cost of doing business in iraq; or, coals to newcastle

lots of intriguing information regarding KBR fuel convoys:

• A Halliburton subsidiary charged the Iraqi government as much as $25,000 per month for each of as many as 1,800 fuel trucks that were to deliver gasoline to Iraq after the 2003 invasion, but the trucks often spent days or weeks sitting idle on the border, says a report released yesterday by an auditing agency sponsored by the United Nations. (Cost of Taking Fuel to Iraq Is Questioned in New Audit, by James Glanz, November 7, 2006)
• A federal judge in Texas yesterday threw out a lawsuit against Halliburton Co. that had been brought by survivors and the families of those killed when a fuel convoy was assaulted by insurgents outside Baghdad in April 2004. The suit had claimed Halliburton bore responsibility because the company knew the proposed route was the scene of a pitched battle but decided to send the drivers anyway. U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller ruled that the Army had played a key role in sending the convoy and that it was not his place to second-guess that decision. "The contracts show that the Army, not the defendants, was responsible for the security of the convoys," he wrote. (Judge Dismisses Halliburton Suit, by Griff Witte, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, September 23, 2006; Page D01)
  

what seems intriguing?: (1) we ship fuel from kuwait to iraq; (2) we pay kbr (nee Halliburton), which has a host of security contractors/mercenaries, and then they note that their security (read profit) is up to the us army, which, of course, has its own security concerns. good times, indeed.

and you might wonder what caci stands for...

California Analysis Center, Incorporated, actually [#921 in the 2006 Fortune 1000 list of the largest companies in America. CACI also ranked 8th among the top 10 information technology providers on the 2006 Fortune 500 list (from Wikipedia); its symbol: "Ever Vigilant"], although, to be near the trough, they are actually situated in arlington, va. you might remember them from the news a couple years back. well here they are again:

• The story they [caci] don't want told is of a federal contractor that, according to the Washington Post, gets 92 percent of its revenues in the "defense" sector. The Washington Business Journal reported that CACI's defense contracts almost doubled in the year after the occupation of Iraq began, and profits shot up 52 percent.

• Yet CACI insists it isn't a war profiteer (a subjective term anyway), but was just answering an urgent call in Iraq. In a letter to Greenwald, Koegel wrote: "the army needed ... civilian contractors to work as interrogators" because the military didn't have the personnel, and CACI responded to the "urgent war-time circumstances" and "has no apologies."

• But while the firm had experience in electronic surveillance and other intelligence functions, it, too, didn't have the interrogators. Barry Lando reported finding an ad on CACI's website for interrogators to send to Iraq, and noted that "experience in conducting tactical and strategic interrogations" was desired, but not necessary. According to a report by the Army inspector general, 11 of the 31 CACI interrogators in Iraq had no training in what most experts agree is one of the most sensitive areas of intelligence gathering. The 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib when the abuses took place, didn't have a single trained interrogator.

• "It's insanity," former CIA agent Robert Baer told The Guardian. "These are rank amateurs, and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?"("CACI: Torture in Iraq, Intimidation at Home," By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted November 21, 2006)

it should be noted that caci maintains a "truth will out" page noting that

• No CACI employee or former employee has ever been indicted for any misconduct in connection with CACI's work in Iraq. While three former employees have been cited in various reports in connection with disputed incidents in Iraq, no CACI employee took part or appears in any of the horrific photos released from Abu Ghraib.

indeed, in 2004, the caci's own legal team made the following points about the privatizing of military intelligence which has been the one-note samba of balkanization and this blog for some time:

• We believe the following information adds perspective to CACI's work in Iraq.
• The military did not have available interrogators needed to gather and analyze field source intelligence data and information in Iraq. CACI provides IT solutions and technology services to the U.S. Intelligence community. CACI interrogation services business is an extension of CACI's tactical intelligence and field services line of business for information collection, data analysis and decision support. CACI performs these contract services because of its commitment to its U.S. Army clients at war in the mid-East.
• These private sector positions exist because the military downsized as part of a cutback plan in the early 1990's aimed at reducing Pentagon personnel while expanding technology and weapons. ("CACI's Letter to The Signal," Letter to the Editor, Dated Friday, June 11, 2004, Jody Brown, Senior Vice President, Public Relations, CACI International Inc., Arlington, VA)

privatize interrgators, the argument appears to be, so that you can have them on the cheap, experience not necessary, and then, when the war is over (when will the war on "terror" ever be over?) you can downsize quickly. not only does that mean weaker intelligence gathered, the potential for abuse done in the name of the citizens of the usa, and little or no oversight, it clearly is saving the usa taxpayer no money as this group has not been downsized in the least (see caci profits above).

before we leave....

might we have a bit of oversight, a review, an inquiry even, into the role of private companies on the public spiggot?

