DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA Asia Times

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Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:53:34 EDT

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA Asia Times Online :: Middle East

News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

 

 

 

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA

 

 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI15Ak01.html

 

 

 

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA

The reconstruction of New Oraq

By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse

 

" At times it is hard to ignore the comparisons between Baghdad (where

I was less than a month ago and have spent more of the last two years)

and New Orleans: the anarchy, the looting, some of it purely for

survival, some of it purely opportunistic. We watched a flatbed truck

drive by, a man on the back with an M-16 looking up on the roofs for

snipers, as is common in Iraq. Private security contractors were

stationed outside the Royal St Charles Hotel; when asked if things

were getting pretty wild around the area, one of them replied, 'Nope.

It's pretty Green Zone here'. "

- (David Enders, Surviving New Orleans, Mother Jones online)

 

In the decade before September 11, 2001, " globalization " , a word

now largely missing in action, was on everyone's lips and we

constantly heard about what a small, small world this really was. In

the aftermath of Katrina, that global smallness has grown positively

claustrophobic and particularly predatory.

 

Iraq and New Orleans now seem to be morphing into a single entity, New

Oraq, to be devoured by the same limited set of corporations, let

loose and overseen by the same small set of Bush administration

officials. In President George W Bush's new world of globalization,

first comes the destruction, and only then does one sit down at the

planetary table to sup.

 

In recent weeks, news has been seeping out of Iraq that the

" reconstruction " of that country is petering out, because the money is

largely gone. According to American officials, reported T Christian

Miller of the Los Angeles Times last week, " The US will halt

construction work on some water and power plants in Iraq because it is

running out of money for projects. " A variety of such reconstruction

projects crucial to the everyday lives of Iraqis, the British Guardian

informs us, are now " grinding to a halt " as " plans to overhaul the

country's infrastructure have been downsized, postponed or abandoned

because the $24 billion budget approved by Congress has been dwarfed

by the scale of the task. "

 

Water and sanitation projects have been particularly hard hit; while

staggering sums, once earmarked for reconstruction, are being shunted

to private security firms whose hired guns are assigned to guard the

projects that can't be done. With funds growing scarce, various

corporations closely connected to the Bush administration, having

worked the Iraqi disaster for all it was worth (largely under no-bid,

cost-plus contracts), are now looking New Orleans-ward.

 

Ground Zero Iraq

The American occupation of Iraq began in April 2003 with a prolonged

moment of chaos that set the stage for everything to follow. In the

first days after Baghdad fell, the occupying army stood by idly

(guarding only the Oil Ministry and the intelligence services) while

Iraqi looters swept away the institutional, administrative and

cultural underpinnings of the country. The newly installed Coalition

Provisional Authority (CPA), soon to be led by American viceroy L Paul

Bremer, followed up by promptly disbanding the only institution that

remained half-standing, the Iraqi military. At the same time, a new

American administration was set up inside the increasingly

well-fortified and isolated Green Zone in Baghdad, staffed largely by

Bush cronies. ( " Neo-con kindergarten " was the way some insiders

derisively referred to the young Bush supporters sent out from

Washington to staff the lower levels of the CPA for months at a time.)

 

The CPA then instituted a flat tax, abolished tariffs, swept away laws

that might have prevented the foreign ownership of Iraqi companies,

allowed the full repatriation of profits abroad and threatened to

reduce state-sponsored food and fuel subsidies. For Iraqis, this was

more than just " shock and awe " ; it was to be caught in the whirlwind.

Call it Year Zero for Iraq or Ground Zero for the new Bush order.

Iraq, stripped for action, was ready to be strip-mined - and it was

then that Washington called in its crony corporations to " reconstruct "

the land.

 

Leading the list was Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of the

energy firm Halliburton, the mega-corporation over which Vice

President Dick Cheney once presided. From providing fuel to building

bases, doing KP to supplying laundry soap, it supported the newly

privatized, stripped-down American military - and for that it

" received more money from the US involvement in Iraq than any other

contractor " , a sum that has already crested US$10 billion with no end

in sight.

