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Politics, Astrophysics, Missing

Politics & Legal > The Madness of War Profiteering in Iraq
 

The Madness of War Profiteering in Iraq










The Madness of the War Profiteering in Iraq

by Robert Greenwald, AlterNet



Posted on May 10, 2007, Printed on May 14, 2007

https://www.alternet.org/story/51719/

The
following is Robert Greenwald's testimony to the House Appropriations
Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about war profiteering.

Thank
you for inviting me to testify today. I appreciate the opportunity to
share with you what I have learned in the course of making the
documentary film, "Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers." Along with my colleagues at Brave New Films,
I spent a year researching the experiences of soldiers, truck drivers
and families affected by the presence of private military contractors
in Iraq. They shared with us their harrowing experiences of how
military privatization and war profiteering have affected their lives,
and in some cases taken the life of a loved one.

It
is their personal stories that compel me to testify today. I am not a
lawyer or a financial specialist or a government expert, but I can tell
you from my extensive first-hand experience with these folks that
something is seriously wrong. We are hurting our country and the many
patriots who serve in the military. Our taxpayer dollars are being
spent, abused, mis-used, and wasted on profiteers. It is a true
tragedy, and it is costing the lives of Americans and Iraqis.

Please let me introduce you to a few of these people and their stories.

Imagine
someone with the exact same job as you, working next to you, but
getting paid three times as much as you! We heard this story over and
over again from the soldiers we interviewed. And in the case of US Army
SPC David Mann, a radio repair technician who served in Iraq, he was
even required to train KBR contractors to replace him. In "Iraq For
Sale," David shared his frustration:

"When
I could be actively becoming a better soldier and becoming more
proficient in my job, instead I'm going to sit up on guard duty and
wait around while KBR contractors are doing the job that I had to train
them to do."

US Army specialist Anthony Lagouranis also spoke of the effects of the private contractors on the military:

"It
certainly affected retention because I don't know why any military
person would re-enlist to do the same job when they could get out of
the military and make six times the money -- I really don't understand
why they were outsourced. I mean, it seems like this is a military job
and the military should be doing it. Especially because the more
civilians you have out there, the more military people you need to
guard them. So we're spreading us thin."

"Iraq
For Sale" was seen by hundreds of thousands of people around the
country, and I cannot tell you the number of soldiers who saw it and
thanked us for exposing the toll that contracting and profiteering are
taking on our armed forces and on the war in Iraq.

I was also appalled to learn of the amount of waste by contractors in Iraq.

I
remember clearly my interview with Stewart Scott, a former Halliburton
employee. With pain and rage in his voice, he said how dare Halliburton
put its people up at five-star hotels, while the soldiers, who he was
there to help, were sleeping on the ground. I did not believe in him at
first, but then he began naming the hotels and the locations. It was
all true.

I also spoke with Shane Ratliff, a truck driver from Ruby, South Carolina.

He
saw Halliburton advertising a job for truck drivers in Iraq and he
signed up. When Shane started telling me that empty trucks were being
driven across dangerous stretches of desert, I assumed he was mistaken.
Why would they do that? Then he explained that Halliburton got paid for
the number of trips they took, regardless of whether they were carrying
anything. These unnecessary trips where putting the lives of truckers
at risk, exposing drivers and co-workers to attack. This was the result
of cost-plus, no-bid contracts.

Another
young Halliburton worker named James Logsdon told me about the burn
pits. Burn pits are large dumps near military stations where they would
burn equipment, trucks, trash, etc. If they ordered the wrong item,
they'd throw it in the burn pit. If a tire blew on a piece of
equipment, they'd throw the whole thing into the burn pit. They burn
pits had so much equipment, they even gave them a nickname -- "Home
Depot."

The
trucker said he would get us some photos. And I naively asked, how big
are they, the size of a backyard swimming pool? He laughed, and
referred to one that he had seen that was 15 football fields large, and
burned around the clock! It infuriated him to have to burn stuff rather
then give it to the Iraqis or to the military. Yet Halliburton was
being rewarded each time they billed the government for a new truck or
new piece of equipment. With a cost- plus contract, the contractors
receive a percentage of the money they spend. As Shane told me, "It's a
legal way of stealing from the government or the taxpayers' money."

These costs eat up the money that could be used for other supplies.

Sgt.
Phillip Slocum wrote to us and said, "In previous experiences I went
off to war with extra everything, and then some. This time however,
Uncle Sam sent me off with one pair of desert boots, two uniforms, and
body armor that didn't fit."

Cost-plus
and no-bid contracts are hopelessly undermining our efforts and costing
the taxpayers billions. They do not operate within a free-market system
and have no competition, but instead create a Stalinist system of
rewarding cronies. In a letter from Sgt. Jon Lacore talking about the
enormous amount of waste, he said, "I just can't believe that no one at
all is going to jail for this or even being fired or forced to resign."

In
my research, I was also shocked to discover the role of contractors in
the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. Its images are seared into the minds of
people throughout the world, yet few realize the role of CACI and its
interrogators. As our team dug deeper and deeper into the numerous
contracts, CACI and JP London kept appearing over and over. The Taguba
report, the Fay report, and the Human Rights Watch report "By The
Numbers" all made clear that CACI had played a significant role in the
torture. As Pratap Chatterjee, head of CorpWatch has stated, CACI was using "information technology contracts through
the department of Interior. So either somebody was in a big hurry or
they did this deliberately so nobody would ever be able to track this
... CACI does a lot of work directly with OSD, Office of the Secretary
of Defense."

And
even after the investigations, there were no consequences; in fact,
CACI continued to receive more and more contracts with no oversight.
Later, CACI and JP London were even hired to process cases of fraud and
incompetence by contractors! I kid you not -- CACI, a corporation that
had profited enormously from the war and whose CEO JP London personally
made $22,249,453 from his stock and salary in 2004 -- was being hired
to oversee other contractors! This is a madhouse run amuck. And we need
your help to fix this.

We
know corporations are designed to create significant returns for its
shareholders. Do we really believe they can and should be fighting for
hearts and minds? Do we really think that the corporations with their
legal commitment to profitability are to be given the responsibility
for some of our country's most critical decisions and actions? Do we
want corporations representing us in the battles for our country?

Robert Greenwald is the director/producer of "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on
Journalism," as well as many other films. He is a board member of the
Independent Media Institute, AlterNet's parent organization.

� 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.


posted on Apr 28, 2008 1:44 PM ()

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