• As Bechtel Corp. exits Iraq, we still know little about the quality of the company's work there.
  Government reports on Bechtel's Iraq projects often discuss ballooning costs and blown schedules, blaming the costs and delays on security problems. For the most part, you won't see how well the San Francisco engineering company repaired the power and sewage plants under its care or how wisely it spent the $2.3 billion in its contracts.

• The same holds true for many of the other engineering and construction companies that have spent the past three years rebuilding Iraq. Some, including Halliburton and Parsons Corp., have seen their projects scrutinized in depth. Others haven't. (Little scrutiny for firms in Iraq, S.F.'s Bechtel among most prominent ones, David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 14, 2006)

i guess one does not need to worry about the privatization of this war

the war is grim (and not a money-maker, unless the u.s. government agrees to keep funding these private security firms--hey, where are their security forces?; do they venture outside the green zone?):

• Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the military assault to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

and what all this carnage buys us is just a little, a very little, time:

• Despite the mounting cost in U.S. wounded and dead -- including 13 American soldiers killed in combat in Baghdad in three days last week -- Pentagon officials say aggressive military operations in the Iraqi capital are at best a short-term and partial solution, buying time for political compromise, which they call the only way to arrest Iraq's disintegration. ("U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply," By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page A01)
  

holding out for a hero

we'll save the middle east by saving iraq. we'll save iraq by saving baghdad. anyone for holding on to the green zone?

• General John Abizaid, the head of US Central Command, became the first top official to openly use the "CW" words last month when he told the Senate: "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."...
• The death toll makes it harder and harder for Bush to ask: do you really think Iraq would have been better off under Saddam Hussein? But as the body count climbs with every month, the question loses its power. If things really fall apart and the Baghdad government cannot hold, the only honest answer will be: yes, Iraqis would have been better off left alone. (Tiptoeing round Iraq's verbal minefield / Washington diary / Julian Borger, Guardian Weekly, 10 Sept. 2006)
  

pop quiz

the president of the u.s.a. recently made the following speech:

• "If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable, and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies -- Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al-Qaida terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban."

who are the allies of u.s.a. in iraq? is it: (a) Saddam's former henchmen, (b) armed groups with ties to Iran, or (c) al-Qaida terrorists from all over the world?

answer: (b) those are important to shore up support for prime minister mr. al-maliki, and a bit of (a). indeed, it is not a bad idea to have some connections with and even alliance with these two groups. they represent a good chunk of the iraqi people (not the kurds, of course, but then we have pretty much forgotten them). but here is the rub: if our government doesn't begin to separate out al-qaida leaders from al-qaida sympathizers (a sizable group), and al-qaida from home-grown leaders (try politicians not henchmen), we will never be any closer to "handing over" anything to anybody.

"If America were to pull out...the consequences would be...absolutely disastrous"

the header is from president george bush in an article that focuses on a series of bombings and other killings in baghdad (last gasp of terrorists of course) and the rest of iraq.

• The bloodshed was part of a violent week that has left hundreds of Iraqis dead. (Barrage of attacks kill 47 in Baghdad, by Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer, 31 Aug. 2006)
  

i suppose it is too small a point to point out that the consequences of staying in are absolutely disastrous now?

"prepare to take back"!?; "prepare to take"!?: who the hell writes this stuff?

i should be writing about custer battles and roy trumble, but it is too difficult to figure out who is sleasiest, so i will just attack our journalists instead.

• Bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people in Iraq on Tuesday in a surge of bloodshed as U.S. forces prepare to take back Baghdad's streets from gunmen. The dead included 20 Iraqi troops, a U.S. soldier and a British soldier. (Attacks across Iraq kill more than 70, By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer, 1 Aug. 2006, BAGHDAD, Iraq)

how long have usa troops been in iraq? they are just now preparing to take back baghdad's streets? give me a break. why not let rumsfeld just write the ap articles?

victory over drug lords still in distant future

• NATO will embark on the biggest mission in its history on Monday when it takes over security from the U.S.-led coalition in six southern provinces [of southern afghanistan], extending its authority to almost all of the country.
• British Lieutenant-General David Richards said he hoped to see improvements in the south within three to six months, which would allow the 26-nation alliance to proceed with the final phase of its deployment into the east by the end of the year.
• Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest phase of violence since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, with most attacks occurring in the south.
• Richards told a news conference in Kabul that the violence was inextricably linked to drugs.
• "Essentially for the last four years some very brutal people have been developing their little fiefdoms down there and exporting a lot of opium to the rest of the world," he said.
• "That very evil trade is being threatened by the NATO expansion in the south. This is a very noble cause we're engaged in and we have to liberate the people from that scourge of those warlords." (NATO sets sights on Afghan drug barons, By Jeremy Laurence, July 29, 2006, KABUL, Reuters)

good news, indeed, but has anyone doubted the link between taliban in southern afghanistan (or hezbollah and bakaa valley) and drug trafficking? is there any reason we are only now turning to this issue? or that it is not the usa, nor "coalition" troops, but nato that is taking on this issue? couldn't be that we wasted time, money, good will, and troop and civilian casualties in iraq could it? but smuggling, of any sort, works best when it works with the existing government (helps eliminate your competitors, and, without high duties or barriers to trade, the smuggler wouldn't have a profit motive). look to see this latest nato-led move corrupted in, well, 3-to-6 months. there is too much money to be made in an area with too little money.

never, ever again do i want to hear about the inefficiency of the united nations or public, government projects: private business can't get it up

• The United States is dropping Bechtel, the American construction giant, from a project to build a high-tech children’s hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Basra after the project fell nearly a year behind schedule and exceeded its expected cost by as much as 150 percent.
• Called the Basra Children’s Hospital, the project has been consistently championed by the first lady, Laura Bush, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and was designed to house sophisticated equipment for treating childhood cancer.
• Now it becomes the latest in a series of American taxpayer-financed health projects in Iraq to face overruns, delays and cancellations. Earlier this year, the Army Corps of Engineers canceled more than $300 million in contracts held by Parsons, another American contractor, to build and refurbish hospitals and clinics across Iraq.
• American and Iraqi government officials described the move to drop Bechtel in interviews on Thursday, and Ammar al-Saffar, a deputy health minister in Baghdad, allowed a reporter to take notes on briefing papers on the subject he said he had recently been given by the State Department.
• The United States will “disengage Bechtel and transfer program and project management” to the Army Corps of Engineers, the papers say. Bechtel, the State Department agency in charge of the work and the Health Department in Basra all confirmed that the company would be leaving the project, but the reasons are a matter of deep disagreement.
• The Iraqis assert that management blunders by the company have caused the project to teeter on the verge of collapse; the American government says Bechtel did the best it could as it faced everything from worsening security to difficult soil conditions.
• A senior company official said Thursday that for its part Bechtel recommended that the work be mothballed and in essence volunteered to leave the project because the security problems had become intolerable. He also disputed the American government’s calculation of cost overruns, saying that accounting rules had recently been changed in a way that inflated the figures.
• The official, Cliff Mumm, who is president of the Bechtel infrastructure division, predicted that the project would fail if the government pressed ahead, as the briefing papers indicate that it would. Because of the rise of sectarian militias in southern Iraq, Mr. Mumm said, “it is not a good use of the government’s money” to try to finish the project.
• “And we do not think it can be finished,” he said. (Series of Woes Mar Iraq Project Hailed as Model, By JAMES GLANZ, Published: July 28, 2006, BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 2)

i take that back: it was my tax dollars and yours that funded this disaster; i guess we cannot blame private corporations--they just took the profits and ran.

controlling iraq is the key to controlling the middle east; controlling baghdad is the key to controlling iraq; controlling the green zone is the key to controlling the red zone: is this the direction the neo-cons suggested we would be moving?

time for some optimism from operation iraqi freedom, the official website of multinational force--iraq:

• This is a decisive period in the country, Army Gen. John Abizaid told National Public Radio in a recent interview. "First and foremost we have to stabilize the situation in Baghdad before we need to get overly focused on leaving," Abizaid said. (Controlling security in Baghdad key to security throughout Iraq, Thursday, 27 July 2006)

whoo-hooh! woo-hah! how many more decisive periods can iraq take? how many more shifts in policy can we take? fallujah was to control sunni; baghdad is to control shi'ite; and kurds aren't really playing ball with either.

but never mind me; how do american troops feel about being part of a "decisive period" in this area of emergent business services?

