Detroit Free Press
 

http://www.freep.com/cgi-bin/forms/printerfriendly.pl
24 May 2004

EMPTY RUNS: Truckers call trips in Iraq wasteful
   BY SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON -- A Halliburton Inc. subsidiary sent empty flatbed trucks crisscrossing Iraq more than 100 times this year, putting their drivers and military escorts at risk and handing taxpayers the bill with a little added profit.

The drivers were in peril of insurgent attack while taking empty rigs on the 300-mile resupply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad, said 12 current and former drivers for the company.

The subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), billed the government for hauling what the drivers derisively called "sailboat fuel."

KBR, the U.S. Army and the truckers gave different reasons for why empty trucks were driven through areas that the drivers nicknamed Rockville and Slaughterhouse for the danger they presented.

KBR described the practice of including empty trucks in convoys as normal, given the large number of trucks it has delivering goods throughout Iraq.

The Army's contract doesn't dictate how many trucks must be in a convoy or whether they must be full, said Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill.

"There was one time we ran 28 trucks; one trailer had one pallet, and the rest of them were empty," said David Wilson, who was the convoy commander on more than 100 runs.

Four other drivers who were with Wilson confirmed his account.

"It was supposed to be critical supplies that the troops had to have to operate," said Wilson, who has been fired by KBR. "It was one thing to risk your life to haul things the military needed. It's another to haul empty trailers."

KBR denied there was any problem with the truck runs. "It is difficult and dangerous work and requires a lot from our employees," said Cathy Gist, a KBR spokeswoman.

KBR truckers say they can earn about $80,000 a year, which is tax free if they remain in Iraq for a year.

Trucking experts estimate that each round trip costs taxpayers thousands of dollars.

The Free Press Washington Bureau interviewed 12 current or former KBR drivers. Seven asked to not be identified by name. Six of the truckers said they were fired by KBR for allegedly running Iraqi drivers off the road when they attempted to break into the convoy. The dismissed drivers disputed that accusation.

The 12 drivers, interviewed separately over the course of more than a month, told similar stories about their trips through hostile territory.

Contact SETH BORENSTEIN at sborenstein@krwashington.com.

Copyright İ 2004 Detroit Free Press
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Cape Cod Times
 

http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=16998

24 May 2004

Your bill for the war
   Sean Gonsalves

Amount you owe for the war in Iraq: $4,000. Make check payable to Uncle Sam's Iraq Quagmire Fund. If you dispute any portion of this bill call 1-800-IMPEACH-THIS.

According to Doug Henwood, author of "After the New Economy," $4,000 is the amount that each household will have to fork over in taxes to foot the Iraq occupation bill.

"I feel a little callous about talking about the economic impact of the war in Iraq, which seems like an afterthought next to the human toll. But at a time when civilian budgets are being cut at every level, when clinics are closing and professors at our public universities have to pay for their own photocopying because there's allegedly not enough money, it's amazing how much we're spending," Henwood says.

Henwood pegs the military costs in Iraq to date at about $143 billion, with the tab rising $4 billion to $5 billion a month.

Reconstruction has cost about $20 billion so far, with another $50 billion to $100 billion still needed, Henwood reports.

"If the occupation goes on for three years, which is what the military pundits say is likely, the total bill could come to $362 billion. Add to that an estimated 0.5 percent knocked off GDP growth because of high oil prices, and that's another $50 billion," he says.

Add it all up, and the bill comes to nearly $4,000 per household, not including interest. "I wonder how people would react if they got a bill from Washington for that amount," he said.

In other war economy news, Pratap Chatterjee, program director for CorpWatch, recently returned from his second investigative trip to Iraq. Chatterjee is the co-author of a new "alternative annual" report on Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer.

The report, titled "Houston, We Have a Problem," was released last week, the day before the Halliburton shareholder meeting.

"Our report describes Halliburton's estimated $9 billion in contracts and the various complaints and allegations of wrongdoing that have been lodged against the company," Chatterjee told the Institute for Public Accuracy last week.

You've probably heard about similar allegations with Halliburton over the past year or so, but Chatterjee is talking about new charges of fraud, waste, and corruption -- more than any other Iraq contractor.

The allegations range from overcharging $61 million for fuel and $24.7 million for meals, to kickbacks worth $6.3 million. Halliburton is also the only Iraq contractor currently under investigation by the Department of Justice.

"Cheney's income from being vice president is about the same as what he gets from Halliburton. Why is the vice president of the U.S. getting a paycheck from the company that has benefited more than any other to date from the invasion of Iraq, which he pushed?" Chatterjee wonders.

