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May 20, 2013
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 The Banality of GreedPosted on Jun 26, 2007
As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American—and many more Iraqi—lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush’s running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich. This week’s evidence of the continuing corruption of Halliburton and its subsidiaries profiteering from contracts costing American taxpayers an unbelievable $22 billion stems from a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The report, only one of many about Halliburton’s recently severed subsidiary KBR, focuses on work done in Baghdad’s super-secure Green Zone. While parent company Halliburton insults U.S. taxpayers by relocating its headquarters to the tax shelter of Dubai, subsidiary KBR has been spun off to focus more directly on the American military contracts that form the core of its operations. Those operations have already produced a litany of condemnation by congressional and administration oversight bodies, and the June 25 report hardly details the company’s most egregious activities. However, the Green Zone, the site of this latest instance of taxpayer fleecing, is instructive because, safely removed from the risks of battle, it deprives these war profiteers of their favorite excuse: that construction in a battle zone is inherently more costly. While KBR’s Green Zone shenanigans covered by this report may seem small in comparison with the enormous waste attendant to the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq, they are illustrative of the feeding frenzy that has fueled the American effort. The corrupt reconstruction project has left a wasteland of failed energy, water, educational and political reform plans. As report after report details, garbage is not collected, hospitals are not staffed, schools close soon after they are opened and factories sit idle in shocking refutation of the vaunted efficiency of the United States’ political economic model. KBR’s role in this fiasco is easily exposed by a basic Google search, beginning with a stop at the website of Henry Waxman, the California congressman who heads up the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Waxman deserves a Medal of Freedom for trying to figure out what happened to those $22 billion that KBR received but are now lost to U.S. taxpayers, as well as to the once hopeful but now bitterly disillusioned Iraqi people. Indeed, six months ago, the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., termed the high level of official corruption in Iraq the “second insurgency,” stating that the siphoning-off of U.S. dollars is a major source of funds for the anti-American fighters in the country. It was estimated that last year upward of $100 million in stolen oil funds went directly to the insurgents. In the context of that horrid record of waste and corruption amid the destruction of Iraqi society in which “democratic nation building” transmogrified into fascist mayhem, KBR’s antics in the Green Zone seem petty. Advertisement Or, take the extra $4.5 million spent on the company’s food service and the cost of billeting 90 percent of KBR personnel in single quarters, as opposed to the doubling-up practiced by regular Army folks. That was chicken feed compared with other examples of taxpayer rip-offs, as revealed in one case by the Army reducing payments to KBR by $19.5 million following Waxman’s first “fraud, waste, and abuse hearings.” It is hoped that there will be other efforts at forcing accountability for the billions of dollars that have been spent to advertise the efficiency of the United States’ free-enterprise model to a skeptical Mideast public. It is claimed by American officials that KBR’s accountability issues are being addressed. In one instance cited, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad—a spiraling enterprise well on its way to becoming a nation-within-a-nation akin to the Vatican in Italy—announced that, as a means of avoiding food theft, its personnel would no longer be allowed to bring large bags into the eating halls. Such sacrifice for the mission of securing Iraqi freedom.
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By m.caves, September 23, 2011 at 3:14 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Look I’ve been hearing people say it’s democrats it’s the republicans It doesn’t matter which party you say. There all as crooked as a rattle snake. If you think a politician is going to spend one minute worrying about the people of this countries future when they’ve got companies like halliburton and aetna and a hundred other companies throwing money and entitlements at them. You’re a fool. Most when they retire if they play ball with these companies get positions as lobbyists for an insane salary. So nobody I dont give a damn what party they are is going to go in there and do the right thing. You ever seen a lawyer turn down money? It aint going to happen. And there’s no more Franklin D. Rosevelts to pull our butts out of the fire. There’s a book out there that should be required reading for everybody. It’s not a conspiracy book or anything like that. It’s called the federalist papers. It was written by the men who set up our government and wrote the constitution and the bill of rights and the declaration of independence. That’s right the founding fathers. In it they actually say that every fifty years the people should throw everybody in the government out and elect a whole new government to keep it from taking the power away from the people. Ther’s also a part in there where Thomas Jefferson said that if the people ever let the banks and private companies take controll of the government that it would be the end of Democracy. Well ladies and gentleman thats exactly what has happened. so I guess the old boys must have knew what they were talking about after all. I can tell you one thing for sure. They’re rolling in there graves right now over what these theive and liars have done to what they sacrficed so much to create.
