The Cost of the US Colonial War Against Iraq
by Lenora Foerstel
www.globalresearch.ca 28 August 2004
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FOE408A.html
Most citizens of the world assume that when their country declares war,
the country's army and weapons industry will be called upon to fight
the battle. But what we find today is that a group of CEOs heading
privatized military firms are sharing the power once vested exclusively
in the President and Congress. Private military contractors are the new
corporate face of war. They have sent their own mercenaries to
Croatia, Macedonia, Columbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. These contractors
enable the United States to wage war by proxy and without the kind of
congressional voting or media coverage to which conventional wars were
earlier subjected.
The US government increasingly relies on corporate enterprises such as
Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI), which specializes
on supplying military training and expertise to the US government and
other countries. MPRI sees war as a commercial enterprise. On March
24, 1994, the defense minister of Croatia appealed to the United States
for military assistance against Serbia. Under the United Nations arms
embargo, the US could not legally provide any military assistance to
the entities of the former Yugoslavia, but the Pentagon simply referred
the Croatian minister to MPRI for aid. Just months after MPRI was
hired, the Croatian army under their guidance launched a stunningly
successful military operation [Uluja) or "Storm"] against Krajina, a
region of Croatia inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic Serbs. The
MPRI employed air power, artillery and infantry forces, resulting in
the death of countless Serbs and causing 250,000 of them to flee the
country. And so Krajina was ethnically cleansed.
A large number of the private military corporations have crossed the
fine line of legality, employing illegal business practices and hiring
employees with criminal records while serving potentially illegal
clients. Congress, the Defense Department and the Pentagon
inadequately supervise the use of private military contractors,
allowing them to break down the traditional norms of control.
Some 15,000 to 20,000 contractors are stationed in Iraq. There is a
mercenary in place for every ten occupation soldiers. The contracted
individual has a free hand in threatening or killing an Iraqi citizen.
As mercenaries, these contractors do not fall under the UN charter, the
Geneva Accords or the Nuremberg doctrines. On October 6, 2003, the
Washington Times reported that military contractors guarding ministries
killed Iraqi citizens without punishment or inquiries. Many of these
contractors are not US citizens and are not subject to US laws
Blackwater USA, one of the largest of these corporations, flew in a
group of sixty former commandos from Chili. May of them were trained
under the military government of Augusto Pinochet. Squads of
Filipinos, Bosnians and US men are trained and hired for tasks ranging
from military training, intelligence, combat, and local security
including protecting administrators like Paul Bremer. The salaries paid
these mercenaries are as high as 1,000 to 1,500 US dollars a day.
Philipinos, often referred to by their employers in racist terms,
usually get $4000 a month.
These are good times for recruiting mercenaries. Since the end of the
Cold War some six million service men have been thrown into the
unemployment market. With minimal job skills, they use their combat
training to find work with private military corporations which offer
them high salaries.
Private military corporations now do an estimated $100 million in
business world-wide each year. Much of it goes to top US corporations
like Halliburton, it's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, or DynCorp
and Raytheon. These corporations frequently overcharge the government
for their services, and Congress and the Pentagon have begun
investigations into how the money is being spent. Some $1.6 million is
now being withheld from Halliburton for overcharging for meals that
were never sent to soldiers in Iraq. (1) Another Halliburton scam was
to charge exorbitant amounts for delivering equipment in Iraq, using
trucks that carried nothing. Such practices cost US taxpayers hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
DynCorp has a contract worth tens of millions of dollars to train an
Iraqi police force. This same corporation had an earlier contract to
train the police force in Bosnia, but a scandal developed when the
contractors were implicated in a sex slavery scandal which involved the
buying and selling of young girls from Eastern Europe. No one was
prosecuted, but the two whistle blowers were fired.
DynCorp also functions as an intelligence network for the Pentagon and
the CIA. Following DynCorp advice in Haiti, the US occupation force in
Haiti integrated former members of Ton ton Macoutes, the private death
squad begun by Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier, into the Haitian
National police (HNP) and installed military officers involved in the
1991 coup d'etat in prominent positions. (3)
Private military corporations have penetrated Western warfare so deeply
that they now constitute the largest portion of coalition forces in
Iraq after the US military. Corporate power has always played a role
in war, but it has never been so blatant in exercising its power. When
their activities are questioned, corporations claim that private
businesses cannot be subject to government scrutiny. Vice President
Cheney refused to release the notes and attendees of his energy Plan to
the Supreme Court, claiming "executive privilege" and protection of
"national security." All of this to protect corporate power.