Cheney deferred his payment as CEO of Halliburton so he could lower his tax liability, while at the same time U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing Halliburton ventures. Halliburton paid only $15 million in taxes in 2002, according to Chatterjee, who is also the author of the forthcoming book "Iraq, Inc."

Did Chatterjee say U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing Halliburton?

Jim Vallette, research director for the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, points out: "There has been over $7 billion in taxpayer-financed institutional support for Halliburton's projects led by the World Bank Group and the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

"Halliburton's global expansion has been financed by the U.S. taxpayer. We recently completed a study ('The Energy Tug-of-War: Winners and Losers in World Bank Fossil Fuel Finance'), which found that Halliburton benefited more than any other company from the World Bank's fossil fuel financing." (Go to www.seen.org for the full report.)

And allow me just one observation on the conservative "enough already" reaction to the Iraqi abuse scandal. To argue that Iraqi prisoner abuse is not as bad as the beheading of Nick Berg should embarrass thinking adults. You don't do ethics by keeping a tit-for-tat body-count scorecard. And to say we are better than terrorists is a red herring.

It's like a murderer comparing himself to a serial killer. "Hey, I only killed one person but this guy is sick." You judge yourself by the highest standards; not the lowest. Whatever happened to the conservative disdain for arguments that smack of moral relativism?

(c) 2004, Cape Cod Times
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Business Week
 

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_22/b3885116.htm

31 May 2004

The Other U.S. Military
   The private contractor biz is hot, vast, and largely unregulated. Is it out of control?
       By Spencer E. Ante in New York, with Stan Crock in Washington

Almost since the first American tank rolled into Iraq last year, the role of private military contractors has been controversial. When Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. (HAC ), billed the government hundreds of millions of dollars to support the invasion, critics griped that it was receiving preferential treatment because of ties to the Bush Administration -- and was overcharging to boot. When the bodies of four security guards employed by Blackwater USA were mutilated in Fallujah in March while escorting food deliveries to U.S. troops, Marines laid siege to the city, igniting widespread violence. And when a classified U.S. military report came to light in late April alleging abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, private military contractors (PMCS) found themselves in the center of a firestorm.

The end of the Cold War and Pentagon efforts to increase efficiency, speed the delivery of services, and free troops for purely military missions have triggered a boom in the outsourcing of work to private contractors. Indeed, with the strength of America's armed forces down 29%, to 1.5 million, since 1991, contractors have become a permanent part of the military machine, doing everything from providing food services to guarding Iraq Administrator L. Paul Bremer.

Now, along with the heady growth, come mounting concerns that an industry dependent on taxpayer dollars has been spiraling out of control. That has Congress, the Defense Dept., and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq scrambling to draft regulations that make contractors -- both on the security and services/reconstruction side of the industry -- more accountable.

Like many businesses that have to staff up rapidly, some security contractors have cut corners in the rush to expand. On the ground in Iraq, contractors appear to have operated with little or no supervision. Mercenaries are not choirboys, but some outfits have signed up hired guns trained by repressive regimes. And revelations that civilians are performing sensitive tasks such as interrogation have jolted Congress and the public. "This outsourcing thing has gone crazy," says Gary D. Solis, a former Marine Corps judge advocate and now adjunct law professor at Georgetown University. "You have a lot of people with heavy weaponry answerable to no one."


TAKING A PLEDGE.

Contractor problems are not confined to the headline-making security and interrogation side of the business. The CPA's new inspector general, Stuart W. Bowen, is currently auditing five of the biggest contractors in Iraq -- Fluor (FLR ), Parsons, Washington Group International, Perini (PCR ), and KBR --to make sure they are following U.S. laws and codes of ethics, BusinessWeek has learned. "Our intent is to deter waste, fraud, and abuse and ensure compliance with federal law," Bowen said in a phone call from Baghdad.

There is no single industry association for contractors, but one group, International Peace Operations Assn. in Rosslyn, Va., is trying to bring some order to the security outfits. Members of the IPOA must pledge to follow a code of conduct and "strictly adhere to all relevant international laws and protocols on human rights." The IPOA currently has just nine members, including ArmorGroup International Inc., a British security firm with 900 employees in Iraq. But, says IPOA President Doug Brooks, "companies are starting to come together and realize the value of having an organization that sets standards."


BIG, BUT HOW BIG?

Although many PMCs agree that the industry would benefit from increased oversight, some say Uncle Sam's proposals may go too far. Blackwater USA, based in Moyock, N.C., which has been criticized for employing former Chilean commandos trained during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, takes issue with a Defense Dept. proposal to apply the Uniform Code of Military Justice to contractors. But, says Blackwater spokesman Chris Bertelli, "we have no problem with industry standards for hiring practices."

