1999, just one month after Shinseki announced a new "vision" to transform the Army by moving away from tracked armored vehicles toward wheeled light-armored vehicles, and more than a month prior to Heebner's official retirement date of Dec. 31, 1999.

Less than a year and a half later, Heebner was present for the rollout of the first Stryker in Alabama, where he was recognized by Shinseki for his work in the Army on the Stryker project.

Although the Pentagon's inspector general concluded from a preliminary investigation that Heebner had properly recused himself from any involvement in projects involving his prospective employer once he had been offered the job, critics say the current ethics rules are too weak.

"It's clear that the Army was leaning toward handing a multibillion-dollar contract to General Dynamics at the very time Heebner may have been in negotiations with the company for a high-paying executive position," says Jeffrey St. Clair, author of Grand Theft Pentagon, a sweeping review of war-profiteering during the "war on terror."

Heebner's case is similar to Boeing's infamous courtship of Darlene Druyan, the Air Force acquisition officer who was eventually sentenced to nine months in prison and seven months in a halfway house for arranging a $250,000 a year job for herself on the other side of the revolving door while negotiating contracts for the Air Force that were favorable to Boeing.

This March, Heebner reported owning 33,500 shares in the company, worth over $ 4 million, along with 21,050 options.

Not everyone has been happy with the outcome of the Stryker contract. Tom Christie, the Pentagon's director of operational testing and evaluation, sent a classified letter to Donald Rumsfeld before it was deployed in Iraq, warning that the $3 million vehicle was not ready for heavy fire. Meanwhile, the GAO warned of serious deficiencies in vehicle training provided, a concern that turned serious when soldiers accidentally drove the Stryker into the Tigris rivers. Despite public praise from top Army officials, an internal Army report leaked to the Post in March 2005 revealed that the vehicles deployed in Iraq have been plagued with inoperable gear and maintenance problems that are "getting worse not better."

Perhaps as insurance against any flap, General Dynamics has added former Attorney General John Ashcroft to its stable of high-powered lobbyists. Working the account are Juleanna Glover Weiss, Vice President Dick Cheney's former press secretary, Lori Day Sharp, Ashcroft's former assistant, and Willie Gaynor, a former Commerce Department official who also worked for the 2004 Bush-Cheney reelection campaign.

No. 7: Nour USA Ltd.

Incorporated shortly after the war began, Nour has received $400 million in Iraq contracts, including an $80 million contract to provide oil pipeline security that critics say came through the assistance of Ahmed Chalabi, Iraq's No. 1 opportunist, who was influential in dragging the United States into the current quagmire with misleading assertions about WMDs. Chalabi has denied reports that he received a $2 million finder's fee, but other bidders on the contract point out that Nour had no prior related experience and that its bid on the oil security contract was too low to be credible. Another company consultant who hasn't denied getting paid to help out is Richard Cohen, the former defense secretary under President Clinton. Many Iraqis now believe that Chalabi is America's hand-picked choice to rule Iraq, despite being a wanted fugitive from justice in Jordan and despite being accused of passing classified information along to Iran. Iyad Allawi, a potential rival for power in Iraq, has publicly criticized Chalabi for creating contracts for work that he says should be the responsibility of the state.

No. 8, No. 9 and No. 10: Chevron, ExxonMobil and the Petro-Imperialists

Three years into the occupation, after an evolving series of deft legal maneuvers and manipulative political appointments, the oil giants' takeover of Iraq's oil is nearly complete.

A key milestone in the process occurred in September 2004, when U.S.-appointed Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi preempted Iraq's January 2005 elections (and the subsequent drafting of the Constitution) by writing guidelines intended to form the basis of a new petroleum law. Allawi's policy would effectively exclude the government from any future involvement in oil production, while promising to privatize the Iraqi National Oil Co. Although Allawi is no longer in power, his plans heavily influenced future thinking on oil policy.

Helping the process move along are the economic hit men at BearingPoint, the consultants whose latest contract calls for "private-sector involvement in strategic sectors, including privatization, asset sales, concessions, leases and management contracts, especially those in the oil and supporting industries."

For their part, the oil industry giants have kept a relatively low profile throughout the process, lending just a few senior statesmen to the CPA, including Philip Carroll (Shell U.S., Fluor), Rob McKee (ConocoPhillips and Halliburton) and Norm Szydlowski (ChevronTexaco), the CPA's liaison to the fledgling Iraqi Oil Ministry. Greg Muttitt of U.K. nonprofit Platform says Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips are among the most ambitious of all the major oil companies in Iraq. Shell and Chevron have already signed agreements with the Iraqi government and begun to train Iraqi staff and conduct studies - arrangements that give the companies vital access to Oil Ministry officials and geological data.

