| . Carving Up The New Iraq . |
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(*Editor's Note | The article below must be considered now the gold standard for coverage of this subject; it is the standard by which all other reports on this matter should be judged. - wrp) By Neil Mackay The Sunday Herald - Tuesday 15 April 2003
Since the beginning of the year, America has had its reconstruction plan in place. Answering directly to Centcom commander General Tommy Franks, retired Lt Gen Jay Garner will be in command of the reconstruction effort. He will be aided by a series of military hardmen, diplomats and Republican party place-men who will help the United States create "Free Iraq'' -- aided by exiles who are returning to get their share of the spoils. This isn't a selfless exercise. In a special Sunday Herald investigation, we have charted the network of financial kickbacks, political pay-backs, cronyism, self-interest and ferocious ideology that underpins the entire reconstruction scheme. The US denies that men like Jay Garner are in effect the first wave of a military occupation. The Bush administration insists that it wants these men to work their way out of a job as quickly as possible. Some have mentioned three months as the possible length of their tenure in Iraq -- others, more realistically, claim five years is a more likely term, taking the length of the US occupation of post-war Japan as the best comparison. America will be entrenched in this nation for decades to come. The colonisation process has begun already. In this investigation we have traced the roots of the reconstruction process back to the ideologues -- the neo-conservatives now in the ascendancy in the US government -- who devised the scheme. These men see the US military as the "cavalry on the new American frontier'', they wanted Saddam "regime changed'' long before Bush took power and they have long dreamt of a permanent US satellite in the Gulf. They have also been brutally honest about having a say over Iraq's oil fields . Ideology is ideology, but in the US government political theory goes hand-in-hand with big business. The end result of the lofty musings of Republican hawks fashioning the concepts behind the new world order is money-grubbing for the yankee dollar. The world isn't just watching the spread of a political philosophy in Iraq, it is watching a conquest by and for US big business as well. The term "military-industrial'' complex brings to mind crazy conspiracy theories , but let's consider the term again. Each and every one of the companies in the running or in posession of contracts to reconstruct Iraq are either major Republican donors or have government staff working for them. The donations to the Republican party -- and also to George W Bush himself -- run into millions . Is this payback time? In the UK, connections like this between big business and politicians would be front page news for months. But not so in America. There is more to this than just kickbacks. The Americans call it "the favour bank'', we call it more simply cronyism. The connections between the reconstructors is staggering. If these people aren't in the same think-tank together, then they work for the same companies, have the same friends and interests. Just look at one example -- under our power-brokers section you will find Andrew Natsios. He's the head of USAid, the government department which hands out Iraqi reconstruction contracts. Would it surprise you to find out that Natsios has a connection to a company called Bechtel which is -- yes -- tipped for a rather lucrative contract? Then there's IRG. It secured one of the eight government contracts up for grabs. Are you shocked to learn IRG has four vice-presidents and 24 other staff who at one time worked for USAid? There's also a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil giant once run by Dick Cheney (Bush's number two), which stands to make a cool $500 million out of reconstruction. With only a few exceptions, there is a smoking gun for all those behind the reconstruction work. Whether it's a seat on a board, shares in a firm, a favour owed here or there, these question the impartiality of seriously powerful people and ask important questions about the levels of self-interest that lie behind the rebuilding of Iraq. While Iraq may be free of Saddam, it looks like it's going to be the most lucrative country on Earth for the foreseeable future -- at least for US hawks anyway. THE NEO-CONSERVATIVES Paul Wolfowitz The deputy defence secretary is the arch-ideologue of the Bush administration and the key architect in the Pentagon of the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. Like many of the reconstructors Wolfowitz of Arabia, as he is known, is a ranking member of the leading neo-conservative think-tank