That's disgusting! They're giving Americans a bad name.
It becomes clearer as time passes that some of the biggest winners of the war in Iraq are the corporations standing to profit from the multi-million dollar contracts doled out by the U.S. government for the reconstruction of the war-torn country and the extraction and management of its vast oil reserves.
Many of these highly prized contracts have been granted to
well-connected corporations with personal ties to administration insiders,
a history of mammoth campaign contributions and extensive lobbying clout. The secrecy, lack of competitive bidding and lack of cost accountability guarantees in many of the initial contracts is particularly troubling, given the
questionable performance records of some of the contractors. Secrecy invites skepticism, and for good reason.
It is behind closed doors that deals get made based on political favoritism instead of merit. Disclosure and transparency are essential to democracy.
http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/warcontracts/warcontracts.php
Here's the cost of a gallon of gas imported from Kuwait by three different organizations:
$2.64 Halliburton imported gas
$1.19 Pentagon imported gas
$.96 Iraqi imported gas
Of Halliburton's $2.64/gal, $1.17 is the price they pay in Kuwait, $1.21 is the cost of Halliburton transport, and $.26 is Halliburton's explicit markup. This is just a tiny example of the cost of oil and defense companies
owning the White House.
The White House and the House Republicans took out a section of a bill that would have imposed stiff penalties for war profiteering. With one-party rule in Washington,
there will be no oversight (and no penalties)would have subjected those who deliberately defrauded the United States or Iraq to jail terms of up to 20 years and costly fines.
http://www.thehill.com/news/110503/profiteering.aspx
The Army Corps of Engineers told Representative Henry Waxman that a
Pentagon contract
awarded without competition to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) to fight oilwell fires is worth as much as $7 billion over two years. The Halliburton subsidiary has been authorized to take profits of up to $490 million.
When he heard rumors of such profiteering, Truman got into his Dodge and, during a Congressional recess, drove 30,000 miles paying unannounced visits to corporate offices and worksites. The Senate committee he chaired launched aggressive investigations into shady wartime business practices and found "waste, inefficiency, mismanagement and profiteering," according to Truman, who argued that
such behavior was unpatriotic.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030512&s=editors
It's not just contractors who have managed to game the system, however. Members of Congress have long been eager enablers of the binge drinking that often passes for government spending in Washington-especially when they can ensure that lots of that spending happens back in their home states and districts. The larding of pork into legislation is a time-honored tradition. But what has dismayed pork-watchers is how even after September 11 lawmakers, lobbyists, and government contractors continue to use the defense budget for all kinds of new spending schemes.
http://www.d-n-i.net/war_profiteering/13boeing.htmWar profiteering