Although Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said in August that the final competition for developing Iraq's oil fields will be wide open, the preliminary arrangements will give the oil giants a distinct advantage when it comes time to bid. The relative level of interest by the big oil companies depends on their appetite for risk, and their need for reserves. Shell, for example, has performed worse than most of its peers in finding new reserves in recent years - a fact underscored by a 2004 scandal in which the company was caught lying to its investors. At this point the key challenge to multinationals is whether they can convince the Iraqi parliament to pass a new petroleum law by the end of this year.

A key provision in the new law is a commitment to using production sharing agreements (PSAs), which will lock the government into a long-term commitment (up to 50 years) to sharing oil revenues, and restrict its right to introduce any new laws that might affect the companies' profitability. Greg Muttitt of Platform says the PSAs are designed to favor private companies at the expense of exporting governments, which is why none of the top oil producing countries in the Middle East use them. Under the new petroleum law, all new fields and some existing fields would be opened up to private companies through the use of PSAs. Since less than 20 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have already been developed, if Iraq's government commits to signing the PSAs, it could cost the country up to nearly $200 billion in lost revenues according to Muttitt, lead researcher for "Crude Designs: the Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth."

Meanwhile, in a kind of pincer movement, the parliament has begun to feel pressured from the IMF to adopt the new oil law by the end of the year as part of "conditionalities" imposed under a new debt relief agreement. Of course pressuring a country as volatile as Iraq to agree to any kind of arrangement without first allowing for legitimate parliamentary debate is fraught with peril. It is a risky way to nurture democracy in a country that already appears to be entering into a civil war.

"If misjudged - either by denying a fair share to the regions in which oil is located, or by giving regions too much autonomy at the expense of national cohesion - these oil decisions could fracture, and ultimately break apart, the country," Muttitt suggests.

--------

Charlie Cray is director of the Center for Corporate Policy in Washington, D.C.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1025-21.htm

How the Bush Family Makes a Killing From George's Presidency
By Heather Wokusch
Common Dreams

Wednesday 25 October 2006

Halliburton scored almost $1.2 billion in revenue from contracts related to Iraq in the third quarter of 2006, leading one analyst to comment: "Iraq was better than expected ... Overall, there is nothing really to question or be skeptical about. I think the results are very good."

Very good indeed. An estimated 655,000 dead Iraqis, over 3,000 dead coalition troops, billions stolen from Iraq's coffers, a country battered by civil war - but Halliburton turned a profit, so the results are very good.

Very good certainly for Vice President Dick Cheney, who resigned from Halliburton in 2000 with a $33.7 million retirement package (not bad for roughly four years of work). In a stunning conflict of interest, Cheney still holds more than 400,000 stock options in the company. Why pursue diplomacy when you can rake in a personal fortune from war?

Yet Cheney isn't the only one who has benefited from the Bush administration's destructive policies. The Bush family has done quite nicely too. Just a few examples:

Bush Sr.: Bush's dad has strong connections to the Carlyle Group, a massive private equity investment firm whose Chairman Emeritus is Frank Carlucci, a former college roommate of Donald Rumsfeld's and former Defense Secretary under Ronald Reagan. Imagine the pull Carlucci has with today's White House.

But Carlucci has another secret weapon - Bush Sr. Amid conflict-of-interest allegations, the elder Bush resigned from the Carlyle Group in 2003, but reportedly remains on retainer, opening doors to lucrative profits in the Middle East and elsewhere. Bush Sr.'s specialty is Saudi Arabia; in fact, he was at a Carlyle investment conference with Osama bin Laden's estranged brother, Shafiq bin Laden, when the 9/11 attacks took place.

Carlyle specializes in military and security investments, and with Bush Jr. in office, the company's profits have soared; it received $677 million in contracts in 2002, then a whopping $2.1 billion in 2003. Carlyle's investors currently enjoy an equity capital pool of over 44 billion dollars.

In January 2006, Bush Sr. wrote China's Foreign Affairs Ministry that it would be "beneficial to the comprehensive development of Sino-US relations" if Beijing approved the sale of a Chinese bank to a consortium which included Carlyle. Bluntly put, Bush Sr. asked China to grant Carlyle a lucrative business deal or risk his son's wrath. Foreign policy at its finest.

William H. T. "Bucky" Bush: George's "Uncle Bucky" joined the board of military contractor Engineered Support Systems Inc. (ESSI) in 2000 and perhaps not surprisingly, the value of the company's governmental contracts has strongly increased with Bush Jr. in office. Uncle Bucky earns monthly consulting fees as well as options to buy stock at favorable prices, and considering that ESSI's stock tripled two weeks after 9/11 then settled into comfy territory, it's safe to say that George's uncle is doing quite well. In fact, Bucky cashed out on 8,438 stock options in January 2005, earning himself a cool $450,000 in the process. As of 2005, he still owned options on 45,000 more shares of the company's stock and accrues more each year.