• Army Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos considered the simple question about morale for more than an hour....
• "Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat," he said. "Then ask how morale is."
• Frustrated? "You have no idea," he said....
• "It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we're driving around waiting to get blown up. That's the most honest answer I could give you," said Spec. Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup fullback for Baylor University. "You lose a couple friends and it gets hard."
• "No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what we do," said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader. ('Waiting to Get Blown Up', Some Troops in Baghdad Express Frustration With the War and Their Mission, By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, July 27, 2006)
  

but at least the folks that sent them over there, those that see the big picture, are still optimistic, yes?

• Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution.
• Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.) is using his House Government Reform subcommittee on national security to vent criticism of the White House's war strategy and new estimates of the monetary cost of the war. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse "than we'd been led to believe" and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately. (GOP Lawmakers Edge Away From Optimism on Iraq By Jonathan Weisman and Anushka Asthana Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 20, 2006)

perhaps we ought to begin considering what iraqis think and think of some new options.

and the privatization answer to this balkanization in iraq is...?

i don't think we can do much more than note the reporting at this point.

• Iraqi leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and, just two months after forming a national unity government, talk in private of "black days" of civil war ahead.
• Signalling a dramatic abandonment of the U.S.-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of pre-empting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters.
• Tens of thousands have already fled homes on either side.
• "Iraq as a political project is finished," one senior government official said -- anonymously because the coalition under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to the U.S.-sponsored constitution that preserves Iraq's unity....
• "The parties have moved to Plan B," the senior official said, saying Sunni, ethnic Kurdish and majority Shi'ite blocs were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad's mixed population of seven million.
• "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west," he said. "We are extremely worried."
• On the eve of the first meeting of a National Reconciliation Commission and before Maliki meets President George W. Bush in Washington next week, other senior politicians also said they were close to giving up on hopes of preserving the 80-year-old, multi-ethnic, religiously mixed state in its present form.
• "The situation is terrifying and black," said Rida Jawad al -Takki, a senior member of parliament from Maliki's dominant Shi'ite Alliance bloc, and one of the few officials from all the main factions willing to speak publicly on the issue.
• "We have received information of a plan to divide Baghdad. The government is incapable of solving the situation," he said. (By Mariam Karouny, BAGHDAD, July 21, Reuters)
  

pmcs will save the world (not)

i'd like to know more about which pmcs the general had in mind, but, folks, we have a problem here:

• The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan yesterday described the situation in the country as "close to anarchy" with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption.
• The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato's international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were "running out of time" if they were going to meet the expectations of the Afghan people....
• He described "poorly regulated private security companies" as unethical and "all too ready to discharge firearms"....
• Afghanistan is now one of the poorest countries with an economy and infrastructure in ruins. (Richard Norton-Taylor, Saturday July 22, 2006, The Guardian)

of course, it has long been known that karzai holds sway over just a small area around kabul and the warlords and their armies hold the rest:

• In the absence of effective security forces of the central government, private armies and militias continue to hold sway over most of the countryside (Chairmen’s Report of an Independent Task Force Cosponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society, June 2003)

but the general's wording suggests that it is not warlord militias but private sector, western-style, pmcs that are proving to be a greater and greater impediment to peace and reconstruction. let's see: we didn't do afghanistan right so we decided to go fix iraq; that policy is now in tatters (time for the pmcs!), so it looks like it is on to iran; but wait, maybe we'll fix lebanon first....

bomb 'em all: and other points made by very small minds

two small quotes that indicate, for all the tentativeness of the leadership of the democratic party of the usa, it is light years ahead of republican thinking on world affairs. The first is from newt gingrich, who, besides giving my name a bad name, is a former everything.

• Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so....
• He lists wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, this week's bomb attacks in India, North Korean nuclear threats, terrorist arrests and investigations in Florida, Canada and Britain, and violence in Israel and Lebanon as evidence of World War III. He said Bush needs to deliver a speech to Congress and "connect all the dots" for Americans....
• "This is World War III," Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away. (Seattle Times, July 15, 2006, Posted by David Postman)

uhhh..., ok. so it turns out he is right and there are enemies in florida, canada, britain, india, etc. we bomb them? we go out on scrap drives so we can build ships to go, uhhh....where? it turns out we are not at war with another country (though israel appears to be veering closer to that); we cannot just bomb them. terrorist groups exist. but they don't hold territory, etc. if they do, they soon cease to be terrorists. that was/is the problem of hezbollah's leadership: they were settling down to rule southern lebanon, and then hamas stole their thunder, and, most probably, the young turks (small joke there) among hezbollah got bolshie.

but we can't attack sovereign nations just because they have criminals amongst them. and we can't keep operating as if it is a manichean world with no grey area. and we have to stop operating as if all terrorists are connected to some bond-like s.p.e.c.t.r.e. which was my other quote.

• Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.

i doubt that syria controls hezbollah at this point. i doubt that hezbollah (old leaders) controls hezbollah (young turks) at this point. syria needs to be involved (wouldn't the usa rather have syria than a fundamentalist islamic state there?); iran needs to be involved. but to ignore that there is no united "arc of evil" is to be self-deceived. and, given the reports from iraq and afghanistan these days, is whistling past the graveyard.

whoops: pmcs seeking a bottom line better start diversifying

what is it like in iraq? according to Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the U.S. Army chief of staff:

• "I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing....
• "The challenge … is becoming more complex, and it's going to continue to be.... That's why I'll tell you I think we're closer to the beginning than we are to the end of all this." (Is U.S. Winning? Army Chief Is at a Loss, By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer, July 15, 2006)

not to put too fine a point on it: "Violence in Iraq spinning out of control" (By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer, July 18, 2006)

so it is not too surprising to see those private military contractors (mercenaries) who work so hard to defend our freedoms running for cover:

• Specialist security company ArmorGroup has seen particularly strong growth from its activities in Afghanistan and the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, which is good news for those hoping it would diversify away from reliance on Iraq....
• ArmorGroup provides protective security services such as guarding embassies and oil rigs and training police and security personnel. Naturally its services have been much in demand in Iraq, which led the percentage of business from the region last year to rise as high as 60% of turnover. This also led ArmorGroup to issue a profits warning a year ago when increased insurgent activity in Iraq meant delays to new contracts being signed and also led to increased costs for ArmorGroup. (ArmorGroup firm as Afghanistan helps decrease dependence on Iraq, July 13, 2006)

indeed, fewer of the footsoldiers of the pmcs supposedly fulfilling usa policy are actually usa citizens, as two recent articles on outsourcing by filipinos in iraq make clear:

• July 18, 2006, US outsources war to Filipinos, By Cher S Jimenez
• July 3, 2006, Life in a private army in Iraq, Posted in Malaya, By Ellen Tordesillas

bottom line: it appears that pan-muslim terrorists are not succeeding in iraq. but they have been replaced by shia, sunni, and kurd nationalists and violence is increasing not decreasing there. what is definitely not succeeding is usa policy and the billions thrown at pmcs.

good news (if you have stock in halliburton)

small ax entered good news about halliburton having to re-bid a little too quickly. as one blogger has pointed out, halliburton has all the infrastructure in place; it is unlikely that another company will be able to underbid them, even if they wanted to enter into the war zone which is iraq in the red zone (there are, of course, various websites devoted to investigating halliburton, such as halliburtonwatch).

i have a little trouble understanding amounts over a million dollars (not that i understand a million dollars), but, in any case, can someone tell me how the u.s. taxpayers can afford the iraqi war now or in the future?