Report thisBy Pein Tellus, July 1, 2007 at 11:48 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
What else can anyone clearheaded expect in America? Hunter Thompson once characterized The United States
Report thisas a nation of 220 million used-car salesmen with no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world. That is why the politicians that the vast majority of Americans admire and vote for the most are people who either remind them of themselves - actors such as Reagan and Schwarzenegger - or are the type of individuals they would like emulate - men like Bush and Cheney. It is because the majority of Americans vote for such politicians that such candidates run for office and receive millions in campaign contributions and are elected. Like most used-car salesmen, most politicians know that the general public is feeble-minded like idiots. They know that the vast majority of Americans vote the same way they buy a used car - on trust, and with hardly any knowledge as to the true condition of the commodity.
By cann4ing, June 29, 2007 at 6:48 pm Link to this comment
Leslie, excellent post, except that I question whether they are interested in “our souls.” These Orwellian sociopaths are interested in two things, money and power. They have no interest in our minds except to the extent that religion and patriotism can be exploited so as to keep us within the corporate media’s mind-numbing fog, blind to their Machiavellian machinations that are carried out, whenever possible, under the veil of secrecy.
Report thisBy John, June 29, 2007 at 11:04 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Yes, how does the military tolerate such corruption. Maybe because most of the military leaders will be getting lucrative military industrial complex jobs when they retire. They can always fall back on the despicable, immoral assertions-The ends justify the means or might makes right.In early February of this year Congress held a hearing about 12 billion-yes that is billion-in cash which was loaded on a militry cargo plane and flown to Iraq. No one will say what happened to the money. The government rep stated, “It was lost to poor Iraqi accounting practices.” Right, it was most likely payoffs to Iraqis and others to support this military occupation. How much more corrupt can things become?
Report thisBy cann4ing, June 29, 2007 at 8:48 am Link to this comment
Profiteer, I was unable to directly obtain the video through your link.
The subject of the Bush family connections to Dresser Industries is covered by Joseph Trento in “Prelude to Terror.” The president’s paternal grandfather, Prescott Bush, along with the Harriman family, had maintained financial ties to Hitler’s Germany, even during World War II. Trento suggests that Prescott’s position as a member of the board of two corporations connected to the Manhatten Project, Vanadium Corp., which supplied uranium and Dresser Industries which supplied the pumps, along with the Harriman family’s influence within the Democratic Party shielded Prescott during the war.
After the war, as damning evidence surfaced from captured German bank records, documents made their way into a CIA file where Allen Dulles, who had his own past links to the Nazi regime and who had busied himself recruiting former Nazis into the ranks of the U.S. intellegence services, also recruited those in the U.S. business community with former ties to the Nazi regime. Dulles both shielded the damning evidence from disclosure and used them as leverage against Prescott, who then “spent most of his post-World War II life cooperating with and taking an active interest in, the most covert CIA intelligence operations.” This included, following Prescott’s election to the Senate, maneuvering to obtain a position on the Senate Armed Services Committee and, upon Dulles’s urging, a position on the subcommittee which oversaw the CIA.
Prescott set up a job for George H. W. Bush with Henry Neil Malon and Dresser Industries, which “had long provided cover for the agency.” Dulles targed George H. W. for recruitment as a CIA business asset. Trento asserts George H.W. began “doing favors for the CIA” in 1956 after he moved to Houston and established Zapata-Offshore, which led to his involvement with the anti-Castro Cubans in which the CIA used Zapata-Offshore oil rigs as training areas in advance of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The name given to the two repainted naval vessels obtained by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty for use in the invasion were the “Houston” and the “Barbara.” The top secret code name for the invasion was “Operation Zapata.” On Nov. 29, 1963 J. Edgar Hoover directed a memo to the State Department entitled, “Assassination of President John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963” noting that the FBI and DIA had briefed “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency.” When this memo surfaced in 1988, then V.P. George H. W. Bush denied he’d ever been associated with the CIA before being appointed its director in 1975.
In “Plausible Denial” attorney Mark Lane makes a compelling case for CIA involvement in the Kennedy assassination, including the sworn testimony of former Fidel Castro girlfriend and CIA asset Marita Lorenz that directly links individuals who had been connected to the Bay of Pigs, including Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt & Frank Sturgis, to Jack Ruby and to the assassination.
Report thisBy Chaseme, June 29, 2007 at 7:21 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
A police state within the Consittution, run by Blackwater, backed by Halliburton and headed by Dick Cheney.