 

The Bechtel Corporation, the San Francisco-based engineering firm,

known at home for its staggering cost overruns on Boston's " Big Dig "

(Central Artery/Tunnel Project) and its especially close ties to the

Republican Party, raked in almost $3 billion in Iraq reconstruction

contracts just in the nine months after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Fluor Corporation, an Orange County, California-based firm that inked

a joint $1.1 billion deal with a London company in 2004 for

" construction services for water distribution and treatment systems in

Iraq " was a winner; as was the Shaw Group Inc, which in early 2004

opened a Baghdad office to support " an approximately $47 million task

order in Iraq for facility upgrades, installation of utilities and

other infrastructure improvements " and was also awarded a separate

$88.7 million construction deal, among other contracts.

 

Another successful bidder in the Iraqi lottery was CH2M Hill, a

Colorado-based company that, in a joint venture, took in a $28.5

million reconstruction contract in 2004 and teamed up with other

contractors for a $12.7 million electrical power generation deal.

These firms were joined at the table by other heavy-hitters and a

dizzying array of smaller-fry American sub-contractors, from the

KBR-connected food service company Event Source to Bechtel's marine

survey sub-contractor, Titan Maritime.

 

More than two years after the American superpower occupied Iraq and

called in its reconstructors, however, the scorecard for

" reconstruction " looked remarkably like one for deconstruction. The

country was essentially looted and no one was left on guard, not even

at the Oil Ministry. Money was spent profligately, and sometimes

evidently simply pilfered. Bremer himself reputedly had a slush fund

of $600 million in cash for which, according to Ed Harriman (who did a

superb study of the various reports by US auditors on the ensuing

mayhem in the London Review of Books), there was " no paperwork " .

 

When Bremer left Baghdad in June of last year, the CPA had already run

through $20 billion in Iraqi funds, mostly generated by oil revenues

and earmarked for " the benefit of the Iraqi people " (though only $300

million in US funds). Much of it seems to have gone to American

companies for their various reconstruction tasks. US auditors,

Harriman reports, " Have so far referred more than a hundred contracts,

involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and

corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. " It

was evidently a field day of malfeasance and - a particular signature

of the Bush administration - lack of accountability. In the meantime,

KBR was massively overcharging the Pentagon for all those privatized

tasks the military no longer cared to do, while its officials were

living the good life. (Typically, KBR's " tiger team " of accountants,

sent out to Kuwait to check on company overcharges, stayed in a

five-star hotel to the tune of $1 million in taxpayers' money.)

 

The results we now know well. Electricity and oil production, for

instance, still remain at or below the figures for the worst days of

Saddam's embattled regime; and on that cleared land at Ground Zero

Iraq, a fierce resistance movement rages, while, from Basra to Mosul,

disappointment with and disapproval of the American occupiers only grows.

 

Now, these same corporations are being loosed on the southeastern

United States on the same no-bid, cost-plus basis. Like Baghdad and

much of Iraq, New Orleans and the Mississippi coast have just

experienced " shock and awe " - Katrina's winds and waters, not US

cruise missiles. With troops occupying New Orleans, the Bush

administration-allied corporations of the whirlwind that feed off

chaos and destruction are already moving in. In this sense, the next

wave of chaos has, from their point of view, arrived like the

proverbial cavalry, just in the nick of time.

 

Bringing the post-war home

As Reuters reported recently: " A slowing of reconstruction work in

Iraq has freed up people for Fluor Corp to begin rebuilding in the US

Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina, the big engineering and

construction company's chairman and chief executive said on Friday.

'Our rebuilding work in Iraq is slowing down and this has made some

people available to respond to our work in Louisiana,' Fluor chief

Alan Boeckmann said in a telephone interview. " And Fluor responded in

a thoroughly reasonable way - they put an experienced man on the job,

sending their " senior project manager " in Iraq to Louisiana.