War is profitable for ESSI, or as an executive explained: "The increasing likelihood for a prolonged military involvement in Southwest Asia by U.S. forces well into 2006 has created a fertile environment for the type of support ... products and services that we offer."

But lest anyone conclude that Bucky has opened doors for the company, ESSI's vice-president of investor relations explained in 2005, "The fact his nephew is in the White House has absolutely nothing to do with Mr Bush being on our board or with our stock having gone up 1000 per cent in the past five years." Absolutely nothing at all.

Neil Mallon Bush: Neil rose to infamy in the 1980s as director of the Colorado-based Silverado Savings and Loan; after Silverado collapsed due to mismanagement and corruption, US taxpayers were stuck with the billion-dollar bailout, yet Neil managed to escape the crisis with a small fine and no jail time. It helps to have a dad as Vice President.

In 1993, Neil joined Bush Sr. in Kuwait to drum up business in the Middle East, and today, he makes a profit by helping companies cash in on the occupation of Iraq. For example, in late 2003, The Financial Times reported that Neil earned $60,000 per year through the Crest Investment Company, a private firm generating contracts in Iraq. Crest was headed by Jamal Daniel, a longtime Bush family contact, who was also on the advisory board of New Bridge Strategies, a company specifically set up "with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq."

In 2003, Neil's messy divorce proceedings revealed that he was to get $2 million in stock options from a Chinese semiconductor firm despite having limited education or business experience in that area; critics complained that the Chinese company was buying access to his brother, the president. Neil later testified that on repeated business trips to Asia, he'd had sex with women who showed up at his hotel rooms, presumably prostitutes hired by companies trying to curry favor with the White House.

Neil has also profited from George's disastrous No Child Left Behind educational policy. His company, Ignite! (partially owned by Bush Sr. and funded by Crest Investment) has been awarded with lucrative federal contracts to place its educational products in school districts across the country.

Marvin Pierce Bush: Marvin joined Bush Sr. and Neil on their Middle Eastern sales trip in 1993 and then made a mint in the investment banking business. He is a co-founder of Winston Partners, a private investment firm whose investments in military and security firms profit from Bush's "war on terror."

Having a sibling as president has helped Marvin in other ways, too. He is on the board of HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., which had insured parts of the World Trade Center; HCC benefited from the 9/11 insurance bailout legislation pushed through by brother George.

Marvin was also on the board of Securacom, a company which provided electronic security for both Dulles International Airport and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Marvin stepped down in 2000, but how intriguing that Bush's brother was so well connected to the security of two critical locations on that fateful day.

In short, the "results are very good" for the Bush dynasty, perhaps even "better than expected," thanks to George's stint in the Oval Office. Dad's still setting up international deals. Uncle Bucky's cashing in his stock options. Brothers Neil and Marvin are laughing all the way to the bank.

It's just the American people who have paid the ultimate price.

Action Ideas:

1. For more on war profiteering, head over to Halliburton Watch and Corp Watch. Catch a screening of the new Robert Greenwald film entitled Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.

2. If you're searching for information on contemporary foreign policy issues, coupled with an opportunity to take positive action, check out Women's Action for New Directions. The site offers in-depth coverage of Hot Topics, such as war and nuclear weapons, as well as fact sheets and other resources. Visit WAND's Take Action! center for petitions to sign and opportunities to contact Congress, the White House and the media about the peace and security issues you care about most.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 350959.ece

The War Dividend: The British Companies Making a Fortune out of
Conflict-Riven Iraq
By Robert Verkaik
The Independent UK

Monday 13 March 2006

British businesses have profited by at least £1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago, the first comprehensive investigation into UK corporate investment in Iraq has found.

The company roll-call of post-war profiteers includes some of the best known names in Britain's boardrooms as well many who would prefer to remain anonymous. They come from private security services, banks, PR consultancies, urban planning consortiums, oil companies, architects offices and energy advisory bodies.

Among the top earners is the construction firm Amec, which has made an estimated £500m from a series of contracts restoring electrical systems and maintaining power generation facilities during the past two years. Aegis, which provides private security has earned more than £246m from a three-year contract with the Pentagon to co-ordinate military and security companies in Iraq. Erinys, which specialises in the same area, has made more than £86m, a substantial portion from the protection of oilfields.

The evidence of massive investments and the promise of more multimillion-pound profits to come was discovered in a joint investigation by Corporate Watch, an independent watchdog, and The Independent.

The findings show how much is stake if Britain were to withdraw military protection from Iraq. British company involvement at the top of Iraq's new political and economic structures means Iraq will be forced to rely on British business for many years to come.

A total of 61 British companies are identified as benefiting from at least £1.1bn of contracts and investment in the new Iraq. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg; Corporate Watch believes it could be as much as five times higher, because many companies prefer to keep their relationship secret.