Report thisBy cyrena, June 29, 2007 at 2:51 am Link to this comment
#82164 by Leslie Brundige on 6/28 at 11:45 am
Ooh Leslie, this is such an excellent post!! I will be with you in heart and spirit, at the march on Kennebunkport, (I’m still convinced that Osama occupies the guest house there). I’m too disenfranchised to join you, (and there’s the on-going concern that if I appear anywhere on the East Coast, I would be subject to rendition)but I’ll keep you all in my throughts.
Let us know how it goes.
Report thisBy Margaret Currey, June 28, 2007 at 10:34 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Of course corporations always bought America but this administration took corruption and showed just how far to go, in fact it always looked like special interest the fact that the vice worked for Haliburton and Haliburton got a no bid contract does not take a rocket scientist to see the naked greed, and now the vice is not even a part of the white house any longer he is in the legeslative branch, I wonder when he is going into the Judecial Branch?
Report thisBy Leslie Brundige, June 28, 2007 at 12:45 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Yes, the true horror is the gradual realization that none of this—Katrina, 911, the “WMD’s”, the Iraqi oil that was going to pay for the war—it’s all been intentional, it’s all going as planned. Starting with the stolen election that HAD to be stolen in order to ensure the completion of the Afghanistan pipeline, the lies we’ve been bombarded with about every damn facet of reality as we know it, it’s been about psychopaths running the country, taking it all, our pensions, schools, social security, clean air and water. These gluttonous thugs are cunning, murderous (as long as it’s our kids dying or killing) bastards who should be lynched. It’s gone beyond greed, mere money no longer satisfies them. Besides, with the middle class poised to lose their homes and livelihoods in the next year or two, their job is almost complete. But they want more than money and power. They want our souls. Their corporate media feeds us swill, contradictory swill, but THEIR version of swill/reality. They know some of us weren’t “deceived” into war any more than they were “deceived”. They don’t care what those of us with our eyes wide open think, they know we’re outnumbered. I despair. But still I will march in Kennebunkport this Sunday when B*&$% and Putin meet at his daddy’s house.
Report thisBy felicity, June 28, 2007 at 12:06 pm Link to this comment
IRAQ, A VERITABLE CONSERVATIVE THEME PARK.
No taxes, no regulations, faith-based inititives run wild, unfettered capitalism, AK 47’s in abundance, collapsed infrastructure, dirty water, dirty air, sewage in the streets…who could ask for anything more ideal.
Of course KBR and every other ‘alphabet’ corporation will rush in for the kill. It’s the American way.
Report thisBy Chaseme, June 28, 2007 at 8:51 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Wow, it is simply amazing how much richer the corporations from Texas and Florida are getting since this invasion.
And, not just overseas, but didn’t Florida win the NBA Championship last year and Texas won it this year?
How many American sports fans realize that all aspects of their lives is a con GAME?
In the meantime, corporation CEOs sit back, not watching the game on the court, but watching the game in the stands…all those jerseys, cups, t-shirts, ticket sales and the faces of all those “SUCKERS!”
There seem to be no end to their greed, no end to their abuse, no end to their madness and no end to the corruption to maintian power that feeds their abuse, which continues to feed their greed, which powers their abuse, which maintains their madness, which creates more corruption to maintain their power to abuse…heeelp! It all just a vicious cycle!
Please make them go away! Someone please wake me! It’s surely a nightmare! It’s a nightmare! It’s a nightmare!
Report thisBy THOMAS BILLIS, June 28, 2007 at 1:28 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
My children if you are really upset watch what is done in the oversight and if it is the usual bullshit and some janitor at Halliburton goes to jail make sure at election time that the ones who perpetrated this fraud pay and the ones who did nothing to clean it up pay.
Report thisIf the democrats who are currently in power do not do the peoples business . Let us get them out of the way so someone who will gets in.It is not good enough to replace Rs with Ds.To replace one incompetency for another we need capable.
By Johnny Doughey, June 28, 2007 at 1:04 am Link to this comment
Look at it this way…
Report thisIf they weren’t throwing it away over in Iraq, they’d just have to spend it somewhere else, like maybe on the injured troops coming back…
and there isn’t any money in that, now, is there?
By G.Anderson, June 28, 2007 at 12:21 am Link to this comment
I seriously doubt if any other news outlet would print Mr. Sheer’s article. Nor would they be likely to air any of the comments, that have followed it.
All would be considered to be much too disturbing.
Those corporations in charge now, don’t want anything so unnerving as the truth to disrupt the shopping.