the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which advocated regime change in Iraq even before George W Bush took office. He is also, like many of the reconstruction team, a key member of the ultra-right-wing Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) -- a think-tank that puts Israel and its security at the heart of US foreign policy. Many of the reconstuctors -- known as Wolfie's People or the True Believers -- are hand-picked place-men chosen by the defence deputy. Wolfowitz is the ideological link in Team Bush's grand scheme. His thinking is and was central to the war and its aftermath. Lewis Libby Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff is a long-standing face at the Pentagon, having served in the defence department during George Bush Snr's presidency. He is also friend, confidant and a neo-con fellow-traveller with Wolfowitz, and a founding member of the PNAC. He sits on the board of the Rand Corporation, a research and development corporation which has a huge number of contracts with the Pentagon. Zalmay Khalilzad (see the Arabs), Bush's special envoy to the the Iraq opposition, was an employee of Rand Corp. Libby owns shares in armament companies and has various oil interests. He is a consultant to Northrop Grumman, the defence contractor, which has an influential voice on the Defence Policy Board (DPB), the so-called brains of the Pentagon. Rand Corp, which won $83m in Pentagon contracts, is linked to the DPB. Donald Rumsfeld A founding member of the PNAC, the Pentagon supremo is probably one of the best-connected men in American politics. It was Rumsfeld who personally designed the Iraqi invasion plan. Every detail of the post-war reconstruction has to be cleared by the defence secretary. Each and every neo-con in the Pentagon owes their position to him. One fact he doesn't want reminded about is his former glad-handing with Saddam as Reagan's special envoy to Iraq in the early 1980s. While Saddam was blitzing the Ayatollah's armies with chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, Rumsfeld spent most of his time talking to the Ba'ath Party about the building of an oil pipeline on behalf of the construction company Bechtel. Bechtel's former vice-chairman is George Shultz, Reagan's secretary of state. Bechtel is one of the front-runners in the bid to secure US government contracts to rebuild Iraq. Douglas J Feith Under-secretary for policy at the Pentagon, he picks and selects members of the DPB and is on the board of advisers of Jinsa. As a lawyer, Feith represented Northrop Grumman (see defence box). He was a Pentagon place-man when Perle was assistant defence secretary in the 1980s and hired Michael Mobbs (see power- brokers) to work at his law firm Feith and Zell. Zealously pro-Israeli, Feith is a keen fan of Chalabi (see Arabs) as are Perle and Rumsfeld. Other Iraqis who'll be keen to get his ear include: Jalal Talebani (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan); Maj General Tawfiq al-Yassiri (Iraqi National Coalition); Massoud Barzani (Kurdish Democratic Party); Ayadh Allawi (Iraqi National Accord); Shaif Ali Bin Hussein (Constitutional Monarchy Party); Abdelaziz al-Hakim (brother of Muhammed Bakr al-Hakim the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) and Major General Saad Obeidi (former head of Iraqi psychological warfare). Richard Perle The Pentagon's Prince of Darkness is a key member of Jinsa and a prominent member of the American Enterprise Institute (described by Ronnie Reagan as one of the most influential right-wing US think-tanks) along with Dick Cheney's wife Lynne. He also sits on the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, another right-wing think-tank, along with James Woolsey, tipped to become the information minister in the post-war Iraqi interim government. Perle acted as an advisor to the lobbying firm run by Douglas J Feith – the Pentagon's under-secretary of defence. Perle was also chair of the DPB until he resigned following a scandal over a conflict of interests relating to his business connections. However, he still sits on the board of the DPB. Perle is seeking permission from the Committee on Foreign Investment, on which the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld sits, to run telecommunications businesses in Asia. He is also a member of neo-con think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, and worked as an aide to ultra-right-wing former Israeli premier, Benyamin Netanyahu. Dick Cheney Capitol Hill's resident hawk-in-chief, is a PNAC founding member and a was on Jinsa's board of advisors. The Vice-President was defence secretary under Bush Snr and has been calling for Saddam's head for over a decade. He was chairman and CEO of oil company Halliburton, the corporate behemoth. Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root has secured contracts worth up to $7 billion from the US army's Corp of Engineers to put out oil well fires in Iraq. He is a trustee of the American Enterprise Institute and has had numerous oil interests. He has links to Chevron, for whom he negotiated the building of an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea. Condoleeza Rice, the national security advisor, was the director of Chevron until 2001 – and even had an oil tanker named after her. During Condi's tenure, Chevron's CEO Kenneth Derr once said: "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas -- reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.'' Dick Cheney's wife Lynne sat on the board of Lockheed Martin, which manufactures Cruise missiles and now has a $800 million military satellite which will help troops in Iraq. Michael Joyce The former president of the Bradley Foundation, one of the largest and most influential right-wing organisations in America. It set up the PNAC led by William Kristol. Kristol's Weekly Standard is viewed in Washington as the in-house paper for Team Bush. The Standard is bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch. Joyce once said that Bush's key people such as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz "were clearly influenced by Bradley Foundation thinking''. There are rumours that Joyce's "best buddy'' William Bennett, Reagan's education secretary and Bush Snr's drug czar, will have some involvement with Iraq's post-war education system. Joyce has phoned Bennett with the words: "This is coach Joyce and this is what I want you to do.'' Neil Bush, Dubya's brother, has also been spoken of in connection with rebuilding the education system in Iraqi. Joyce is a self-styled moral guardian of American family values who, along with James Woolsey, is an adviser to Americans for Victory over Terrorism, a group that wants to stifle criticism of American military muscle. James Woolsey A long-time supporter of war on Iraq and PNAC and Jinsa member, the former director of the CIA has been named as the likely minister of information in the new Iraq. His business interests have included: the arms company British Aerospace; the Titan Corporation, which provides military interpreters and DynCorp, which provides bodyguards for Hamid Karzai, the Afghani president and has installed a police force monitoring service in Bosnia. DynCorp is being sued for human rights violations in Bosnia, environmental health disasters in Ecuador and fraud in America. He was a partner in the law firm, Shea and Gardner, which acts as foreign agents for the Iraqi National Congress, led by Chalabi. He is vice-president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a corporate consultant firm, which won a contract to develop a computer model of post-war Iraqi society after the first Gulf war I. Booz Allen is also closely linked to the DPB. He said that "only fear will re-establish [Arab] respect for us ... we need a little bit of Machiavelli''. He has also said: "We really don't need the Europeans. Anyways, they will be the first in line patting us on the back following our success and saying they were with us all along.'' THE MILITARY Lt Gen Jay Garner Nicknamed variously the Sheriff of Baghdad, Iraq's king, pro-consul, or president. Garner fought in the first Gulf war and in January was coaxed out of retirement to be the director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq. A fan of Jinsa (the Jewish Institute for National security Affairs), he has praised the Israeli defence force for its "remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority''. After one Jinsa junket he also said: "A strong Israel is an asset that American military planners and political leaders can rely on.'' He is president of SY Coleman, the defence firm that specialises in Patriot missiles and which was awarded over a billion-dollar contract this year to provide logistics support to US special forces. SY Coleman is a subsidiary of L-3 Communications, the ninth-largest contributor to US political parties from the defence electronics sector. He is a Pentagon place man who is directly answerable to General Tommy Franks, head of US CentCom. This has been jumped on by many as proof that the reconstruction work is at best a Pentagon operation and at worst a military occupation. A Vietnam veteran and former assistant Chief of Staff, Garner is no stranger to Iraq, having headed the Kurdish relief programme after the first Gulf war. He is a close friend of Cheney and Rumsfeld, who co-opted him to work on the extension of missile defence in space. Lt Gen Ron Adams Former commander of the Bosnia Stabilisation Force, in the first Gulf war he was assistant divisional commander of the 101st Airborne . He has held the office of Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans and was hand-picked by Lt Gen Jay Garner to be his deputy on the civil reconstruction committee. Lt Gen John Abizaid Tommy Franks's second in command at Central Command in Qatar, Abizaid is the most senior military officer of Arab descent in the US Army and is currently the director of the Joint Staff. He served in the first Gulf war as well as in Bosnia. He will have a significant voice in post-war Iraq. Maj Gen Bruce Moore and Gen Buck Walters Moore and Walters, both retired US Army officers, have been hand-picked by the Pentagon to run the north and south of Iraq respectively. Walters, a recently retired businessman, originates from President George W Bush's home state of Texas. Cap Frederick ‘Skip' Burkle Burkle is a medical doctor and the Iraqi team's resident polymath. He has worked for the World Health Organisation and USAid. This highly decorated Vietnam and Gulf war veteran will play a key role in the Iraqi health ministry. Gen Jerry Bates General Bates will lead the logistical and administrative support operations for General Garner. He took part in the military intervention in Haiti . He is senior vice-president of the National Group, an arm of the MPRI (Military Professionals Resources Inc), which has been condemned for being a Pentagon-funded mercenary outfit. Col George Oliver A former head of the Army War College's Peacekeeping Institute and a Pentagon insider, Oliver has trained Israeli military staff and was a delegate to the United Nations' military staff committee. He also served as a military adviser to the US Permanent Representative to the UN. Col Richard Naab Naab was the commander of allied forces during Operation Provide Comfort in the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq following the first Gulf war and, like Garner, is seen as a friend by the Kurds. He is also an adviser to the Iraqi Institute for Democracy. THE POWER-BROKERS Robert Reilly Former director of Voice of America, the pro-US radio service, Reilly has been entrusted with overhauling Iraqi radio, television and newspapers. The Bush administration has already given Reilly the green light to operate Radio Free Iraq. This will involve using transmitters that have been sent to the Middle East for the military's psychological operations. Reilly is closely involved with an American administration plan to establish a media network in the Middle East. A $62m (£40m) satellite TV station is scheduled to begin at the end of the year. He is a very close friend and business partner of Ahmed Chalabi. Michael Mobbs Pentagon lawyer and overall civilian co-ordinator who will be in charge of 11 of the ministries. Mobbs wants US citizens imprisoned indefinitely without charge for terrorist offences. A notorious hawk and close friend of Richard Perle, Mobbs also worked for Douglas Feith's law firm. Currently a Pentagon consultant, he created the legal framework for the indefinite detention of al-Qaeda suspects at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, which was built by Bechtel (see The businesses) for $16m (£10m). Also a former member of the US arms control agency under former president Ronald Reagan. William Eagleton Like George Shultz, a contemporary of George Bush Snr. and revered by the right as one the grand old men of republican foreign policy. The pair went to Yale together and both served in the Far East during the second world war. A career diplomat, Eagleton was based in Iraq betweenm 1980-1984 as Chief of US Interests Section in Baghdad. His tenure there came at a time when Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iran was being studiously ignored by Washington. He is tipped to be the "Mayor of Kirkuk'', the oil-rich city in northern Iraq, or Kurdistan. Andrew Natsios The head of USAid, United States Agency for International Development, Natsios is the man who hands out the post-war reconstruction contracts. Only US companies can bid for these lucrative deals. One of the most controversial episodes of his career saw him, as CEO of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, oversee the Big Dig construction project, a three-mile underground highway in Boston, undertaken by Bechtel. The budget spiralled out of control costing up to $10bn (£6.3bn) more than it should have, with the largest budget rises under Natsios's tenure. A former Massachusetts House of Representatives congressman, he is the author of a book called US Foreign Policy And The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse and a retired lieutenant colonel from the first Gulf war. He was also the chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party for most of the 1980s. Natsios will be assisted by Michael Marx, the head of USAid Disaster Assistance Response Team (Dart) and a former US army officer. Marx previously headed the Dart team after the