David Rose lays out the riches being gleaned by Bush administration cronies in Iraq in an excellent piece in this month’s Vanity Fair: “The People vs. the Profiteers.” Control of Iraq’s oil and enrichment of the Bush and Cheney families and their political allies are, in my opinion, the main reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Which makes the Democratic Party’s continued funding of the war all the more scandalous and blameworthy.
Here is the pie: “The Department of Defense is easily the biggest federal agency, with a budget that has ballooned more than 90 percent since 2000, to about $460 billion this year. Much of that increase has been spent on private contracting, which rose from $106 billion in 2000 to $297 billion in 2006.”
Here is the contract: “KBR [formerly the Kellog, Brown and Root division of Halliburton]’s current military-support contract is known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or logcap. This is the contract’s third incarnation, and, like its predecessors, logcap 3 is a “cost-plus” contract: whatever KBR spends, the government agrees to reimburse, with the addition of a fee of about 3 percent. The more the company spends, the more it makes, so it pays to be profligate.”
The first logcap contract dates back to 1992, when Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney paid Brown and Root, as KBR was then known, to devise a contract for providing overseas support services to the military. Under federal law, a firm that designs a contract is prohibited from bidding for it, but this regulation was ignored, and B&R bid for and won logcap 1. (More than a decade later, the rules were breached again when Halliburton designed and then won the $2 billion contract to restore Iraq’s oil industry.) Three years after logcap 1 was awarded, Cheney, who had no business experience, became C.E.O. of B&R’s parent company, Halliburton, where he would collect some $44 million in earnings.
logcap 1 expired in 1997, and Halliburton lost its bid for logcap 2 to DynCorp. By this time, however, B&R was so deeply embedded in Bosnia and Kosovo, where U.S. forces were then concentrated, that the region was exempted from logcap 2 altogether. DynCorp was left fuming on the sidelines while Halliburton remained in the Balkans, reaping a harvest that eventually reached $2.2 billion.
Click here for the full story.
of Bush/Cheney will be the looting of the US Treasury.
Besides the ongoing efforts to use the DOJ to disenfranchise poor and minority voters, the ‘privatization’ of services ranks right up there with the worst of anything that they’ve done.
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When Cheney debated Lieberman, Holy Joe mentioned that Cheney had done pretty well for himself during the Clinton years, Dick’s response was: “No thanks to the government”.
This drew a big cheer from all the ‘free market’ wingnuts, but the reality, as pointed out in that article, is that Cheney had no prior private sector experience in business, yet upon leaving his 30 year Gov’t career became the CEO of a multinational company that he had been lobbying for. Only a complete sociopath like Cheney could continue to deny the truth.
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This is classic wingnut welfare, as exemplified by the recent Blackwater revelations. Your Tax dollars at work.
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Thats a pretty radical statement there Bob, while certainly no one will argue against the fact that Dick Cheney still profits off of Halliburton and that company has done well in Iraq I think it is a huge leap to say that this was the main reason they invaded the country. Our leaders while cynical and misguided are not evil and I doubt any American administration, even these guys, would be evil enough to sacrifice American lives just to make some more millions for themselves.
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The real reason for the Iraq War was a clear realpolitik calculation to further secure the Middle East from Chinese and Russian influence as well as remove the greatest threat to Israeli/US hegemony in the region. While it was unconstitutional, immoral, and also plain stupid to invade Iraq when we did there was a realpolitik calculation driving it, mainly to protect US interests. To say it was because Bush and Cheney are evil and want to profit off of American deaths is asinine and discredits actual opposition to their policies.
Would it have anything to do with the paper bags of unmarked bills that Brown & Root delivered to LBJ to purchase the Senate?
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This is a relationship which vastly antedates BOTH Bush administrations, and is worth looking at by itself. I would suggest beginning with Robert Caro.
…but just to highlight the deepth of political corruption in DC–not sure what you point is…the Dems did it first?
My grandfather tells the story of how he got to Viet-Nam. He got there in time for lunch at the mess hall. They had roast beef.
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“Wow, this is pretty good”, he thought.
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Dinner and roast beef again. “Twice in one day? Why are they being so good to us?”
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Breakfast, and roast beef again. He asked about all the roast beef. “Lyndon’s cattle ranches gotta make a profit.”, was the answer from a sergeant at the table.
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The pols are making money, look at Dianne Feinstein with MILCON. Party doesn’t matter. Honor among thieves and war profiteers.
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Years ago a book was written by a Marine General. Same song, same lyrics, different singers.
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that you can tell your grandkids about, and it’s happening right now.
Maybe we won’t be allowed to tell anyone about it…
The real reason for the Iraq War was a clear realpolitik calculation to further secure the Middle East from Chinese and Russian influence as well as remove the greatest threat to Israeli/US hegemony in the region.
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…you’re a nut. The Chinese and Russian influence will come in the “stans” that were previously part of the USSR. I use the European designation; that is the middle east; Iraq is in the near east, and has nothing to do with the “stans.”
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Isreal has, in the last 40 years, made its bed by its idiotic occupation in the occupied/disputed territories. They may be able to say a country, but, unfortunately, Israel, like Lebanon, is nothing more than a made up country, made up by the western Europeans. We’ll see what happens.
Ultimately, whoever has the biggest stick wins. And yes, at some point in time, it will come down who can piss higher on the wall.
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My money is on Israel, however,”idiotic” you think they may be.
And the solution is what?
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…the solution to what?
Bush and Cheney’s decision to invade Iraq meant the Bush family and its cronies, and their political allies, would earn billions of dollars — now and in the future, as this article in part explains. That doesn’t mean they are evil, except perhaps in your mind.
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As to realpolitik, assuming that is in some way distinct from good business judgment (very debatable, in my opinion), it certainly is not mutually exclusive to the latter. You can have your realpolitik if you like as a secondary motivation: fine with me.
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The basic problem with your argument is your claim that the Bush administration is, “plain stupid.” I don’t think that at all. They don’t serve the public, they serve themselves, but they are not stupid.
I don’t think so. I believe DoD accounts for fifteen to twenty percent of federal spending and perhaps less. At one point in time, not hat long ago it accounted for eight percent of federal spending. Health and Human Sercices I believe is the largest agency re $$$$$.
Based on a quick bit of research, I came up with a pie chart of the US budget. This, however, is not broken down by agency. But let’s look at the top divisions and which agency they belong to.
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Social Security is its own independant agency.
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Defense is separate, too.
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The next three (Medicare, Unemployment/Welfare and Medicaid) all belong to HHS.
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I’m not sure what agency the debt belongs to. Treasury?
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After that, everything’s pretty small potatoes.
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Thus, at 37% of the budget, HHS is the largest, followed by SSA at 21% and then Defense at 17%.
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Although one could argue the definition of “agency”. The FBI is an agency, yes? But it’s under the Department of Justice, so what does that mean? Is HHS an agency? Is Medicare an agency?