• The Iraq war could cost U.S. taxpayers between $202 billion and $406 billion more over the next 10 years, depending on how quickly U.S. force levels can be reduced, congressional budget experts said on Thursday.
• The Congressional Budget Office offered two cost scenarios for the war, which it said so far has cost almost $300 billion. (US Iraq war costs may rise by $406 billion by 2016, Thu Jul 13, 7:59 PM ET, WASHINGTON, Reuters)
  

it is not all bad news

greetings. small ax is back after a two-month-long break. this blog began as an attempt to make sense of:

1. the case for the balkanization of iraq. british and usa policy towards the area for 3 years has cost billions of pounds, dollars, and dinars, and expended or damaged tens of thousands of lives in part on the untenable attempt to keep shias, sunnis, and kurds in a country which, as works like Christopher Catherwood, Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq (2004) suggest, was a rather mistaken 20th-century european creation. the policy was a mistake, it appears to be changing, but it is worth considering why policy makers didn't see this problem at the outset, and what might happen now.
2. the dangers of outsourcing military and military intelligence. this is directly related to iraq and afghanistan as that is where the bulk of the outsourcing in the us government now occurs. is it always bad to outsource what the government should be controlling? is there a way to make outsourcing of state-power a good thing? how?
3. the fallacy of thinking the world outside the government--the world of business--is the free market. the military-industrial complex noted by eisenhower continues and thrives. the no-bid contracts threaten to dwarf both the free-market economy (if such a thing exists outside mom-and-pop stores) and "big" government. is there a way for such a thing to be good? what exactly is bad about it.

so, small ax continues in part as a way for its author to make sense of the world. it is less concerned to promote a conspiracy-theory-driven view of the world (though i am sure conspiracies abound; they just rarely work), than to understand what, in a clearly imperfect world, might be a "good" policy.

the following appears to be a "good thing":

• The Army will rebid the multibillion-dollar contract under which a Halliburton Co. subsidiary has been providing services to troops around the world after years of complaints over how the deal has worked in Iraq.
• Critics of the contract said the move was overdue and that hundreds of millions of dollars had probably been wasted. (Army won't extend Halliburton contract, by Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 13, 7:56 AM ET, WASHINGTON)

day late and a dollar short (well make that 2.5 years and several billion), but is there any other good news coming out of mesopotamia?

good news, bad news

good news from The Guardian Weekly, 12-18 May 2006, p. 1 (no apologies for the hard copy reference): lieut.-gen. peter chiarelli, commander of day-to-day operations in iraq has issued orders to u.s. military to jettison the heavy-handed approach which simply, to quote his words, "risk the chance of creating an insurgent, of creating somebody who gets so disgusted with the , quote unquote, occupiers that they get off on the wrong side." this is the british rules of engagement and, a little late, make a lot of sense.

bad news from The Guardian Weekly, 12-18 May 2006, p. 1: british were rethinking their tactics when insurgents shot down a helicopter and gunfire broke out when central basra populace celebrated the downed chopper with jubilant riots. according to one basra resident, the dire situation in basra [basra!?; that used to be the one safe place outside the lands of kurds] made another confrontation likely:

• Electricity is absent for most of the day and gasoline is every expensive. Ordinary people can never get a job at the state security forces becauase it is entirely controlled by the militias. People think those who used to live abroad came and controlled everything while the common citizens still cannot get basic life needs.

so softly-softly might be a little too late. there was no rebuilding of iraq and, obviously, there is little security. looks like billions spent in no-bid contracts did a heck of a job.

what do we have against the common insurgency?

an old mad magazine back page fold-in advertisement mocked the old cold medicine, contact, stating "what do we have against the common cold?"; folding it in the answer was "nothing. actually we quite like them; they give us all our business."

a quick check of halliburton jobs around the world, for the week of 13 May 2006, turns up:

• Afghanistan (155)
• Australia (41)
• Canada (2)
• Djibouti (23)
• Dubai (5)
• Iraq (413)
• Jordan (1)
• Korea (1)
• Kuwait (35)
• Macedonia (1)
• United Kingdom (19)
• United States (246)

in other words, the wars in afghanistan and iraq are big business for our quasi-private companies that feed off the no-bid contracts and outsourcing of security and intelligence. now many of these jobs are not security jobs (for some reason it is hard to get a crane operator to go to iraq these days), but many are. according to a 2004 report,