conflict in Afghanistan. Lewis Lucke, another USAid senior staffer, will oversee the Iraqi reconstruction process. He headed the USAid mission team in Haiti alongside Timothy Carney (see grey suits), one of the former US ambassadors who is now involved in administering Free Iraq. Attempts at establishing democracy in Haiti have so far failed, with elections collapsing amid allegations of electoral manipulation and fraud. George Shultz and Clint Williamson A Republican heavyweight and former secretary of state under Nixon, Shultz was Bush Jnr's presidential campaign adviser. He is also one of the administration's key thinkers on running post-war Iraq, and on the board of directors at Bechtel, which is in the running for contracts after regime change. Like Perle, he has lucrative financial relationships, which bring hi s impartiality into question. Shultz is the chairman of the International Council of JP Morgan Chase, the banking syndicate in which Lewis Libby (see neo-cons) has heavy investments. Morgan Chase lent Saddam's regime $500m (£320m) in 1983. Shultz is a member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and a patron of the American Enterprise Institute. Perle advised clients of Goldman Sachs, the investment house, on post-war investment opportunities in Iraq. Perle is also a director of the software company Autonomy Corp, which has clients including the Pentagon. Autonomy says it expects its profits to increase dramatically after the war in Iraq ends. Clint Williamson, who is expected to head the Iraqi ministry of justice, appears to be one of the good guys. A former prosecutor at the Hague's International War Crimes Tribunal, he helped compile evidence against Slobodan Milosevic. Williamson now works at Condoleezza Rice's National Security Agency. Williamson appears ideally placed to deal with the unfolding chaos gripping the nation of Iraq, and is skilled and seasoned in preparing indictments against war criminals. John Bolton A prime architect of Bush's Iraq policy, Bolton served Bush Snr and Reagan in the state department, justice department and USAid and is now under-secretary for arms control and international security in Bush Jnr's state department. His appointment was intended to counter the dove-ish Colin Powell. Bolton now leads Rumsfeld's charge to destabilise Powell's multilateralism. Bolton is part of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Project for the New American Century and is a vice-president at the American Enterprise Institute. He was also one of Bush's chad-counters during the Florida count. Bolton has long advocated Taiwan getting a UN seat -- he's been on the payroll of the Taiwanese government. The US unilateralist is a regular contributor to William Kristol's right-wing Weekly Standard and has vilified UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Bolton was an opponent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a cheerleader for the Star Wars Defence System. He has hinted at targeting Cuba in the war on terror. His financial interests include oil and arms firms and JP Morgan Chase, like Shultz. It is said that Bolton believes in the inevitability of Armageddon. Like Woolsey, Bolton is said to believe we are in the midst of world war four which he estimates could take 40 years to finish. Despite evidence to the contrary they believe Iraq was involved in September 11. With Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Khalilzad, Bennet, Woolsey, Perle and Kristol, Bolton co-signed a letter in 1998 urging President Bill Clinton to take military action in Iraq THE THINK-TANKS These are the right-wing foundations and intellectual powerhouses stuffed with Republican Party hacks which have successfully influenced Bush's Iraq policy since he took power. The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. With its aims of informing Americans of the continued importance of American security, and of the need for an Israeli "victory'' in the Middle East, Jinsa places itself firmly on the extreme right wing. It has repeatedly praised Israel for what it views as "remarkable restraint'' in the face of a centrally-orchestrated campaign of terror from the Palestinian authorities, and its ranks include most of Bush's neo-cons. It also supports both Garner and Chalabi. The Project for a New American Century. Founded by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney in 1997 to counter what it viewed as Clinton's drifting foreign and defence policy, this think-tank would come to form the nucleus of Team Bush. It has always lobbied for regime change in Iraq and for America to play a more permanent role in the Middle East. It also believes American foreign policy to be by definition, inherently "right''. Many see it as the brains behind a US-controlled "new world order''. The American