Most Privatized War In History: Iraq

Going down in history as being the most privatized war in United States existence gets thrown around a lot these days. With the help of the United States government, private firms like Halliburton, Blackwater USA to name a few. The CEOs of the two firms mentioned plus a countless amount of others make anywhere between twelve to sixteen million dollars a year and pulling in billions of dollars in revenue for their corporation. Recently Federal investigators have uncovered what they describe as a sweeping network of kickbacks, bribes and fraud involving at least eight employees and subcontractors of KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary, in a scheme to inflate charges for flying freight into Iraq in support of the war; it seems to me that these very “inflated charges” are how we as taxpayers are being cheated out of our money while the government that is supposed to protected us is letting these private firms cheat us. The first post I responded to “War Means a Windfall for CEOs”, from the blog, “Say-When.org”, by Michael Brush; in this post, Michael talks about how much private firms have gained in terms of stock and earnings over the years through the war in Iraq. The second post I responded to was “Iraq, Cheney & Halliburton: Greed Is Great “ by Max Blunt, and it talks about Halliburton and how they profited from Iraq with 10-year contracts, and the fact that win or lose, these death merchants make their money anyway.

Comment1:

First I want to let you know your blog is great; it is ridiculous how many private firms have benefited from the war in Iraq. I watched this documentary about war profiteers in Iraq and I couldn't believe what I saw; Haliburton is charging the government about $100 for every soldier’s load of laundry, and if the soldier refuses the service and tries to do it himself, he is ordered not to by someone. Many of the contractors hired by Blackwater USA drove empty cargo trucks; becoming a target for any terrorist organization in the vicinity. If a cargo truck gets a flat, instead of changing it, the drivers are ordered to ignite the complete vehicle; the purpose being if all these private firms overcharge the government, they are going to make higher revenue; but who cares about the working and middle-class citizens that end up paying these firms with their hard earned tax dollars; like you showed, the CEOs rake in tons of money every year. The cost for some is even greater than money; Middle American people that get involved in contracting become pawns to the bigger game in Iraq. Before stumbling to at your blog, I had an idea about how many firms made money of this war, but now I see that here are far more.

Comment 2:

I want to say that your post is well put together and factual yet in laments terms. Bush and his administration knew how much money the war was going to end up costing Americans; all of Bush’s daddy’s friends have had a huge amount of experience in Iraq, they knew how much unrest this war would cause in that region; since the United States military cannot profit, I feel like contracting to private firms is just inversing to government profit when instead they are actually huge loses. For these short-term monetary gains for a few handpicked firms and people, countless of families have been destroyed in this war; generations crippled with little or no choice but to get into terrorist organizations. I like how you pointed out that these contractors that get work in Iraq have no military training but yet pretend to be so there; Iraq is not a Starbucks parking lot, you cannot hire security in a situation like that. Well you can, but you probably won’t be the world super-power. Good blog, I am defiantly going to visit it again.