The US army estimated that of the $87 billion earmarked in 2004 for the
Iraqi campaign, Central Asia and Afghanistan, thirty billion of this
money will be paid to private military corporations. On July 22, the
House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to approve more than $400
billion in defense spending, including some $25 billion in emergency
funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the House of
Representatives rubber stamps billions of dollars for the war, the
budget for children in poverty, the disabled and the elderly had been
drastically cut, leaving 36 US states in deep crisis. Aside from
eliminating proper services for US citizens, the US government is now
running a $444 billion deficit.
According to estimates provided by the US law Report and US Labor
against War in June 2004, the war in Iraq has already cost the United
States $118, 518, 293, 319. As we move into 2005, the increased budget
for the rebuilding of Iraq will cost billions more.
References
(1) Associated Press, May 14, 2004
(2) Guardian, UK, Article by Ian Traymore, December 10, 2003
(3) Silverman, Ken, "Privatizing War", The Nation, July 28, 1997
For more information on Halliburton- recommended reading: "The
Halliburton Agenda" by Dan Briody, published by John Wiley and Sons.
To express your opinion on this article, join the discussion at Global
Research's News and Discussion Forum , at
http://globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/index.php
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
grants permission to cross-post original Global Research (Canada)
articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community
internet sites, as long as the text & title of the article are not
modified. The source must be acknowledged as follows: Centre for
Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca . For
cross-postings, kindly use the active URL hyperlink address of the
original CRG article. The author's copyright note must be displayed.
(For articles from other news sources, check with the original
copyright holder, where applicable.). For publication of Global
Research (Canada) articles in print or other forms including commercial
internet sites, contact: crgeditor@ yahoo.com
For media inquiries: crgeditor@ yahoo.com
© Copyright belongs to the author, 2004. For fair use only/ pour usage
équitable seulement.
by Lenora Foerstel
www.globalresearch.ca 28 August 2004
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FOE408A.html
Most citizens of the world assume that when their country declares war,
the country's army and weapons industry will be called upon to fight
the battle. But what we find today is that a group of CEOs heading
privatized military firms are sharing the power once vested exclusively
in the President and Congress. Private military contractors are the new
corporate face of war. They have sent their own mercenaries to
Croatia, Macedonia, Columbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. These contractors
enable the United States to wage war by proxy and without the kind of
congressional voting or media coverage to which conventional wars were
earlier subjected.
The US government increasingly relies on corporate enterprises such as
Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI), which specializes
on supplying military training and expertise to the US government and
other countries. MPRI sees war as a commercial enterprise. On March
24, 1994, the defense minister of Croatia appealed to the United States
for military assistance against Serbia. Under the United Nations arms
embargo, the US could not legally provide any military assistance to
the entities of the former Yugoslavia, but the Pentagon simply referred
the Croatian minister to MPRI for aid. Just months after MPRI was
hired, the Croatian army under their guidance launched a stunningly
successful military operation [Uluja) or "Storm"] against Krajina, a
region of Croatia inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic Serbs. The
MPRI employed air power, artillery and infantry forces, resulting in
the death of countless Serbs and causing 250,000 of them to flee the
country. And so Krajina was ethnically cleansed.
A large number of the private military corporations have crossed the
fine line of legality, employing illegal business practices and hiring
employees with criminal records while serving potentially illegal
clients. Congress, the Defense Department and the Pentagon
inadequately supervise the use of private military contractors,
allowing them to break down the traditional norms of control.
Some 15,000 to 20,000 contractors are stationed in Iraq. There is a
mercenary in place for every ten occupation soldiers. The contracted
individual has a free hand in threatening or killing an Iraqi citizen.
