Who's profiting from the Iraq war?

It's wrong, Halliburtan didn't have to bid on the contract, they were just given it. That's cronyism at it's worst and absolutely disgusted me.

No, we didn't go to war because of Halliburton. But they sure didn't mind helping out their friends.

 

Well, if they pay some soldiers $100,000 to drive a truck, how many of the other 2 million soldiers in the armed forces would they have to pay a similar wage for doing similar duties? Are there expenses related to employing soldiers that aren't necessarily part of their direct pay, that may already push the per soldier cost near or above $100,000?

 

The inherent fallacy of these types of comparisons is the assumption that we would spend the money on any of these more noble causes, rather than just give ourselves another tax cut.

 

I'm willing to bet there are more people than just Dick Cheney involved in the awarding of military contracts, even no-bid ones, and they might not all be beholden to him. It's also possible that having a former Defense Secretary run a company for six years might make it distinctly qualified to handle military assignments.

 

You're missing the point on several levels. First, what's a soldier think about risking his life for his country and getting paid less a third of what a KBR employee gets for just driving a truck? What does that do for morale, recruiting? Second, people don't risk their lives nor do the same kind of job for corporations that they will do for their country. Nobody charged Omaha beach for the KBR paycheck nor would they. When the going gets tough at KBR, people quit and go home. Third, what kind of training do these KBR employees get? What damage do they do to the "cause" with their behavior and performance in Iraq? That's incalculable. As far as Iraqis are concerned, they don't differentiate between the military and private employees with regard to the effect on their lives. They're all Americans occupying their country.

 

if they could do it w/out serving water tainted w/ **** to my family members who are off fighting bushs little war, maybe.

if they could do it w/out ripping off the taxpayer by overbilling for services done or billing for services not done, maybe.

or we could have kept private interests out of it and let the military do the duties that they always have. but than the vice presidents former company wouldnt be raking it in at our expense, would they?

what is the definition of fascism again?

 

you're smarter than this. the gov't doesn't pay you up front, like any other customer. you have to finance your costs first, then you get paid, then you pay the loan back. normal business cycle

 

Of course banks finance all businesses, but that includes non-war related business so why would they care so much about going to war?

Banks have gotten far richer off the recent mortgage and private equity bubbles than from the war.

 

Do you think the government would never screw up in those ways? Remember Katrina?

This has nothing to do with fascism. You can't just throw that word around and expect it to be an argument. It's like conservatives just throwing around "socialism" all the time.

 

One word, Dick.

 

im sure the government (im talking about the military though) does screw up from time to time. the point is that our current military no longer does the jobs that they always did. it has been handed over to private interests, who are making tons of money and continue to get tons of money, despite all the screw-ups and shady business practices. these companies are very closely tied to this administration w/ cheney/haliburton being the biggest and most obvious. what was that "f" word again? fascism...yeah, thats the ticket!

i have a hard time believing that the military cant house/feed/transport themselves more efficiently than haliburton does and at a much lower cost.

 

You mean when the poor people screwed up? Yeah I remember.

 

Dude, letting Halliburton provide food, water, and toilets isn't fascism. No matter how many times you repeat it.

The military is pretty overstretched and has other things to handle, that is probably a big reason this stuff is outsourced. The private interests you hate so much have proven in all areas of the economy to be more efficient than the government.

 

Didn't this have to do with LOGCAP? I don't really follow this stuff closely anymore, so maybe you guys can clear this up for me.

 

I'm going to guess never.

 

they already handle intel matters. private mercenaries were heavily involved w/ the abuses at abu-graib. a private contractor raped a teenage boy and is now back in the u.s. w/ no charges ever filed against him. the military had no jurisdiction over him when he was in iraq. and private contractors are ordering around troops, who were not properly trained for duties they were given, like prison guards. im sure the military is absolutely thrilled to be taking orders from private contractors hired by the bush administration!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206725,00.html

this article discusses how private contractors were used in abu-graib, oftentimes working alongside and giving orders to the m.p.'s, who were not properly trained to be prison guards in the first place.

"In the report below we quote Gary Myers, a lawyer for one of the accused military policemen, as saying: "We know that CACI and Titan corporations have provided interrogators and that they have in fact conducted interrogations on behalf of the US and have interacted the military police guards at the prison."