The waters are further muddied by the Government's refusal to release the names of companies it has helped to win contracts in Iraq.

Many of the companies enjoy long-standing relationships with Labour and now have a financial stake in the reconstruction of Iraq in Britain's image. Of the total profits published in the report, the British taxpayer has had to meet a bill for £78m while the US taxpayer's contribution to UK corporate earnings in Iraq is nearly nine times that. Iraqis themselves have paid British company directors £150m.

The report acknowledges that British business still lags behind the huge profits paid to American companies. But, in two fields, Britain is playing a critical and leading role.

The threat from the Iraqi insurgency means British private security companies are in great demand. Corporate Watch estimates there are between 20,000 and 30,000 security personnel working in Iraq, half of whom are employed by companies run by retired senior British officers and at least two former defence ministers.

The biggest British player, Aegis - run by Tim Spicer, the former British army lieutenant colonel who founded the security company Sandline - has a workforce the size of a military division and may rank as the largest corporate military group ever assembled, according to the report. Other private security companies have sprung up overnight to protect British and American civilians.

Britain is also playing a leading role in advising on the creation of state institutions and the business of government. PA Consulting, which has also received a contract for advising on the Government's ID cards scheme, worth around £19m, is now a key adviser in Iraq.

Adam Smith International, a body closely linked to the right-wing think-tank used by Margaret Thatcher, has been heavily involved in the foundation of the Iraqi government and continues to influence its newly formed ministries. According to the Tory MP Quentin Davies, who visited Iraq, the advisers are "reordering Iraqi government operations at the most basic level, to help restructure some of the Iraqi ministries, in fact physically restructure them, even suggesting how the minister's office should be laid out".

Another favourite of the Thatcher governments, now involved in Iraq, is Tim Bell, who ran the Tories' election campaigns in 1979, 1983 and 1987. His PR firm Bell-Pottinger has been involved in advising on the 2004 elections and a strategic campaign to promote bigger concepts such as the return of sovereignty, reconstruction, support for the army and police, minority rights and public probity.

Loukas Christodoulou, of Corporate Watch, has been monitoring British business relations with Iraq since the invasion. He says in his conclusion to our joint report: "The presence of these consultants in Iraq is arguably a part of the UK government's policy to push British firms as lead providers of privatisation support. The Department for International Development has positioned itself as a champion of privatisation in developing countries. The central part UK firms are playing in reshaping Iraq's economy and society lays the ground for a shift towards a corporate-dominated economy. This will have repercussions lasting decades."

In five years, the £1.1bn of contracts identified in the report will be dwarfed by what Britain and the US hope to reap from investments. Highly lucrative oil contracts have yet to be handed out.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/ ... 350930.ece

Top 10 Firms Profiting From Iraq
The Independent UK

Monday 13 March 2006

1. AMEC £500m

It is a global project management company specialising in the oil and gas and engineering sectors. In Iraq, it is or has been: subcontractor on the $154m (£89m) Fluor contract to restore electrical power systems (February 2004); a joint contract with Fluor to "provide design-build services for construction, rehabilitation, operation, and maintenance of power generation facilities" worth $500m from Usaid (March 2004); a joint contract with Fluor to "provide design-build construction services for water resource projects" worth $500m and $600m from Usaid (March 2004); an unknown sum from a Centcom contract.

2. Aegis £246.5m+

It is perhaps the biggest UK success story in Iraq, having won the $430m Pentagon contract to oversee all private security operations. Yet Aegis has been rejected once for membership of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade association that prefers to style its sector the "peace and stability industry".

3. Erinys £86m+

Based in London, Erinys specialises in security for the petroleum, construction and mining industries. In Iraq, it has been responsible for the creation of an oil protection force. Between August 2003 and December 2004, Erinys Iraq trained, equipped and mobilised a 16,000-strong Iraqi guard force to protect the pipelines.

4. Petrel Resources (Anglo-Irish) £56.6m

It is a London and Dublin listed oil and gas exploration company, with current operations focused on Iraq where it is seeking licences to run three existing oil wells.

5. HSBC £36.88m

HSBC is the third biggest financial institution in the world. Has bought 70 per cent of a recently established Iraqi bank, Dar es Salaam Investment Bank, which has assets of $91.1m. HSBC's share is therefore £36,881,225. Its profit from Middle East business rose 25 per cent in 2004.

6. Cummins UK £25.8m+

The world's largest manufacturer of diesel engines has been awarded contracts worth $45m from sales to power stations in Iraq.

7. PB Power £24.88m

The global engineering and construction firm won a $43.4m contract to provide programme management office support for the electrical services sector.