As mercenaries, these contractors do not fall under the UN charter, the
Geneva Accords or the Nuremberg doctrines. On October 6, 2003, the
Washington Times reported that military contractors guarding ministries
killed Iraqi citizens without punishment or inquiries. Many of these
contractors are not US citizens and are not subject to US laws
Blackwater USA, one of the largest of these corporations, flew in a
group of sixty former commandos from Chili. May of them were trained
under the military government of Augusto Pinochet. Squads of
Filipinos, Bosnians and US men are trained and hired for tasks ranging
from military training, intelligence, combat, and local security
including protecting administrators like Paul Bremer. The salaries paid
these mercenaries are as high as 1,000 to 1,500 US dollars a day.
Philipinos, often referred to by their employers in racist terms,
usually get $4000 a month.
These are good times for recruiting mercenaries. Since the end of the
Cold War some six million service men have been thrown into the
unemployment market. With minimal job skills, they use their combat
training to find work with private military corporations which offer
them high salaries.
Private military corporations now do an estimated $100 million in
business world-wide each year. Much of it goes to top US corporations
like Halliburton, it's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, or DynCorp
and Raytheon. These corporations frequently overcharge the government
for their services, and Congress and the Pentagon have begun
investigations into how the money is being spent. Some $1.6 million is
now being withheld from Halliburton for overcharging for meals that
were never sent to soldiers in Iraq. (1) Another Halliburton scam was
to charge exorbitant amounts for delivering equipment in Iraq, using
trucks that carried nothing. Such practices cost US taxpayers hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
DynCorp has a contract worth tens of millions of dollars to train an
Iraqi police force. This same corporation had an earlier contract to
train the police force in Bosnia, but a scandal developed when the
contractors were implicated in a sex slavery scandal which involved the
buying and selling of young girls from Eastern Europe. No one was
prosecuted, but the two whistle blowers were fired.
DynCorp also functions as an intelligence network for the Pentagon and
the CIA. Following DynCorp advice in Haiti, the US occupation force in
Haiti integrated former members of Ton ton Macoutes, the private death
squad begun by Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier, into the Haitian
National police (HNP) and installed military officers involved in the
1991 coup d'etat in prominent positions. (3)
Private military corporations have penetrated Western warfare so deeply
that they now constitute the largest portion of coalition forces in
Iraq after the US military. Corporate power has always played a role
in war, but it has never been so blatant in exercising its power. When
their activities are questioned, corporations claim that private
businesses cannot be subject to government scrutiny. Vice President
Cheney refused to release the notes and attendees of his energy Plan to
the Supreme Court, claiming "executive privilege" and protection of
"national security." All of this to protect corporate power.
The US army estimated that of the $87 billion earmarked in 2004 for the
Iraqi campaign, Central Asia and Afghanistan, thirty billion of this
money will be paid to private military corporations. On July 22, the
House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to approve more than $400
billion in defense spending, including some $25 billion in emergency
funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the House of
Representatives rubber stamps billions of dollars for the war, the
budget for children in poverty, the disabled and the elderly had been
drastically cut, leaving 36 US states in deep crisis. Aside from
eliminating proper services for US citizens, the US government is now
running a $444 billion deficit.
According to estimates provided by the US law Report and US Labor
against War in June 2004, the war in Iraq has already cost the United
States $118, 518, 293, 319. As we move into 2005, the increased budget
for the rebuilding of Iraq will cost billions more.
References
(1) Associated Press, May 14, 2004
(2) Guardian, UK, Article by Ian Traymore, December 10, 2003
(3) Silverman, Ken, "Privatizing War", The Nation, July 28, 1997
For more information on Halliburton- recommended reading: "The
Halliburton Agenda" by Dan Briody, published by John Wiley and Sons.
To express your opinion on this article, join the discussion at Global
Research's News and Discussion Forum , at
http://globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/index.php
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
grants permission to cross-post original Global Research (Canada)
articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community
internet sites, as long as the text & title of the article are not
modified. The source must be acknowledged as follows: Centre for
Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca . For
cross-postings, kindly use the active URL hyperlink address of the
original CRG article. The author's copyright note must be displayed.
(For articles from other news sources, check with the original
copyright holder, where applicable.). For publication of Global
Research (Canada) articles in print or other forms including commercial
internet sites, contact: crgeditor@ yahoo.com
For media inquiries: crgeditor@ yahoo.com
© Copyright belongs to the author, 2004. For fair use only/ pour usage
équitable seulement.