And you thought the Nigerian 419 scammers were bad

After all the fivolous posts of late, and partly inspired by the visits to World of Badger from the NSA, I thought I should probably post some more important stuff, specifically a few interesting articles I’ve read about the situation in Iraq.

Despite the fact that the US occupation of Iraq officially ended on June 28, the Bush administration and its corporate chums still have a great deal of political and economic power there (not to mention 138,000 troops).

Foreign Policy in Focus has an interesting article by Antonia Juhasz, looking at some of the ways Bush & Co have managed to get their claws into Iraq, The Hand-Over that Wasn’t: How the Occupation of Iraq Continues. It focuses on the 100 Orders enacted by Paul Bremer, head of the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, before his departure. The final order, made on his last day in the country, effectively means that no Iraqi, including future elected officials, can undo these orders. From the article:

Order #39 allows for the following: (1) privatization of Iraq’s 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) “national treatment” of foreign firms; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses. Thus, it allows the U.S. corporations operating in Iraq to own every business, do all of the work, and send all of their money home. Nothing needs to be reinvested locally to service the Iraqi economy, no Iraqi need be hired, no public services need be guaranteed, and workers’ rights can easily be ignored. And corporations can take out their investments at any time.

Doesn’t strike me as the ideal way to get Iraq back on its feet. Nor do Orders number 17, 57 and 77:

Order #49 drops the tax rate on corporations from a high of 40% to a flat rate of 15%. The income tax rate is also capped at 15%.

Order #17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq ’s laws. Even if they do injure a third party by killing someone or causing environmental damage such as dumping toxic chemicals or poisoning drinking water, the injured third party can not turn to the Iraqi legal system, rather, the charges must be brought to U.S. courts under U.S. laws.

Order #77 established the Board of Supreme Audit and named its president and his two deputies. The Board oversees inspectors in every Ministry with wide-ranging authority to review government contracts, audit classified programs, and prescribe regulations and procedures.

Order #57 created and appointed an inspector within every Iraqi Ministry with five-year terms who can perform audits, write policies, and have full access to all offices, materials, and employees of the Ministries.

As Antonia Juhasz points out, this is all completely illegal under international law. But hey, who cares about international law anyway?

Pratap Chatterjee’s article for CorpWatch, Inventing Iraqi Democracy in North Carolina, highlights the allegations made against Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a company awarded a $167 million contract to teach Iraqis about democracy and creating civic organizations. Unfortunately it seems that up to 90 percent of that money was spent on company staff and administration expenses. One of the former RTI employees that has spoken out is Jabir Algarawi, an Iraqi-American from Arizona.

Algarawi said that the only project he was able to finish was the creation of a women’s organization, for which RTI allocated $90,000 in spending money. “We spent more than that on entertainment for our staff alone, bringing in satellite television,” he said.

Then in late May, he heard that what little he had achieved might soon be undone. Dr. Kifaya Hussein, a staff member of the women’s organization he had helped establish, was gunned down in front of the office. “When she was killed, RTI didn’t pay out the money they had promised, so now all the women are just volunteers,” he said.

By the way, for a detailed look at the occupation of Iraq, the George Soros launched Iraq Revenue Watch and the Baghdad-based International Occupation Watch Center seem pretty informative.

Another article on CorpWatch New Halliburton Whistleblowers Say Millions Wasted in Iraq examines the wasteful practices and major over-billing of Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a Halliburton subsidiary. To date KBR has received $4.5 billion for activities in Iraq, and this figure may rise to $18 billion in total.

In testimony submitted to members of Congress, David Wilson, a Halliburton driver employed to deliver supplies supplies from southern Iraq to Baghdad explained that his supervisors didn’t care what was being transported, so long as the trucks drove as many times as possible from one end of the country to the other.

“The paperwork I carried had no details about the contents of our cargo - basically all they were looking for was the number of trucks with freight on them (but) a related problem was that KBR would run trucks empty quite often,” Wilson said. “Sometimes they would have five empty trucks, sometimes they would have a dozen. One time we ran 28 trucks and only one had anything on it. There were several times when we had empty trucks both on the way to Anaconda and then on the way back to Cedar II. I don’t understand why KBR would have placed our lives in danger that way for no reason.”

The reason such wasteful practices were encouraged was down to Halliburton’s “cost-plus” contract with the military, which means the company is repaid for all expenditures, plus a percentage fee and possible bonus on top of that. After some of the overcharging and fraud came to light earlier this year, Halliburton sent in its crack “Tiger Team” to audit and correct problems. Unfortunately the Tiger Team didn’t bother to check that subcontractors’ prices were reasonable or thatservices had actually been delivered. And to make matters worse, they were accommodated at the five-star Kempinski Hotel for $10,000 per employee per month. Hmmm, wonder if Halliburton need any web developers…?

Actually it’s easy for me to joke about such (financial and moral) corruption, but then again I’m not an American taxpayer. Nor am I living in the chaos described in Christian Parenti’s Rough Guide to Baghdad

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