8. Control Risks £23.5m+

The risk consultancy business helps companies with everything from capital raising to crisis management. It provides governmental and corporate clients with security management, discreet armed protection, and information support. Its contracts included: an unknown proportion of $500m; subcontractor for Parsons Usaid buildings contract (March 2004); £23.5m from UK Government for protection squads; figure disputed by CR (March 2004). More than 250 personnel in Iraq (June 2005).

9. MerchantBridge £22.07m

It is is an investment banking group focusing on telecommunications, real estate, construction, financial services, information technology and hotels in Iraq. "Lead adviser" to Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals for factory lease programme (January 2004); launched Mansour Bank (September 2005), capitalised at $38.5m; 90 per cent from Iraqi investors.

10. Global Risk Strategies £15.4m (at least)

Risk management company, which advises on all aspects of corporate security, including counter-terrorism strategies. It has its headquarters in Hampton, Middlesex. It assists with humanitarian aid and reconstruction projects in the aviation, oil, banking and infrastructure sectors. Has 2,000 staff in Iraq. Received $27m contract to distribute new dinar (May 2004); guarded part of Baghdad airport (May 2004).

The High-Profile Players

Lt-Col Tim Spicer (Retired) Obe

Former Scots Guards, former SAS, Spicer is chief executive of Aegis, a private security firm. He founded Sandline, along with Simon Mann (who is now jailed for plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea)

Nicholas Soames

The former Defence minister (from 1994-97), is a non-executive director of Aegis

Maj-Gen Jermemy Phipps (Retired)

Former SAS, former head of British special forces 1989-1993. Previously linked to the consultancy group Control Risks, Phipps is now the head of Aegis operations in Iraq

Sir Malcom Rifkind

The Tory former defence secretary is a non-executive director and chairman of Armor Group, which has been awarded £11.4m of public contracts in Iraq

Harry Legge-Bourke Fromer Captain in Welsh Guards

Friend of Prince Charles and brother of Prince William's nanny. Former aide-de-camp to chief of defence staff. Operations chief for Olive Security - turnover almost doubled in 2004.

General Sir Michael Rose

Commander of the 22nd SAS regiment, 1979-82. Commandant of school of infantry, of staff college, Camberley, and first Director special forces, 1988-89; non-executive director of Control Risks Group

Tim Bell

His firm Bell-Pottinger was awarded a £3m by the British Government to promote democracy in the run-up to the 2004 elections. His company is closely involved in campaign to promote concepts such as return of sovereignty

Sir Jermey Greenstock

One of Britain's foremost diplomats, he is a non-executive director of De la Rue, a financial services company which has won one of the biggest contracts in Iraq for printing the new Iraqi dinar

Baroness Blackstone

Former minister of state, appointed a non-executive director of the Mott MacDonald Group in 2005. The engineering consultancy was given a £1.2m contract from DfID for infrastructure work in Iraq.

Geoarge Robertson

Former secretary general of Nato and former Labour defence secretary, is a non-executive director of Weir, the engineering company, which was involved in contract doing oil assessments. Has been in Iraq since May 2003.

The other UK interests in Iraq:

Adam Smith International, Consultants, £4,1m; AD Consultancy,security; Aggreko, power supply; AKE Group, security; Alstom, power; Armor Group, security, £11.4m; Baker Wilkins, construction; Bell-Pottinger, consultants, £3m; Birks Sinclair & Associates, "socio-economic development"; B-Plan Information Systems, computers, £4.5m; BP Global, petroleum, £2.8m; British Council, teaching, £3.1m; Chiltern Broadcast Management, media, £1.3m; Conren, materials, £20,000; Costain, construction, £15m; Crown Agents for Overseas Government, procurement, consultants, £8m; Datasat, telecomms; De La Rue, financial; DfID: anonymous contractors, £1,1m; Dynamic Processing Solutions, petroleum.

£12m+ (approx); Eaton Electric Europe, power; Enterplan Ltd, consultants, £4.5m; Eris, consultants, £61,012 ; European Land Solutions, security, Exploration Consultants, petroleum; Foster Wheeler UK, construction, power, £4.87m; Halcrow, construction, £6.8m; Hart Group, security; Hedra Consortium, consultants, £245,540; HTS Development (now HTSPE), consultants; Inclarity Plcc telecomms, most of its £18m revenue from Iraq; Janusian, security; Kroll Associates, security; Llewelyn Davies Yeang, architects, unknown proportion of £1.6m development; Maxwell Stamp consultants, £3.2m; Minimum Risk, security; Mott MacDonald, power and water, £1.2m; Mowlem, construction, £3m; Olive Security, security; PA Consulting Group, consultants £427,548; Powertecnique, power; Schneider Electric UK, power; Scott Wilson, engineering, unknown share of a $160m contract; Serco, services, £7.5m; Shell (Anglo-Dutch) petroleum; Siemens, power; Solace Enterprises, consulting; Standard Chartered, financial services; TQ Education & Trainig, education, £5.73m; United Mesopotamia, security; Weir, petroleum.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082506J.shtml


Protection Racket: Judicial Cover for Crony Contractors
By Chris Floyd
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 25 August 2006

They say that America's increasingly right-wing courts are bent on halting the forward march of civil rights, but that's a typical liberal canard. Why, just last week, a federal judge - appointed by Ronald Reagan, no less - issued a bold ruling that offers shield and succor to a small, despised minority on the fringes of American society.