 

In fact, with Congress already making a $62 billion initial down

payment on post-Katrina reconstruction work, the Bush administration

has just given out its first six reconstruction contracts, five of

them - could anyone be surprised - to Iraqi reconstructors, including

Fluor. Small world indeed. The Bush version of crony capitalism should

perhaps be termed predatory capitalism, following as it does so

closely in the wake of war and natural disaster, much as camp

followers used to trail armies, ready, in case of victory, to loot the

baggage train of the enemy.

 

But let's pull back for a moment and try to reconstruct, however

briefly, at least a modest picture of the massively interconnected

world of the reconstructors. A good place to start is with Bush's pal

Joseph Allbaugh, a member of his " so-called iron triangle of trusted

Texas cohorts " . Allbaugh seems to display in his recent biography just

about every linkage that makes New Oraq what it is clearly becoming.

He ran the Bush presidential campaign of 2000; and subsequently was

installed as the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA) which, in congressional testimony, he characterized as " an

overstuffed entitlement program " , counseling (as Harold Meyerson of

the American Prospect pointed out recently) " states and cities to rely

instead on faith-based organizations ... like the Salvation Army and

the Mennonite Disaster Service " .

 

As at the CPA in Baghdad, so at FEMA in Washington, the larder of

administrators would soon be stocked with second- and third-rate Bush

supporters and cronies. Five of FEMA's top eight managers would,

according to Spencer S Hsu of the Washington Post, arrive with

" virtually no experience in handling disasters " , three of them " with

ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance

operation " . A " brain drain " of competent administrators followed as -

a la the Pentagon - FEMA's focus turned to the " war on terror " , money

was drained from natural-disaster work, and the agency was

" privatized " with previously crucial activities outsourced to

Bush-friendly corporations.

 

In March 2003, Allbaugh departed FEMA, putting the increasingly

starved and down-sized operation in the hands of Michael Brown, an old

college buddy whose previous job had been overseeing the International

Arabian Horse Association. He then made his faith-based career choice

- no, not to join the Salvation Army or the Mennonite Disaster

Service. Instead, he opted for what the Bush administration really

believed in - both in Iraq and at home. He became a high-priced

consultant/lobbyist, founding in the ensuing years three consulting

firms. At Blackwell Fairbanks, LLC, he teamed up with Andrew

Lundquist, who led the Cheney task force that produced the

administration's National Energy Policy, to " successfully represent

clients before the executive and legislative branches of the United

States government " .

 

Then there was the Allbaugh Company through which he represents

Halliburton's KBR as well as military-industrial powerhouse Northrop

Grumman. Finally, there was New Bridge Strategies, LLC, where he

serves as chairman and director. New Bridge Strategies bills itself as

" a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of

assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business

opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the

US-led war in Iraq " .

 

Not surprisingly, the firm's vice chairman and director, Ed Rogers

(who, during the " 2004 campaign cycle ... made over 150 live TV news

appearances defending and promoting the Bush administration " ), also

serves as vice chairman of the consulting firm Barbour, Griffith &

Rogers, Inc (which he founded with Haley Barbour, now the governor of

storm-battered Mississippi); New Bridge's director, Lanny Griffith,

who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Barbour, Griffith &

Rogers, " was national chairman for the Bush/Cheney entertainment task

force and coordinated entertainment for the 2001 Bush Inaugural " .

 

He was, typically enough, one of the 2004 Bush campaign's " Rangers " -

an elite group of fundraisers, each of whom was responsible for

gathering up more than $200,000 for the president; while New Bridge

Strategies' advisory board member Jamal Daniel is " a principal with

Crest Investment Company " - a firm co-chaired by the president's

younger brother Neil.

