Untwisting Reality

Business of War, Business of Corruption

• By Poetry X
• 26 March, 2014
• 14 Comments

People who support endless war must worry a lot about war spending.  Back in 2002 Stephen Friedman, a senior White House official, stated the Iraq war would cost only up to $200B. The Bush administration got furious for such statement alleging that estimate was extremely inflated and Friedman got fired. Now we can say the total amount spent in Iraq and Afghanistan accounts up to $6T. [Washington Post Mar 28-2013 ] It has been proven that up to $60B has been wasted on projects in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years due to fraud and a portion of that money was indirectly funding the Taliban. We must note that other studies came to the conclusion that the cost overruns actually totaled $295B in wasteful spending  [CostsOfWar.org].  Once it was announced the war in Iraq was over, after 4,000 US casualties, many would have expected that was the end of it but the Pentagon requested $3B for operations in Iraq. On top of that, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction revealed in January 2012 that over $2B in funds for Iraq had disappeared [RT News Feb 13-2012].

In 2011 congress finally eliminated the wasteful spending on GE F-136 jet extra engine.  Amazingly enough, congress took five years to take that necessary decision that saved $3B to the nation [Bloomberg.com Feb 16-2011]. However, that was just a minor win against wasteful spending. In 2012, the House of Representatives passed a $633B defense bill just for 2013. Rep. James McGovern complained the Pentagon does not want that much money [RT Jan 31-2015]. The Pentagon pointed out that the bill includes outdated weapons that compromise the military’s ability to fight. In fact, defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized the pressure to keep weapons that even have outlived their usefulness [Washington Times Dec 20-2012]. One case of what seems to be useless yet extremely way too expensive machinery is the F-22 Raptor jet that has costed the US nearly $80B. The cost per jet is $420M while ally nations pay  under $200M for an Eurofighter Typhoon, a more efficient and updated fighter jet [ABC News Jul 30-2012].

By now it is clear the invasion of Iraq allowed international oil companies to gain massive profits signing contracts  – that is the case of Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Weatherford International and Schlumberger to make tens of billions in profits under new oil deals [report]. One troublesome aspect of this wasteful “defense” spending is that there is no competition for those contracts. The companies which always get this massive income from the government are: Xe Services (formerly Blackwater and now Academy), Fluor, DynCorp, Supreme Foodservice. Halliburton is directly linked to former vice president Cheney. In addition, the Pentagon gave a contract for $375M to a Russian entity that was on the sanctions list for two years for selling weapons to countries that are considered rogue states [Democracy Now Sept 2nd 2011]. Not to mention some of the personnel of those companies once in while submit reimbursement claims for visits to strip clubs. In fact DynCorp for example was involved in a sex trade and slave trade scandal, but still kept receiving contracts. One prominent case of corruption was John Beliveau, a navy official convicted for accepting bribes to concede contracts to Glenn Defense Marine Asia. The “incentives” provided to Beliveau, and at leas to 5 other navy officials, included money, gifts and sex workers [Fox News Mar 19-2014].