Iraq to Iran. disaster capitalism.
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The Iraq war is a perfect example of what Naomi Klein called 'DISASTER CAPITALISM' ! Expect more of the same . In Libya, Syria, Africa and , hopefully not, Iran.
Who really won the Iraq war? Oil barons, big business and mercenaries
10 years after the fall of Saddam, we examine who were the winners and losers of the conflict
Getty
There has been no shortage of Western leaders and military chiefs willing to declare victory in the Iraq War.
Six weeks after the US-led invasion rolled into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, George W Bush addressed the world in front of a banner that boasted: Mission accomplished.
Shortly afterwards, Tony Blair told British troops: “The way you won the war was extraordinary.”
And in 2009 when the 20th Armoured Brigade lowered its flag over the garrison in Basra to finally mark the end of British combat operations in Iraq, then-PM Gordon Brown hailed the conflict a success.
But now – a decade after the war began on March 20, 2003 – one group can toast victory most of all.
They are the oil bosses, mercenaries and tycoons who cashed in when the war’s aftermath turned into a multi-billion-pound goldrush.
This gravy train has paid out as more than 100,000 people have been killed in Iraq’s decade of turmoil.
Just 18 months after the invasion, commercial airliners packed with security personnel and business investors were flying daily into the capital Baghdad.
Private security contractors from the UK, European, South African and US special forces were lured by the offer of £1,000 a day to guard dignitaries and prime terror targets.
Tycoons had their eyes on the big prize – a slice of the first £6.6billion in reconstruction money being flown into the city on US military aircraft.
This cash belonged to Iraq. It was the proceeds from the sale of
oil that funded the UN’s Oil For Food Programme and was intended to be used to rebuild the ravaged country.
Disgracefully, much of the money ended up in the pockets of crooks or corrupt officials.
In one case, American Robert Stein, the Coalition Provisional Authority’s controller in the central Iraq city of Hilla, was jailed in 2007 for nine years after admitting his role in a multi-million-pound corruption scandal.
Between 2003 and 2004, when he was in charge of distributing reconstruction money, Stein used a rigged bidding process to hand contracts worth £5.7million to his co-conspirator – construction contractor Philip Bloom – who was also jailed.
That is just one example. In 2004, the Americans began to build a sewer and water system in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Originally planned to cost £23million and take 18 months to complete, the project has already cost £129million and is still unfinished.
Iraq has been a test bed for the privatisation of war and apart from making lots of businessmen rich, it is not a model for reconstructing a country. The US government, eager to reduce casualties and convinced that private firms could do the job more efficiently, awarded huge contracts, mostly to US firms.
It was the birth of the truly privatised modern war. In the Second World War, there was one contractor deployed for every seven soldiers. During the 2003 invasion, that number had increased to two in five. By 2006, contractors in Iraq were outnumbering the soldiers.
Opponents of the war have claimed the real reason for the invasion was for the West to get its hands on Iraq’s massive oil reserves.
Suspicions were heightened when oilfield specialists Halliburton, which used to be run by ex-US Vice President Dick Cheney, profited from the war he helped to launch.
AP/MEET THE PRESS
Between 2003 and 2010, Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR earned £20billion in US Government contracts in Iraq. KBR was accused of overcharging and investigators found that £365million in payments should be held back.
British firm Amec won a joint £600million contract to rebuild Iraq’s water supply, while a group of companies led by BP is set to earn £1.3billion per year to develop Iraq’s Rumaila oil field.
Iraq’s oil wealth has the potential to transform the country but it still has regular power cuts and many of its people rely on untreated water.
Tony Blair, who has urged British firms to invest in Iraq, is thought to earn £20million a year, including £2.5million from his role as an adviser to US investment bank JPMorgan.
The tycoons who made fortunes from Mr Blair’s decision to wage war probably would not begrudge him a penny.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/iraq-war-winners-were-oil-1779740
posted by Satish Sharma at
18:12
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