Enterprise Institute. One of America's biggest and most-established think-tanks, the American Enterprise Institute has been pushing its conservative agendas for over 50 years in both foreign and domestic policy. With 14 of its members in Bush's administration, it claims to be better represented than any other think tank in the current administration. The Bradley Foundation. During the 15-year tenure of Michael Joyce heading up this charitable body, the century-old foundation increased its profile dramatically and can now claim to be cash-rich and very powerful. It even provided the money needed to set up the Project for a New American Century. The Republicans love it and some even call it the patron saint of hawkish causes, thanks to the considerable amounts of money it doles out to neo-con causes. THE BUSINESSES SteveDoring Services Of America This world-leading Seattle port company won the first USAid contract for Iraqi reconstruction -- a $4.8m (£3m) deal to manage Iraq's strategic port, Umm Qasr. Known for its union-busting activities, it turns over around $1bn (£634m) a year and its president, John Hemingway, has made personal donations to Republican Party candidates. SSA's contract has angered the British government and army, and Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt unsuccessfully called on Washington to intervene. The British shipping giant P&O is also angered about missing out and about not being told why they lost. EU commissioner Chris Patten called the US-exclusive bidding "exceptionally maladroit''. Bechtel Almost certain to win $900m (£573m) in contracts. The total amount of business from Iraqi reconstruction could total $100bn (£634m). Bechtel has donated $1.3m (£820,000) to political campaign funds since 1999, with the majority going to the republican Party. George Shultz (see power-brokers) is Bechtel's former CEO and is still on the board of directors. Other Republicans linked to the company include former Reagan defence secretary Caspar Weinberger. General Jack Sheehan, retired Marine corp general, is its senior vice president, he also sits on the Pentagon's influential Defence Policy Board. In the 1980s Bechtel proposed building an oil pipeline through Iraq with Rumsfeld as a intermediary for the company to Saddam. International Resources Group The Washington-based company has won a $70m (£44m) contract to establish the humanitarian aid programme in Iraq. Obviously this involves an exceptionally close working relationship with USAid, which awards the contracts. Four of IRG's vice-presidents have all held senior posts with USAid, and 24 of the firm's 48 technical staff have worked for USAid. Other players tipped to win contracts include Washington Group International, bidding for the capital construction job, which gave $438,700 (£270,000) to the Republicans – along with a donation to Bush, and the Louis Berger Group which gave $26,300 to the republicans and is implementing the USAid Croatia development programme. Halliburton This was Dick Cheney's old oil company until he joined Team Bush, walking out the door with a pay-off worth around $30m (£19m). There have been deferred payments of $180,000 (£120,000) a year. Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, was the first company to be awarded an Iraqi reconstruction contract by the Pentagon to cap burning oil wells, the deal is reportedly worth $500m (£320m). The contract was awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers without any open competitive bidding process thanks to federal laws allowing the negotiations to take place in secret in the interests of national security. KBR has won a string of lucrative contracts despite failing to control the cost of work in the Balkans and being fined $2m (£1.3m) following claims of fraud at a military base. KBR is also one of two contractors chosen by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency to undertake the disposal of weapons of mass destruction -- if they are ever found. Since 1999, Halliburton has given 95%, or just under $700,000, (£448,000) of its political donations to the Republican party. It also gave George Bush nearly $18,000 (£12,000). KBR has subcontracted some of the work to two Houston firms -- Wild Wells, and Boots and Coots, which is close to bankruptcy. Boots and Coots have a capital deficit of $17m (£11m). They were recently given a $1m (£634,000) loan from a Panama-registered investment company, Checkpoint, run by Texas oilmen. It claims Boots and Coots defaulted and wants it to file for bankruptcy. Best of the rest Fluor Corp, which donated $275,000 (£175,000) to the Republicans and $3500 (£2200) personally to George Bush, has ties to a number of intelligence and defence procurement officials. These include Kenneth J Oscar, former acting assistant secretary of the army and Bobby R