Bush & Cheney: Stalwart Supporters of the Multibillion $ Military Industry

The present war with Iraq is the ambition of the corporate wing of the conservative establishment who views Iraq as a potential wedge against the domination of Mideast oil-producing nations which, in many respects, are openly hostile to American economic interests in the region. Having failed to turn the first war to their corporate advantage, the exiled power brokers brooded and plotted to revive a public campaign against Saddam Hussein which would unseat the dictator and allow the U.S. to install an authority there compliant to American business concerns.

The election of George Bush and Dick Cheney was a watershed for the military corporations. Both had been stalwart supporters of the multibillion dollar military industry; Bush in his home state and Cheney, wherever he could exploit his tenure as defense secretary during the first Iraq war, and build on his past deal-making with the coalition members. Cheney's lifetime immersion in governmental affairs has provided him ample opportunity to feather his own nest, and to lay the groundwork for the increased insinuation of his network of corporate partners and associates' pet projects into the military and government appropriations process.

Cheney began his government career in the Nixon administration working under Donald Rumsfeld, who was the improbable director of one of the nation's first anti-poverty programs, the Office of Economic Opportunity. After a stint in Congress, Cheney was called back into the executive branch to serve as Secretary of Defense for Bush I. The wartime connections that he made with leaders of the Mideast oil countries, made him an attractive candidate for the Halliburton oil corporation, who had recently merged with Kellogg, Burton, and Root.

Kellogg, Brown, and Root was hired in 1992 for $3.9 million by then-Defense Secretary Cheney to present a report on the privatizing of certain army functions, such as building camps and providing food for soldiers. This move opened the door for the private support army which has enabled the Pentagon to (barely) maintain forces for President Bush's expanded military agenda. 40 Accordingly, when Cheney left the Pentagon, he was hired as Halliburton's chief executive. 187

According to the Boston Herald, in November 2001, "Halliburton was awarded a $140 million contract to develop an oil field in Saudi Arabia by the kingdom's state-owned petroleum firm, Saudi Aramco, and a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, and along with two Japanese firms, was hired by the Saudis to build a $40 million ethylene plant." 186

Halliburton made more than $700,000 in political contributions since 1998, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, with 95% of the money going to Republicans. 188

During Cheney's five years of employment there, the company doubled the amount of revenue it received from government contracts. CorpWatch reported that, in 1998 Cheney took home $4.4 million in salary and benefits and in 1999 he was paid $1.92 million, according to the company's own financial reports. 41 In May 2000, he cashed in 100,000 Halliburton shares to net another $5.1 million and then sold the rest of his shares in August 2000 for $18.5 million, adding up to a total of almost $30 million in just two years. He's still on the payroll there, receiving anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million a year.

"Halliburton, headed by Vice President Cheney, won reconstruction contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." When Mr. Cheney was running Halliburton in the 90's, the oil services firm sold more equipment to Iraq than any other company. As reported by the Financial Times in Nov. 2000, Halliburton subsidiaries submitted $23.8 million worth of contracts with Iraq to the United Nations in 1998 and 1999 for approval by its sanctions committee. 185

KBR has been a major beneficiary of the expansion of U.S. military operations around the world in the aftermath of September 11. Kellogg-Brown & Root has snatched up contracts that directly impact our nation's involvement there: One hundred forty-two million to maintain a base in Kuwait, $170 million for help coordinating the Iraqi reconstruction dollars and $28 million for the construction of prisoner of war camps in Gitmo. There are also tangential bones collected by the reconstruction giant, like a quiet $39 million for building and operating U.S. base camps in Jordan.

Hundreds of Brown and Root employees serve as drivers, laundry attendants, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, heavy equipment operators, superintendents, site coordinators, camp managers, and engineers. In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers relies on KB&R to help repair oil wells and pipelines.

The majority of KB&R's military business comes from a program called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP for short. Brown & Root won the first LOGCAP contract in 1992 over three other bidders. 189 The Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) maintains private military support forces. LOGCAP has been implemented in a dozen foreign countries.

KB&R employees accompanied U.S. troops to Korea and Vietnam, building bases, roads, harbors, etc. In 1963, Brown & Root sold out to Halliburton. The company exited the military support business after the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. KB&R got back into the military contracting business in ‘87.

Military contracting accounts for only about 20% of KB&R's revenues. But they have raked in $950 million to date, with the incredible potential to earn up to $8.2 billion under the terms of the current contract. Millions of dollars more is in the DoD/KB&R pipeline for the ostensible maintenance of U.S. military bases from the Balkans, to Afghanistan, to Kyrgyzstan. 190

Richard Armitage, the assistant secretary of state, also worked as a consultant to Halliburton. Armitage is a former co-chairman of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. 191 He was instrumental in the reconstruction of the emerging economies of the former Soviet republics, after the fall of the Communist empire; along with Condi Rice, who rode herd on the Bush cabal's bid for U.S. control of the Caspian oil. 192

In July, more than 20 companies from Poland signed a reconstruction deal with Kellogg, Brown and Root, the construction subsidiary of Houston-based oilfield services firm Halliburton. The Polish group is preparing for contracts to share in the theft of Iraqi oil. Nafta Polska, in alliance with KBR, seeking a share of the reconstruction contracts, formed a new venture named Consolidated Oil Services. The consortium includes Grupa Lotos, Ciech, Prochem, PGNIG and the Police Chemical Plant. 202

Direct access to crude oil is Poland's "final goal," said Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz to the Associated Press. They want the U.S. to help collect a $1.7 billion debt from Iraq, and they have encouraged our Congress and the administration to spend our tax dollars on some business investment in Bulgaria.