War profiteers.

In a little-noticed decision unsealed on August 18, US District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III overturned a $10 million fraud verdict against Custer Battles LLC, one of the many crony conquistadors who gorged on the vast porkfest known as "Iraqi reconstruction" during the high and palmy days of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Ellis's judgment effectively provides blanket immunity for the many politically-wired gorgers who made off with almost $9 billion in "unaccounted-for" taxpayer money during the CPA's misrule of Iraq from April 2003 to June 2004 - one of the greatest heists in world history.

Why will the mammoth fraudsters go free? Because of the iron illogic behind the decision. Although the CPA was created, funded, staffed and directly controlled by the US government, Ellis declared it was not, in fact, an entity of the US government. Therefore, Custer Battles - and by extension any other accused grafter from the CPA's golden age - cannot be sued under the federal False Claims Act for defrauding the US government. For even if massive fraud was committed - and Ellis, who also presided over Custer Battles's jury trial in May, clearly indicated that it was - the "victim" no longer exists: the CPA has dissolved into air, into thin air, like the "baseless fabric" of Prospero's vision in The Tempest. So, case dismissed - and the blood money stays safely in corporate coffers.

Ellis wove his ruling from another baseless fabric: UN Security Council Resolution 1483. The May 2003 resolution was the world body's desperate attempt to put some sort of ex post facto quasi-legal face on the Bush-Blair coalition's unprovoked act of aggression in Iraq. But in the end it was just another sham. The CPA remained an all-American show, run by George W. Bush's personally appointed satrap, Jerry Bremer, who wielded autocratic sway over the conquered land. The Authority's power and money - including Iraq's oil profits - were solely in the hands of the White House and Pentagon. But although the reality of Washington's "command and control" of the CPA was undeniable, Judge Ellis obviously followed the credo laid down by the high Bush official who told Ron Suskind in 2004: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." They certainly do.

As the New York Times notes, the Custer Battles case was meant to be the first of many Iraqi fraud trials based on the False Claims Act, a law allowing allows "whistleblowers" in companies defrauding the government to take their firms to court and share a percentage of the award with the feds. Now these upcoming cases - including a second trial against Custer Battles - are almost certainly dead in the water. The courageous efforts of insiders who lost their jobs - and in some cases risked their lives - to uncover the truth about the Bush gang's epic plundering in Iraq will all be for naught.

That's quite a legacy for a small company few have ever heard of. After all, next to prize war-porkers like Halliburton, Bechtel and General Dynamics, Custer Battles is just a tiny sausage sizzling in the huge vat of government grease. But the firm's case is a paradigm of the entire misbegotten enterprise in Iraq: raw greed masquerading as a noble cause in a deliberately concocted atmosphere of lawlessness, violence, subterfuge - and the convenient unaccountability fomented by the bloody chaos of war.

Custer Battles is not, as you might think, named for that earlier undermanned, overconfident, foolishly conceived military incursion which ended in disaster - the one at Little Big Horn. Instead, the ill-omened appellation comes from the company's founders: ex-Army Ranger and Special Operations vet Scott Custer and his partner, fellow Ranger Mike Battles, who also brought his experience as a clandestine CIA officer, FOX News commentator and failed Republican Congressional candidate to the mix.

The pair set up shop a few months after 9/11 to cash in on the burgeoning market in fear and war, operating under the admirably frank company motto: "Transforming risk into opportunity." But it was all nickel-and-dime stuff at first, until Bush tore open the mother lode of military largess with the invasion of Iraq. Suddenly, Mike and Scott's shoestring operation found itself with a $16 million contract to take charge of security for the strategically vital Baghdad airport. This was followed by $24.4 million to help distribute Iraq's new American-made currency, along with sundry other hired-gun work - such as housing military dogs and low-wage Filipino workers brought in to serve Iraq's new masters.

How did this happen? As with so much else in Bush's Babylonian conquest, the company's metamorphosis from shoestring to Gucci boot is shrouded in murk. According to a gushing 2004 profile in the Wall Street Journal, it was all down to "street smarts," luck and pluck. We're told that ex-CIA man Battles arrived in Baghdad in May 2003 "armed with little more than moxie," $450 in borrowed cash (the company was broke), and a vague notion of scoring some deals. Three weeks later, unnamed Bush officials handed him a duffel bag stuffed with $2 million in cash - a friendly "loan" to get the ball rolling - and put the airport into the hands of the destitute, unknown, inexperienced company. A fairy-tale ending, one might say.

