[NYTr] OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL: Investors profit from Iraq war

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Gerry Welch Nov 6, 2007

Ball State Daily News Forum - Nov 4, 2007
http://media.www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/news/2007/11/05/Forum/Objectionable.Material.Investors.Profit.From.Iraq.War-3077214.shtml

Investors profit from Iraq war

by Alaric DeArment


An Oct. 30 McClatchy Newspapers article about the Iraqi government's
plan to strip foreign contractors of immunity following the recent
shooting incident involving Blackwater USA mercenaries mentioned
something called Order 17.

Order 17, which gives contractors said immunity, is one of 100 orders
Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority
issued shortly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government.
Those orders and several events that have transpired since the invasion
reveal the real reasons why we invaded Iraq in 2003.

Order 39 provided for privatization and complete foreign ownership of
Iraqi state-owned companies and tax-free remittances of profits to
owners' home countries, thereby allowing investors to take money out of
Iraq without reinvesting it. Order 49 reduced personal and corporate
taxes to 15 percent. Order 54 removed import and export duties, except
for the five percent "reconstruction levy" imposed on many imports.
Order 81 banned farmers from re-using their seeds if
agribusiness-patented seeds somehow mixed with theirs and contaminated
their crops; it also prohibited them from reusing seeds of plants with
similar characteristics to those of hybrids patented by agribusiness
companies, according to The Ecologist magazine. Order 100 rescinded
many of the orders, but transferred the remaining ones to the
"independent" Iraqi government, meaning those listed here remain in
effect.

In a 2004 Harper's Magazine article, Naomi Klein wrote about a
24-year-old who had applied for a White House job and ended up getting
the task of setting up Baghdad's stock exchange. A 21-year-old college
senior and former ice-cream truck driver got to help the Iraqis manage
their finances and set up domestic security forces. The article quoted
an investor gushing about the possibility of a 7-Eleven store driving
30 Iraqi stores out of business.

To put it simply, we invaded a sovereign nation, overthrew its
internationally recognized government and imposed 100 decrees that
allowed foreign companies quickly move in and plunder it, while letting
inexperienced people who didn't make it back home run things. President
Bush called this freedom, but it looks like a textbook example of
colonialism.

Nonetheless, investors had every reason to gush. Just take a look at
how much companies contracting with the Department of Defense and USAID
have made, according to the Center for Public Integrity: Bechtel Group
Inc., $2.83 billion; CH2M Hill, $1.53 billion; Environmental Chemical
Corporation, $1.475 billion; Halliburton subsidiary KBR, $10.83
billion. Those are only some members of the billion-dollar club of
contractors in Iraq.

Other aspects of the war appear less profitable.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis are
dead. Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag estimated the
war could cost $2.4 trillion by 2017. We've had scandals such as Abu
Ghraib and the Blackwater USA shootings. On top of that, Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction. A 2005 Senate report revealed Saddam
Hussein had no formal links to al-Qaeda before the invasion, but Iraq
has become an incubator and rallying cry for terrorists since the
invasion.

The most logical conclusion is we invaded Iraq to remake it as a
free-market client state. It's not the first time we've overthrown or
covertly undermined a foreign government for the sake of economic
hegemony - Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973 are examples, among others.

It's simplistic to say the war is solely for oil and ignorant to say it
had anything to do with ending terrorism, eliminating weapons of mass
destruction or democratization. Politicians and pundits who complain
that we have failed in Iraq or that progress has been too slow are
wrong.

The Iraq war has been a smashing success for many American people, even
if only for those legally recognized people with the last name
"Corporation."

[Write to Alaric at ajdearment at bsu.edu ]