The exact size of the PMC business is difficult to determine because there is no central register of contracts, and the Defense Dept. sometimes has other agencies do its purchasing. For example, the contract with CACI International Inc. (CAI ) at Abu Ghraib prison was administered by the Interior Dept., according to The Washington Post. Still, P.W. Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, estimates it is a $100 billion industry with several hundred companies operating in more than 100 countries.

In a May 4 letter to the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that approximately 20,000 private security workers are employed in Iraq. That doesn't include the thousands of civilians reconstructing bridges, roads, and phone lines. In the Gulf War, the military outsourced only 1% of its work, primarily for airfield maintenance. Singer estimates that contractors are handling as much as 30% of the military's services -- including reconstruction -- in Iraq. "We have pushed outsourcing way beyond what anyone contemplated," he says.

Spying a growth business, some big defense contractors are scooping up PMCs, many of which -- especially in the security sector -- are small and privately held. Computer Sciences (CSC ) acquired DynCorp, Northrop Grumman (NOC ) bought Vinnell, and L-3 Communications nabbed Military Professional Resources Inc. "[Defense giants] have been buying up these companies like mad," says Deborah D. Avant, a professor at George Washington University who is writing a book about military contractors. "This is where they think the future is."

Yet in the wake of Abu Ghraib, critics, including current and former military officials, are starting to ask some hard questions: Has the military pushed outsourcing too far too fast? Where do you draw the line? And who's in charge? A June, 2003, report by the General Accounting Office concluded that there are no Defense Dept.-wide policies "on the use of contractors to support deployed forces," a situation that sows confusion.

Few analysts see a fundamental problem with contractors building base camps, serving food, and cleaning toilets -- the logistical side of making war. The growing concern is about using contractors to perform functions such as security and interrogation. A report by Major General Antonio M. Taguba concluded that two interrogators-for-hire, one from CACI and one from Titan Corp. (TTN ), in conjunction with military officers, "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib." Titan says the individual worked for a subcontractor.

"Why the hell were contractors there in the first place?" asks John D. Hutson, a former Rear Admiral and Navy judge advocate general who is now dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. "I have a problem with people carrying weapons in an offensive way. And I have a serious problem with people in sensitive positions, like interrogators."

Blindsided by the Abu Ghraib scandal and allegations that PMCs have hired questionable employees, Congress is putting the Pentagon on notice to get a grip on mercenaries and even more benign contractors. House and Senate bills would require Defense to provide Congress with a plan for collecting data on contractors and clarifying the responsibilities of commanders who manage them. This Wild West of a business is not going to go away, but it could get a lot tamer fast.

Copyright 2000-2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies
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News That Stays News - 129


 

from  Points for a Compass Rose


. . . Clement Attlee was the Prime Minister of England
who concurred with President Trumanıs decision
to annihilate Hiroshima. However, 16 years later
Attlee wrote:  We knew nothing whatever at the time
about the genetic effects of an atomic explosion
I knew nothing about fall-out and all the rest . . .
Yet H.J. Muller had won the Nobel prize in 1927
for investigating the genetic effects of radiation.
Are we not ruled by cliques of men as uninformed
as Palestinian shepherds?

. . . Look. There are now so many dead soldiers in Arlington
that a widow can no longer be buried beside her husband;
instead, his grave is deepened.

Look. The Pentagon is distributing armaments
under a program labeled ³Food For Peace.²

. . . Among the Vietnamese thereıs a noticeable up-trend
in stillbirth, birth deformities and a condition called
hydatiform mole, which is a tumor of the placental
cord during pregnancy resulting from the widespread
spraying of crops with a compound of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T,
the herbicidal defoliant ³Agent Orange.²

. . . Avicenna, Abu Ali ibn Sina, by the age of sixteen
had learned so much about medicine that eminent
practicing physicians appealed to him for advice.
His Canon  lists 760 drugs, including mandragora
and cannabis. He understood what we consider evident
at a time when nobody else imagined these things:
that phthisis is contagious, and soil and water
act as agents for the transmission of disease.
Studying physics, he predicated lightıs fixed velocity.
Mathematics, philosophy, music, transmutation, art
--everything everywhere stimulated his intelligence.
In brief, Abu Ali ibn Sina was an 11th century genius,
an undeniable testament to natural superiority.

. . . Look, Jefferson rode to his Inaugural on horseback
with a saddlebag full of fossils heıd collected,
having been invited to speak on antiquities
before the American Philosophical Society.
No doubt you could equate this man with Nixon
or Johnson, although I wouldnıt advise it.

 

                   --Evan S. Connell
                      Points for a Compass Rose