By the summer of 2004, the company, now worth an estimated $100 million, was in high cotton. Custer was working the crony ropes: "Al Kampanen, the White House rep at the Pentagon, who works directly for Rumsfeld," was inviting him to drop by and talk about expanding the company's work into Liberia and Afghanistan, according to company emails unearthed during the fraud probe and reported by Wayne Madsen. "Doug Combs, now acting Under Secretary of the Navy, also called to see if he could 'help us grow' outside of Iraq," enthused Custer. Meanwhile, Battles was busy trying to complete the book he'd been touting on the company web site: Blood in the Streets: Seizing Opportunity in Crises. Life was sweet.

Then the Pentagon was forced to suspend Custer Battles from further contracts and launch an investigation after several former company executives - including ex-FBI man Robert Isakson - filed a "whistleblower" lawsuit against the firm, citing what the Pentagon admitted was "adequate evidence of ... fraud, antitrust violations, embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, false statements" and other offenses, as the Los Angeles Times reported.

The lawsuit accused Custer Battles of setting up off-shore front companies and sham sub-contractors to inflate billings in its lucrative "cost-plus" contracts, where the government covers all expenses and guarantees a set profit; the alleged rake-off was estimated in the tens of millions. Isakson said that when he had objected to these and other irregularities, two unnamed "top company officials" burst into his office with machine guns, held him and his 14-year-old son at gunpoint for hours, then stripped Isakson of his ID, money and gun and told them find their own way out of Iraq, the LAT reported. Father and son eventually made their way through the hellhole of Fallujah to safety in Jordan.

Isakson lived to tell the tale - and file the suit - but all to no avail, thanks to Judge Ellis. The only surprising thing about this sweet deal for unabashed war profiteers with a direct line to the White House is that the trial was actually allowed to run its course before the foreordained conclusion. Then again, there was no real need for the administration to sweat it - Ellis is a decidedly safe pair of hands for Bush's dictatorship of the executive.

In a ruling issued just days before the Custer Battles kibosh, Ellis dug up a long-abandoned World War I-era law to give Bush carte blanche to prosecute journalists for publishing leaks of classified information. (No "Pentagon Papers" emerging from the Iraq War, then.) In May, he threw out a civil suit against the CIA filed by Khalid al-Masri, a German citizen who had been seized in Macedonia for "driving while Arab," renditioned to Afghanistan, tortured for months, then dumped on a dirt road in Albania and, like Isakson, told to find his own way home. Ellis agreed with administration lawyers that such a trial would "endanger national security" - establishing a convenient "state-secrets" precedent for quashing any further attempts to rectify the depredations of Bush's Terror War.

The worthy judge, a respected scion of the Establishment - Navy man, community pillar, degreed by Princeton, Harvard and Oxford - is just one of Bush's willing enablers among the great and good, offering a patina of legitimacy to a range of practices that are criminal in nature, immoral in essence and a permanent stain on the national honor. The Custer Battles case he has just killed might be a grubby little affair - but it holds a mirror up to the much larger, deeper corruption that stands behind it.

There's some good information in there, but there is some AWFULLY misleading information in there too. Especially the speak about privately contracted security.

It's not done to prevent a draft. They're used because in the long run, they are cheaper than serviceman.

They're hardly mercenaries, although there are instances of abuse.

The article is right, they don't fall under the military code of justice, but they fall under everything else. They the same Rules of Engagement and must abide by the same rules of warfare.

They don't make us less safe...that's insane man. You gotta be REALLY good to get into one of these firms. They don't just take anybody. Go to a private security site and see what they are looking for in jobs. They go after special ops, airborne, E-6 or O-3 and above. They wouldn't even take a second to look at me...even if I knew somebody.

I think using the Big Dig as an example was poor. It's an awful example. It's not an example of how Bechtel is incompetent, because so far as I'm concerned, their prior record still stands. It's an example that shit happens. Especially in a war zone. Being a part of a group that does these types of projects, I'm really not shocked. I know here, that it's few and far between that a contract is done on time, and at cost. There's just so much shit that happens. A lot of these projects are not like throwing up a couple cookie cutter houses in a subdivision. When these projects are undertaken, they try to utilize, as much as possible, labor and goods from the local populace to bolster the economy.

Some of it pisses me off. But you know what. At least they're not getting away with it. Some of this is very misleading. And some of this...is just plane old conspiratorial and shouldn't even be published.

Well, somebody has to make all those weapons to sell to the gov't. Too bad all the economic opportunities available in peace go down the drain.

It's always going to be one of many inherently bad things about war.

Atleast I learned a new word "Petro-Imperialist".


Nicccccce.

There will always be people/groups/companies that profit from a being involved in a war.