The scandal has also brought to light the growing and largely unregulated role of private contractors in the interrogation of detainees. According to lawyers for some of the soldiers, they claimed to be acting in part under the instruction of mercenary interrogators hired by the Pentagon. Lawyers for the soldiers argue they are being made scapegoats for a rogue military prison system in which mercenaries give orders without legal accountability.
A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein. One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him.
One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt Chip Frederick is accused of posing in a photograph sitting on top of a detainee, committing an indecent act and with assault for striking detainees - and ordering detainees to strike each other.
He told CBS: "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations." His lawyer, Gary Myers, told the Guardian that Sgt Frederick had not had the opportunity to read the Geneva Conventions before being put on guard duty, a task he was not trained to perform. Mr Myers said the role of the private contractors in Abu Ghraib are central to the case. "I think it creates a laissez faire environment that is completely inappropriate. If these individuals engaged in crimes against an Iraq national - who has jurisdiction over such a crime?", Mr Myers asked. "It's insanity," said Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who has examined the case, and is concerned about the private contractors' free-ranging role. "These are rank amateurs and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?"

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=10828

another article about how private contrators were directing military guards with regard to torture. once again, this is a report done by the army. very disturbing stuff.
Two private military contractors are being investigated for their role in torture allegations at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq: CACI International, Inc. from Arlington, Virginia, and Titan of San Diego, California. CACI supplied at least one interrogator while Titan supplied at least two translators named in a 53-page classified internal Army report written by Major General Antonio Taguba that have dominated news coverage all over the world. (see box)
A total of four men -- Steven Stephanowicz, John Israel, Torin Nelson and Adel Nakhla -- are named in the report. All of them were assigned to work with the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, a unit that is currently stationed in Germany and Italy in support of V Corps, under the command of Colonel Thomas Pappas.
William Lawson, the uncle of Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick, one of the soldiers named in the report who is currently facing a court martial, told CorpWatch that his nephew told the family that the company employees were partially responsible for the abuses. "He tried to complain and that he was told by superior officers to follow instructions from civilians, contract workers interrogating the Iraqi prisoners. They said go back down there. Do what the civilian contractors tell you to do and don't interfere with them and loosen these soldiers up for interrogation." Lawson says that the company employees should be investigated and prosecuted if necessary. "I've spent 23 years in the military including time in Vietnam. I love this country but I will not allow my nephew to be used as a scapegoat," he said in a phone interview from his home in Newburg, West Virginia.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/08/09/abu_ghraib/index.html

several thousand pages of classified military documents reveal that private contractors, hired as interrogators at Abu Ghraib, played a key role in the abuses. According to the testimony of one detainee, a male contract worker carried out one of the most heinous crimes at the prison, raping a boy while a female soldier took pictures.

The use of civilian contractors is key to understanding Abu Ghraib. As the full Taguba report makes clear, private contractors held many sensitive positions at the prison. The wealth of classified documents suggests that once the administration decided to privatize military intelligence operations -- giving inexperienced contract workers nearly unlimited power over detainees -- with only a pretense of military oversight, the door to prisoner abuse was thrown open.

The fact that the other half of the JIDC interrogators were active-duty military is not as reassuring as it may sound. Twelve of the 19 soldiers on interrogation teams at Abu Ghraib were at the bottom of the military ladder, specialists or privates first class. No one held a rank above sergeant. Military interrogations were conducted by inexperienced, low-ranking soldiers.
Army Spc. Luciana Spencer is a good example of the problem. A military interrogator, Spencer was cited in the Taguba report for forcing a detainee to strip and walk back to his cell naked, in an effort to humiliate him. In a still-classified sworn statement, she also admits to hearing other interrogators instructing the military police to abuse prisoners, and once witnessed Spc. Charles Graner slapping a detainee. Asked why she didn't report Graner, Spencer told investigators that she didn't know that what he had done constituted abuse.
That's not surprising given her level of experience. Spencer had graduated from "the schoolhouse," the military training ground for interrogators at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., in the summer of 2003, just months before arriving at her first assignment, Abu Ghraib.
"She didn't speak the language," says a friend of Spencer's who didn't want to be named for this article. "She didn't know the culture, didn't know the history. She didn't really know how to do the job." The friend blames the military for placing her in a situation for which she was not prepared.
Given their inexperience, Nelson says, interrogators were easily influenced about how to do their jobs. He characterizes many of them as "cowboys" who "try the tactics they see on really bad TV shows."

 

This article is misleading. First, it implies that KBR is still part of Halliburton. KBR is a separate entity now. The only reason why people keep making the links is because of the former ties with Cheney. Halliburton's primary money maker is providing services to oil companies. Many people don't even know what halliburton does and only read what they see in the news.

Even the whole moving of its headquarters to Dubai was misleading. They did not move their coporate headquarters, just simply opened another one. The main offices are still in houston as well as the main operations. The hq in Dubai was opened so that it can provide a base for eastern hemisphere business, while the Houston hq would deal with Western Hemisphere. Schlumberger has several corporate offices around the globe yet no one seems to mind that. Instead the media likes this sort of negative attention.