• In Iraq, private military contractors supply more trainers and security forces than all remaining members of the “coalition of the willing” except the US. According to the April 10, 2004 Economist, approximately 15,000 civilian security guards are currently stationed there, at least 6000 of them armed....
• More than $20 billion — a third of the Army’s budget for Iraq and Afghanistan – currently goes to contractors...
• “The global trade in hired military services is booming, and we’re only just now catching up,” notes Peter Singer, who works with the Brookings Institution. “It runs the gamut from cooks whose services have been privatized through to the maintenance people on fighter jets, to communications technicians, to trainers and recruiters, to generals providing strategic expertise, to fighter pilots and commandos. The entire spectrum of military services has been privatized in some way or another.”....
• Meanwhile, the new Bush administration pushed the privatization of more IT functions.
• According to an August 1, 2001 Washington Post report, such moves represented “a clear acknowledgement by NSA officials that the agency has fallen behind the technological curve.”... A month before 9/11, NSA director Michael Hayden tried to put a positive spin on the situation. Turning over IT systems to a private company would allow the NSA “to refocus assets on the agency’s core mission of providing foreign signals intelligence and protecting US national security-related information systems,” he said.
• But that rationale doesn’t fully explain...the decision to “refocus assets” address the long-term impact of this wholesale outsourcing – the export of skilled jobs. After eliminating 4000 US “consulting” positions in 2001, then scoring a record $16.8 billion in contracts by March 2004, CSC [csc owned dyncorp for a while, so unsure to whom this applies] announced that it plans to triple its staff in India to 5000 within two years, turning CSC India Pvt. Ltd. into a “strategic hub.” Not coincidentally, the Indian operation was launched in 2001, precisely to tap that country’s pool of low-cost engineering and IT talent. (Outsourcing Defense 6/04, Written by Greg Guma, The Quiet Rise of National Security, Inc.)

any problems with hayden's gut belief in the beauty of outsourcing intelligence besides the fact that the no-bid quasi-private companies closely linked with the administration make out like bandits from your tax dollars? well let's go to the message boards and see who is hoping to be our buddies in military intelligence (not to mention working with shia militias and somali warlords in our admin's belief that the real enemy is a mythic, unified spectre-like terror group):

• I'm a 28 former romanian millitary intelligence officer. Does anybody can tell me if and how i can get a job with dyn corp (in iraq, afghanistan, africa)...
• Hi..., send me an address email and your resume, I shall send you the phone number (us/uk) of the international dyncorp recruiter. (PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2006)

does anyone recall the romanian revolution? is this who we want on our side?

hayden's love of the private: part deux

in february 2004 a published interview with lieutenant general michael v. hayden, then director, national security agency (Military Information Technology Online Archives, Feb 09, vol. 8, no. 1) quickly drilled down to hayden's true loves (and, it appears, the reason the present administration refuse to jettison him, no matter how many of "hayden's heroes" run afoul or amok): "our larger strategy to partner with industry to provide solutions." this interest in partnering with industry means, of course, an interest in outsourcing military intelligence--thus TRAILBLAZER, thus NSA Domestic Technology Transfer Program, thus CIFA. all of which is fine, in itself: why not save a penny by an off-the-shelf software solution, rather than paying the CIA to develop it afresh? but, when you add that this counter intelligence field activity is largely focused on private companies that purchase former "assets" (to use the spook term), since they have the requisite clearances, and that most of these private companies are in no-bid contracts (can't very well advertise to the world what we are looking for in terms of hardware, software, and peopleware, can we?), and that these private companies are busy lobbying pentagon, white house, and capitol hill to make sure they get a portion of these (a large portion) monies, then, yes, we have a problem. and, when you add that much of this intel. and activity is suspiciously off-the-radar in terms of public oversight, then, yes, we have a major problem. and add to that this much of this activity is in iraq and afghanistan, where there is no oversight, then it is a full-blown problem (i assume americans will voice loudly their objection to domestic spying [or is it counter-spying?]).

walter pincus, of the washington post might have been slightly sullied by association with the plamegate affair. but he deserves a medal for repeatedly pointing out the outsourcing intel. problem (IRAQ: Increase in Contracting Intelligence Jobs Raises Concerns, March 20th, 2006). how much of a problem is all this? here is just a little, almost silly boondoggle, all based on partnering with industry to do intel. work. it is, perhaps not all that important; it is just that we only know about it, any of it, because of hookergate and top-gun cunningham.