Report thisBy DennisD, June 27, 2007 at 8:17 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The vast amount of our population prefers to be kept numb and or dumb when it comes to these reports. Our media uses the public airwaves to keep everyone up on the latest grisly murder or celebrity rehab not because it’s what the public wants but because their corporate masters decree it. When is the last time any politician mentioned our 8 plus trillion national debt and just what the hell is adding to it at such a record pace. We’re creating more billionaires by the minute in this country and no one seems to be asking how or why, only how much?
Report thisThese scumbags should all be in Leavenworth.
By Northern Avenger, June 27, 2007 at 8:01 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Dick Cheney seems to have made it his raison d’etre to make the Harding administration look like a model of public service. I’ve long agreed that Americans get exactly the kind of government that they deserve…but even Neocons deserve better than this.
Report thisBy MedicMike, June 27, 2007 at 7:52 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
All the articles and hearings by Rep. Waxman are great and provide much to think about but what is being done about this. Where are criminal fraud charges, impeachment proceedings and public outcries in the streets? America is now populated by sheep and everything in the political/governmental arena is done with an eye to reelection, not doing the right thing!
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, June 27, 2007 at 4:59 pm Link to this comment
If Halliburton is now “off shore” then it should lose all “Buy America Act” contracts.
Seize all their U.S Assets, determine whose responsible and put them in jail.
The anti-seizure laws protecting the multi-million dollar mansions (homes) in states like Texas and Florida (i.e. Enron) should be repealed.
Report thisBy Dan Uu Noel, June 27, 2007 at 4:57 pm Link to this comment
A medal to Rep. Waxman? All right, but let’s remember that this report is only the tip of a huge iceberg of corruption that seems to permeate the entire U.S. government. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of federal employees would refuse to go along with it if they were motivated by the common good rather than being afraid of losing their cushy retirement benefits. A massive federal purge is badly needed, but no leading politician is even evoking this possibility.
Love,
Report thisBy cyrena, June 27, 2007 at 4:32 pm Link to this comment
You all make such astute comments and observations. I love it!!! Especially our younger set. Around here, I’d say something like, “Wow, you guys are smarter than you LOOK!! (And, they are!!)
Any observer to these comments would certainly note the same thing. Americans are wising up, and sharing the info.
Ah…makes my heart dance…
Report thisBy Pat Williams, June 27, 2007 at 3:45 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Don’t forget the Carlyle Group. I read some months ago that they were worth $12 billion around the time of 9/11 which has grown to about $40 billion. It’s another family and good buds business that included Saudis and bin Ladens, including Osama, until shortly AFTER 9/11. War, Jihad, just as long as the money is good. BTW- There was more profiteering with no bid contracts given to KBR in the “recovery” efforts after Katrina. KBR didn’t do so hot in Louisiana either. Any old disaster will do.
Report thisBy GW=MCHammered, June 27, 2007 at 2:37 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Proud to be an avid divestor is Boosh’s K-Street Amerika!
Report thisBy faith, June 27, 2007 at 2:35 pm Link to this comment
It is unfortunate that Mr. Scheer’s article is not published in every newspaper in the U.S. I honestly don’t believe that most Americans have a clue or understanding of the amounts of money that is being squandered. It is difficult to imagine how much half a trillion dollars is. It is easier for us to understand if it is expressed in comparative terms such as how many people it would feed/for how long; how much health care could be provided; housing, education..
Report thisI also think it would be immensely valuable if Mr. Scheer, Congress and Senate would explain that our budgeted tax dollars to support America’s military operations is only part of the monies expended. That, we do in fact, subsidize the war profiteers with extra funds. Thus, we are paying for not only military actions we are paying war profiteers over there as well.
Mr. Scheer, your article was excellent. Your analysis, too. Thank you
By Hammo, June 27, 2007 at 2:03 pm Link to this comment
There seems to be a fine lines between honorable defense contractors and war profiteers.
But, as Scheer notes, in many cases it is obvious that certain organizations and individuals fall into the category of war profiteers.
This is truly a sinful activity.
Food for thought in the article ...
“Iraq War Psychology: Exploring hearts and minds of U.S. officials, press, profiteers”
PopulistAmerica.com
Populist Party of America
http://www.populistamerica.com/iraq_war_psychology
Report thisBy P. T., June 27, 2007 at 1:51 pm Link to this comment
U.S. Embassy security guard to CIA station chief: “Hey, come back with that pork chop!”
Report thisBy S. Ray DeRusse, June 27, 2007 at 1:19 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
This is the most corrupt administration I have ever lived through. We all knew there was corruption in Gov’t but the level and extent, breadth and width, of this administration defies even the most creative minds. We knew it was going to be a bad situation when the war mongers forgot to send people to the middle east that could speak arabic for instance. Greedy racist chronic-underachieving fraudulent SWM’s that lack any cultural awarenes of mores and customs in foreign lands. This is sad, sad, sad, and it’s going to get worse. Now we hear of asassinations of journalists and politicians, all for greed from the invaders.