At the height of the war it was revealed that the Pentagon supported the idea of rolling back "imminent danger pay" by $75 a month and "family separation allowances" for the American forces by $150 a month. An outraged home front of opposition caused the military to back down. Not without a whimper however.

The Pentagon's chief of personnel, David Chu, told reporters that the outrage was "misguided." While it is true that the Pentagon favors allowing the extra combat pay allowances to expire in September, Chu said, it will ensure that overall compensation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan remains stable by giving them other forms of pay raises. 253

President Bush's cabinet is packed with millionaires. In fact, one-third of his cabinet members, according to their financial disclosure statements, are in the $10 million-plus range.

Picking the soldiers pockets while they are at war is the worst kind of treason! Unbelievable. Short-pay the soldiers and their families $150 a month to save a buck for the sorry-ass corporations to suck up in profits.

I know a few positions that we can eliminate to free up a buck or two.

These are excerpts from my book, Power Of Mischief: http://www.returningsoldiers.us/pompage.htm

Download the book for free!
http://www.returningsoldiers.us/Power%20Of%20Mischief4.pdf

Here's my list of numbered, linked references for the book (253 links):
http://returningsoldiers.us/biblio.htm

did you know that Vietnam vets routinely referred to Kellogg, Brown & Root. . .formerly known as Brown & Root. . .as "burn & loot?"

My father in law remembers more of the support given by them. Hard to fault the guys who bring needed food and supplies.

yet one has to wonder. . .why did some refer to that company as such. . .and how has it "evolved" into these no bid wonders that charge $50,000,000 for tasks that Iraqi's estimate at $300,000..
That is not a typo. That's hundreds of thousands versus tens of millions.

That info comes from riverbend at http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com archived in the last week of August '03.

Most observers estimate that civilian contractors are handling an unprecedented amount of military support services in Iraq, supplanting thousands of soldiers with private employees.

During Senate testimony in July, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that there are "something in the neighborhood of 300,000 men and women in uniform doing jobs that aren't for men and women in uniform."

The Pentagon asserts that the increase in the private forces represents a "move toward a smaller, more nimble force than the huge multinational coalition that was assembled to push Saddam out of Kuwait in 1990." They also point out that many of the new, hi-tech weapon systems require continuous maintenance and come with their own private support army.

However, the growth of the private military forces has to be attributed to more than Pentagon micro-management. Most of the work that is being done by these private soldiers has, in the past, been performed by the regular military.

In the article ‘Outsourcing War', authors Anthony Bianco and Stephanie Anderson Forest report that: "About 50% of the Army's active-duty troops are on foreign soil already, and in many key, military specialities, the deployment percentage is much higher."

The simple, sad truth is that the length and breadth of our military engagements around the world have far outstripped our ability or will in manpower or money to maintain these men and women in overseas combat without outside support.

The Coalition Provisional Authority estimates that it would cost $13 billion to rebuild Iraq's electricity infrastructure alone, and it will take $16 billion + to restore the country's water supplies. That's on top of the $63 billion that has already been appropriated for the war. Out of the $87 billion additional money recently requested, only $20 billion is intended to be spent for actual reconstruction. 178

Most of the reconstruction money will be distributed through the U.S. Agency for International Development, created by President John F. Kennedy by executive order in 1961. 179

USAID has awarded eleven contracts and five grants for reconstruction work in war-torn Iraq. One draft procurement action have been announced but not yet awarded. 180

Micheal Dobbs, in a Washington Post article has reported that "one-third of the monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is going to independent contractors, out of an estimated $56 billion total cost of reconstruction by the World Bank." 181

The recently installed Iraqi Council, headed by the White House minion Chalabi, is as foreign to Iraq as anyone (Chalabi fled in 1958). 182 The smartest move by the Authority so far may be its decision to withhold the bulk of the billions in frozen regime money from their control.

The Council has announced that they will "liberalize" all of the contracts for 100% participation by all outside groups; except for the oil contracts. The oil will be a U.S. concern.

"We have helped to establish an independent Iraqi central bank. Working with the Iraqi Governing Council, we are establishing a new system that allows foreign investors to confidently invest capital in Iraq's future," President Bush bragged recently.183

Under an edict issued by the Iraqi/U.S. council, foreign banks are to be given immediate access, to establish themselves or buy into Iraq ventures. Under the new bank rules, six foreign banks will be allowed "fast-track" entry into the country and will be permitted full ownership of the local banks within five years.

Other moves by the Council have been the creation of a supposedly "independent" central bank; and a trade bank propped up by a gang of 13 foreign banks, and a $500 million credit from America's Export-Import Bank; more U.S. taxpayer dollars subsidizing foreign bankers. 184

In an economy which has never allowed outside ownership on this scale, the Iraqi citizens will almost certainly lose hold of their country and their resources, no matter how you view the U.S. advantage there.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WVA.) balked at approving funds requested by the White House for an Iraqi enterprise zone. "Iraq has an established, educated business class," he said. He added, "Businessmen are not in short supply in Iraq."

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