• Perhaps the most spectacular boondoggle achieved by Cunningham went through CIFA (Counterintelligence Field Activity), a Defense intelligence agency established ... to "coordinate policy and oversee the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies." But here's the good part: 70% of its budget is contracted out.
• Right after CIFA was established, Cunningham helped his friend Mitchell Wade's company MZM land a $6.3 million contract with CIFA through an earmark. The earmark set aside the money for CIFA, and Cunningham made sure that MZM got the contract....
• Here's what your taxpayer dollars bought:
• The resultant program saw more than $6 million spent for a mass data storage system supposedly for CIFA that, according to the prosecutorial document, included almost $5.4 million in profit for MZM and a subcontractor. "Adding insult to injury," the prosecutors wrote, "the final system sold to the government was never installed (as it was incompatible with CIFA's network system) and remains in storage in Arlington, Va." (The Daily Muck, By Paul Kiel)

so perhaps it is all not much of a problem after all. i once worked in educational computing in boston in the early 80s. a tech specialist and time-and-motion man (or whatever they call them) came down from new hampshire (home then of the free-from-taxes right) to help us (and prepare a report on the staff's work). he was all agog about reagan's star wars. now star wars never did anything except spend most of our tax dollars. this stuff, too, promises more to make a few subcontractors rich than anything else. but i still think there is a problem.

hayden's love of the private

perhaps gen. hayden, pres. bush's pick to replace porter goss as cia head, is already dead in the water. for some reason, no one has noted that hayden would be the second military man heading the cia (the no. 2 at langley already is), and, sources tell me, this is not allowed (there is already a suggestion that hayden would retire; surely a case of following the letter but not the spirit of the law). but in case the go-hayden crowd is strong, it might be noted that hayden "contracted with MZM Inc. for the services of Lt. Gen. James C. King, then a senior vice president of the company ." (CIA Nominee Hayden Linked to MZM, By Justin Rood - May 8, 2006)

those of you following the small print will note that mzm's links with republicans were exposed in the cunningham indictments (aka hookergate) and mzm was quietly bought by veritas capital (which is up to its eyeballs in monetary dealings with the republicans), which itself has made a small fortune buying-and-selling dyncorp. now the point here is not that king was dirty; i assume he was clean (again the letter not the spirit of the law). it is that his entire history with the military is one where he is a strong advocate of privatizing the military/security end of the government. Thus, from 2001 we have the following:

• The director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the Pentagońs photographic intelligence service, is under fire from Congress over questionable privatization efforts. Eleven House members wrote...to question the photo spy agencýs program of directly converting government employees to private contractors -- often at greater expense to U.S. taxpayers.
• NIMÁs director, Army Lt. Gen. James C. King, was supposed to carry out a cost-benefit study as part of the privatization program. But Gen. King instead exercised an option allowing the agency to forgo the cost study if the agency selects a contractor that is 51 percent owned by an American Indian tribe.
• An Alaska native-owned company, NJVC, is expected to get the contract for computer support and other services in September. (May 18, 2001, Notes from the Pentagon, by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough)
  

nothing wrong with a new-found love of american indian tribes, of course. but mzm and dyncorp have made millions in no-bid contracts from your dollars to fund private "peacekeepers" (aka mercenaries). state terror is bad enough, but, following hobbes (thomas, not calvin and...), we make a contract with the government for them to have a monopoly of such force, not to parcel it out to others. consider for a moment when dyncorp makes an agreement with court militias in somalia or the shiite militias in iraq to keep the peace, meaning to keep their costs low? where is the security of you and me? and where is the security of our boys still fighting over there? we don't elect any of these people. so let's ask a few more questions about where hayden/king would take us.

opening gambit

"at least 3,800, many of them found hogtied and shot execution-style"(LA Times | Louise Roug | Posted May 7, 2006): what security are we providing in the least for the iraqis? what are our boys doing there? this is not one country but three; saddam kept it together through strongman, state terror. we can't even do that. nevertheless, republican-backers veritas capital (you remember them, yes?; the folks who quietly took over scandal-ridden mzm, inc.?) made well over 100 million dollars buying then selling dyncorp [this is unsubstantiated; they just own dyncorp, but are reportedly floating an ipo on same], whose claim to fame is the planting, watering, and feeding of " civilian peacekeepers" (aka mercenaries) in afghanistan and iraq. you all are doing your homework aren't you?