S. Ray DeRusse
Report thishttp://www.bccmeteorites.com
By ProfiteerInChief, June 27, 2007 at 1:12 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Gee, I wonder why Halliburton needed to get rid of KBR. Perhaps it is because the K in KBR (Kellogg) used to be owned by the Bush family business known as Dresser Industries, which was acquired by Cheney when he was CEO of Halliburton. Dresser Industries bought Kellogg in 1988 and has been in the Bush family since Prescott Bush in the 1920s. It is beyond me why this conflict of interest has seemed to escape the national spotlight for all these years.
Cheney’s main objective as Halliburton CEO was to bailout the Bush family from asbestos related lawsuits by using Halliburton’s money to buy the privately owned Dresser Industries. He then separated Kellogg from Dresser, which quickly claimed bankruptcy, and combined Kellogg with Brown & Root. And now we have KBR, which benefited handsomely from the LOGCAP contracts Cheney so eagerly fought for. Brilliant!
The Bushes even named Neil Mallon Bush after H. Neil Mallon, the longtime Dresser CEO. This was just a family biz!
Here’s more info on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hZf6SsdUi4
Report thisBy JOHN L. DICKERSON, June 27, 2007 at 12:08 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
THEY PROBABLY RATIONALIZE THEIR PROFITEERING BASED UPON ALL OF THE ASBESTOS-RELATED CLAIMS HALIBURTON/KBR HAD TO PAY OFF BEGINNING IN 2001(THANKS TO CHENEY’S 1998 ACQUISITION OF DRESSER INDUSTRIES). WHEW! ALL OF THOSE NO-BID ‘COST PLUS’ CONTRACTS IN IRAQ CAME JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME! (WINK, WINK!) John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta
Report thisBy This Old Brit, June 27, 2007 at 11:10 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Here’s what they’ve [all] done to Iraq and it’s poor people.
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=22684
Report thisBy TruthSeeker, June 27, 2007 at 10:28 am Link to this comment
The war profiteers in any war are a disgustingly vile bunch of creatures. They have no humanity or morals. Death and destruction are their oxygen. They arm the world so that humans kill each other. And we think Arabs are terrorists? These people live on fear and terror, yet they have the money to make terrorism look somehow “civilized”.
They are gods of war and profiteers of misery. Greed is their god. An article I recently read describes these people with great truth and passion. Highly recommend it. Gods of War, Gods of Greed and Profiteers of Misery. Do yourself a favor and read this great essay.
http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2004/08/gods-of-war-gods-of-greed-and.html
Report thisBy Mudwollow, June 27, 2007 at 8:51 am Link to this comment
Just remember this next time someone accuses the Bush administration has being incompetent. Remember the billions cleverly transferred from the many to the few the next time someone characterizes Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney as misguided. Incompetently misguided all the way to the bank, while the truly incompetent and misguided continue to swallow the preposterous White House swill.
Report thisBy G.Anderson, June 27, 2007 at 7:56 am Link to this comment
Every day, in every way, there are fresh revelations that America serves the interests of the corporations, whether they are in Dubai or Washington D.C., doesn’t matter.
Our military does their bidding, they own our Congress and Senate, and the entire work of our government is to make them money.
And each day, the corporate propganda mill on Radio, and T.V., fills the hearts and minds of American’s with poison, and the pathology of their greed.
And each day, the corporate plutocracy advances it’s lies and subtrafuge against the free world.
Their agenda is the only one that is heard in Washington, they are above the law because they own it and their feckless stooges in Washington will do nothing against them, instead they are paid to introduce bills the corporations favor.
We are a country in which the laws are made to protect them and insulate them and their profits, from any grievance that the people may have against their atrocities.
Each day the politicians go on with their puppet show, but no one believes it anymore.
Report thisBy Gloria Picchetti, June 27, 2007 at 7:42 am Link to this comment
What do people expect from the VP’s company other than than to cut and run?
Report thisBy CitizenDefender, June 27, 2007 at 5:30 am Link to this comment
My father, a Pearl Harbor Survivor, said: “Take your American company to a different country, as Halliburton has done by relocating its headquarters to the tax shelter of Dubai, then don’t bring your goods or services to us.” It is a statement that is hard to refute and certainly should be applied to this company that has no remorse over pilfering American monies.
Report this