When the suggestion is made that the war was started to create profits...that's when the discussion takes a leap off the conspiracy cliff. I have friends who actually think the Iraq War was started so Halliburton could make money.

That's silly.

Everyone knows that the war has merely not been ENDED so that Halliburton can make money.

Your sources hold too much bias to be taken at face value.


Your typical moron realizes that there are some corporations who make a lot of money during a war...this isn't exactly what you'd call a scoop.

Is is your hypothesis that the war was started for the benefit of a few huge multinationals? If so, lay out your evidence (or was that it? )

no problem.

the invasion of Iraq was sold for 2 simple reasons. 1) iraq had weapons of mass destruction (mushroom cloud smoking gun, blair stating that the Uk could be hit in less than 30 minutes by a nuclear weapon from Iraq). 2. A terrorist connection to Iraq and Sadaam.

now, these 2 reasons were debunked BEFORE the war, and debunked more thoroughly since (i hope we agree on that)

ok, so the reasons for the invasion were bullshit. then you have to look at what the real reasons would be. here are a few facts.

1. iraq has the worlds second largest oil reserves under it's soil, which was under state control.

2. the US/UK militray industrial complex, the energy industry, and various well connected corporations have experienced record profits and stock surges since the Iraq invasion.

3. we are building 3 massive permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq (see oil and US corporate control of said oil)

we could go into more detail, but i truly think it is that simple. the facts are out there, but something in our little brain wont let us accept that uncle sam can do wrong. we hate to believe that we have funded and supported it. so we find anyway to convince ourselves otherwise. simply because we view ourselves, our country, and our leaders to be morally above all.

so in review.

the reasons for invading were bullshit, and alot of powerful corporations and people are making ALOT of money. OUR money i might add


i think it is that simple, some may say too simple. even a few of my military buddies now acknowledge we are there for the oil and regional hegemony

2. the military industrail complex,

please elaborate

because i do not agree. what are your sources?

and most of the info in the articles are concrete #'s that corporations must be accurate and accountable for, so again, i do not see your argument.

it is trendy nowadays to refute anything we dont agree with as "biased". the fact is that most of the article is concrete fact about earnings and stcok price

I thought Venuzuala had the second biggest. It's long suspected the Canada and Russia have even larger reserves covered by glaciers that will be freed by global warming. With higher oil prices, the US has the most, as oil can be viably extracted from oil shale if the prices stays @ $70/barrel.



Some companies in these industries have experienced record profits. Some have not. The largest companies in the energy industry are state-run OPEC companies (exxon ranks 14th, chevron lower than 20), they to have experienced record profits. Are they tied to the Iraq war as well? Did Bush invade Iraq so that Chavez can get rich?



So? Don't you think there is a major advantage to this in terms of future miliatry policy in the middle east?




Are you sure that it's not that people just cannot accept that war can result in good? I can't think of anyone who believes the strawman you just typed. I tend to think the reverse is true. People just can't believe that from a war, and this in case and Vietnam a resulting civil war, a more stable and long lasting society can result. All the rights and freedoms we live with are covered in blood from the past. The middle east is going to have to go through what Europe, the Americas, and the Far East already have.

I agree. I think it would be preferable if we didn't hurry it along there like we have for the past five years though.

Just to tackle this one issue - Iraq and WMD was "debunked BEFORE the war."
OK, let's go with that premise. What you are basically saying is that everyone knew that Iraq was WMD-free before the war started, but because the government wanted to line its pockets with profits from the war they went ahead anyway. Yet you completely ignore the FACT that the US intelligence on Iraq's WMD was backed up by the intelligence agencies of Britain, France, Russia, Israel and China.
So why would all of these countries state that Iraq had WMD? Were these governments on the take as well?
Or is it possible that President Bush made the decision with what was considered to be the best intelligence they had on the situation. Well, God forbid we give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, right?

This is such a simple-minded assessment of the situation and such a lame comparison (to Europe, America, and Vietnam) that I really have no comment. I see what you are both saying, but a stable society doesn't happen as a result of bloodshed. Certain civilizations go through periods of relative peace and calm for other reasons. In the case of the Middle East, we're talking about a region that was plundered and savaged by Western society for generations. One war where half a million people die is not going to lead to greater stability. If anything, countries like Iran, and how we deal with them, oil resources, Islam, and Palestine are examples as to why that region is so far from being stable. That Palestinian/Israeli situation has been going on for years with no end in sight.

Are you saying that America (or in a broader sense, the West) is to blame for Middle Eastern instability?

Right. They need a war like Europe had where 30-40 million people die. Then they'll be all set on the path to freedom and democracy.

We've all been over this before and we know each other's positions, but yes, I don't see how western countries don't deserve some blame for the Middle East's problems. Maybe even a lot of blame. But taking that position is hardly radical or controversial.