War profiteers

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday April 04, 2003 01:22 by jt

Carlyle Group and Global Crossing are expected to make millions off the war.

Greens see extensive war profiteering by firms with White House and Pentagon connections, while Bush urges Americans -- especially troops and veterans -- to sacrifice. ..and "why we will keep going to war" by an advisor (sic) to the US admin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/business/01INSU.html?th
> *******************FROM THE GREEN PARTY OF
> THE UNITED STATES
> MEDIA RELEASE
> For immediate release:
> Tuesday, April 1, 2003
>
> Contacts:
> Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576,
> [email protected]
> Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624,
> [email protected]
>
>
> WARTIME CONTRACTS FAVOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S
> CORPORATE CRONIES
>
> Greens see extensive war profiteering by firms with
> White House and Pentagon connections, while Bush urges
> Americans -- especially troops and veterans -- to
> sacrifice.
>
>
> WASHINGTON, DC -- Funding for the war on Iraq, while
> requiring massive cuts in social spending for health,
> education, services, and welfare and reduction of
> veterans benefits, is becoming a huge windfall for
> favored corporations, say members of the Green Party
> of the United States.
>
> "This $100-billion war is proving a cash cow for
> corporations, especially those with connections to the
> White House, Congress, and the Pentagon, while U.S.
> troops and Iraqi civilians and soldiers face death and
> injury," said Tom Bolema, Town Councilperson (Green)
> of Juniper Hills, California. "European governments are furious that the administration plans to award the major contracts, worth somewhere between $20 billion and $100 billion, to U.S. corporations, without any competitive bidding process."

"The Bush Administration has already awarded
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a Pentagon contract to rebuild Iraqi oil fields," said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States. "USAID awarded a $4.8 million contract to Stevedoring Services of America to manage the Umm Qasr port. Companies like the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corporation, Parsons Group and defense contractors Carlyle Group and Global Crossing are expected to make millions off the war. Humanitarian relief, including assistance in Iraq's water shortage, is proving a distant second in priority behind military deals and control over Iraqi oil."

The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics
documents that Halliburton (for which Vice President Cheney served as CEO from 1995 to 2000), Bechtel, Fluor, and Parsons contributed a combined $2.64 million to political campaigns between 1999 and 2002, with 68 percent of those dollars given to Republicans.

"Bechtel is asserting the right, granted through the IMF and World Bank, to take private control over municipal public water supplies in Bolivia, most controversially in Cochabamba," said Mark Dunlea, chair of the Green Party of New York State. "Will Bechtel use its current connections and postwar influence to take over Iraqi resources?"

Other recent revelations:

*** According to the Sustainable Energy and Economy
Network and the Institute for Policy Studies, currentSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then Secretary of State George Shultz, acting on behalf of Bechtel, began negotiating a deal with Saddam in 1983 to open up the Aqaba pipeline through Iraq. Saddam's rejection resulted in the first rift in U.S.-Iraq relations.

*** An investigation by the Center for Public
Integrity revealed that nine members of the Pentagon' Defense Policy Board have ties to major defense contractors. (The exposure of Richard Perle's conflicts of interest connections with Global Crossing led to Perle's resignation as board chair last week, but Perle will retain a seat on the board.)

*** Massive new powers for Vice President Cheney to classify U.S. documents will ensure less oversight and accountability, shielding contractors and government officials with conflicts of interest from public scrutiny.

"These deals reveal that the major motivation for the invasion has less to do with concern for liberation, an already dubious promise under prolonged U.S. occupation, than with giving the U.S. corporate and political control over Iraq and its resources," said Ben Manski, Wisconsin and national party co-chair.
"It's a situation comparable to Enron's looting of Croatia when the Clinton Administration awarded it a contract to help rebuild that nation after the conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
What we're seeing now is Enron politics at its worst."

MORE INFORMATION

The Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
National office: 1314 18th Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202-296-7755, 866-41GREEN

"Contracts doled out to rebuild Iraq are questioned"
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 27, 2003
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/114656_rebuild28.shtml

> Center for Responsive Politics
> http://www.opensecrets.org
>
> "Advisors of Influence: Nine Members of the Defense
> Policy Board Have Ties to Defense Contractors" by
> Andrй VerlÑ?y and Daniel Politi, Data by Aron Pilhofer
> The Center for Public Integrity
> http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=51
> 3&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0
>
> Exposй on the failed 1983 Aqaba pipeline deal
> Issued by the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network
> and the Institute for Policy Studies
> http://www.ips-dc.org/crudevision/crude_vision.pdf

"The Pentagon's New Map: It explains why we're going to war, and why we'll keep going to war", by Thomas P.M. Barnett, U.S. Naval War College
Esquire, March 2003 issue
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets/ThePentagonsNewMap.htm