Inman a retired admiral, former NSA director and CIA deputy director. Also in the running is Parsons Corp, which donated $152,000 (£96,000) to the Republican party and £2000 (£1800) to Bush. It has helped reconstruct Kosovo and Bosnia and built the Saudi "military city'' of Yanbu. Bush's labour secretary Elaine Chao served on its board before joining the cabinet. It has got a chance of $900m (£570m) of reconstruction contracts and works closely with Halliburton. Chao's husband, assistant majority leader and majority whip Mitch McConnell has links to defence contractor Northrop Grumman. He has also received donations from, among others, Halliburton and arms firm Lockheed Martin. California congressman, Darrell Issa, wants firms such as Lucent Technologies and Qualcomm to rebuild Iraq's decrepit telecoms system – a deal worth around $1bn (£634m). Pentagon under-secretary, Douglas Feith, has up to $500,000 (£317,000) invested in Lucent; and Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has shares in Qualcomm. Raytheon Corp alongside KBR is another company apparently chosen by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency to deal with WMD. Libby also has shares in this company. THE DEFENCE PLAYERS The business players inextricably tied to the reconstructors: SY Coleman It is a key company connected to the US Patriot missile system. The fact that the company is headed by Lt Gen Jay Garner, the so-called Sheriff of Baghdad, has caused consternation among both aid agencies and the UN. Northrop Grumman One of the biggest winners under Bush's increases in defence spending, they won $8.5 billion in contracts last year. It has links with Jinsa and the AEI and key Bush administration hawks. The company planned a merger with Lockheed Martin, another defence giant who had Dick Cheney's wife Lynne on the board. DynCorp Linked to former CIA director James Woolsey. It provides security in world trouble spots where America has had to act as the policeman. Woolsey's DynCorp links tally with his intellectual inclinations -- both he and Richard Perle sit on the Foundation for the Defence of Democracy, a pro-military think-tank The Defence Policy Board This is the massively influential Pentagon advisory group, headed by Richard Perle until forced to resign over a conflict of interests. Currying favour with the DPB is the key to getting a Pentagon contract. Eight other DPB members have links to firms that have won defence contracts including Northrop Grumman, Bechtel and Rand Corp, which is linked to Lewis Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad. DPB members include General Jack Sheehan, who is connected to Bechtel, the CIA's James Woolsey and former Republican secretary of defence James Schlesinger. THE ARABS Ahmed Chalabi Leader of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), Chalabi's supporters include Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, who are pushing for him to be the interim leader of the post-war Iraq. He is backed by the think-tank Jinsa and linked to the American Enterprise Institute. Convicted in absentia in Jordan for his part in an massive embezzlement scandal, Chalabi received up to $12 million from Washington after the first Gulf war. He will be working with Reilly (see power-brokers) on broadcasting and communications in the new Iraq. Often referred to as "Cheney's protégé'', he is unpopular in Iraq and loathed by Colin Powell's state department. He has also fallen out of favour with the CIA, which in the early 1990s funded the INC to the tune of $325,000 a month. However, in a recent trip to Israel, organised by Jinsa, he tried to warm up relations regarding Iraq's post-regime change. Other Iraqis involved in a future government -- at the behest of Wolfowitz -- include INC members Salem Chalabi (Chalabi's nephew) and Aras Habib. Habib's cousin, Dr Ali Yassin Karim, a former medic with the CIA, was nearly kicked out of the agency but was saved by the CIA's James Woolsey. Wolfowitz also wants jobs to go to Chalabi's friends Tamara Daghestani and Goran Talebani. Zalmay Khalilzad Afghanistan-born Khalilzad is Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq and has a wide variety of oil interests. He co-wrote an article on Saddam, entitled Overthrow Him, with Wolfowitz, his former boss. A consultant with the oil company Unocal, he was pushing for a natural gas pipeline in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, and worked under Condoleezza Rice when she served as director of Chevron. He is also a close associate of George Shultz, and encouraged Schultz to use Iran to help topple Saddam. He is a former Rand Corp employee and a charter member of the PNAC. (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.) © Copyright 2003 by TruthOut.org |
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