 

In answer to critics who claimed he and others were cashing in on

their service to Bush and Cheney, Allbaugh responded, " I don't buy the

'revolving door' argument. This is America. We all have a right to

make a living. " As president and CEO at Allbaugh Co and assumedly as a

former head of FEMA, not to say as close friend and mentor to FEMA's

(now departed) head and as a presidential pal, he found himself at the

front of the Katrina disaster line, apparently pushing hard (although

he denied it) for such companies as - you guessed it - KBR and the

Shaw Group. By September 7 at the latest, unlike the administration,

he was down in Louisiana surveying the damage in the Gulf Coast and

the wreckage of the agency over which he once presided, while

directing his clients to the lucrative world of American disaster, now

that the lucrative world of Iraqi disaster had been sucked reasonably dry.

 

Ground Zero New Orleans

On September 12, the Wall Street Journal reported, " FEMA and the Army

Corps of Engineers have awarded six contracts, most for as much as

$100 million, for recovery and rebuilding work. " It should be of

little surprise that the Shaw Group landed two of these $100 million

deals (a FEMA contract to refurbish existing buildings and for other

emergency housing tasks as well as an Army Corps of Engineers contract

to aid recovery efforts, including pumping water from New Orleans).

 

Others on the list included a who's who of favorite Bush

administration contractors from Iraq: Bechtel, Fluor and CH2M Hill

(all signed on to construct temporary housing). In fact, of the

companies on the Journal's list, only one (Dewberry, LLC) was not,

apparently, involved in Iraq. Halliburton was, of course, not left out

in the cold. In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, its KBR

subsidiary reaped " $29.8 million in Pentagon contracts to begin

rebuilding navy bases in Louisiana and Mississippi " .

 

These companies, however, aren't the only ones returning from Iraq,

like so many predator drones, to pick up lucrative deals. In the wake

of Katrina, Intelsat, a global satellite services provider that, in

Iraq, had teamed up with Bechtel on a big US Agency for International

Development reconstruction program, agreed to new post-Katrina

contracts with the Defense Department and FEMA. Similarly, just two

days after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, the Air National Guard

contracted with another satellite services provider, Segovia, which,

according to a 2004 company news release, had " emerged as a key

telecommunications provider for the Iraqi reconstruction efforts " .

 

Along with their service in Iraq, the Katrina reconstruction companies

are tied together in another important way. They tend to be

particularly well linked to the Bush administration and the Republican

Party. As former Oklahoma Republican governor Frank Keating said of

Allbaugh, " Joe ... knows how elected officials and appointed officials

like me think and work, and that culture is a fraternity. "

Halliburton, for instance, picked off " another high-level Bush

appointee, Kirk Van Tine, earlier this year to work as a lobbyist.

Similarly, in 2001, Bush appointed Robert G Card, then a senior vice

president at CH2M Hill, under secretary at the US Department of

Energy, a position he held until 2004. Today, Card is the president

and group chief executive of the International Group at CH2M Hill.

 

Not surprisingly, during the 2004 election season, CH2M Hill was the

top " construction services " contributor to political campaigns,

sending nearly 70% of its $476,800 in contributions to Republican

candidates. In fact, 14 people on the CH2M payroll contributed to

Bush's 2004 campaign, including the company's chairman and CEO,

president, senior vice president and president of regional operations,

each of whom gave between $1,000 and $2,000. Meanwhile, Bechtel's

political action committee contributed 68% of its funds to Republican

candidates and causes; while Halliburton, which ranks among the top 20

" oil and gas " contributors to political campaigns, handed out 87% of

its money to Republicans.

 

Theoretically, there should be nothing more glorious than the job of

healing the war-torn or rebuilding the lives of those devastated by

natural disaster, nor anything more relevant to government.

Unfortunately, in the case of KBR World, there's nothing glorious

about it, except the five-star hotels for the reconstructors.

Prediction is usually a dismal science for any writer. In this case,

however, it's already easy to imagine - as some Democrats in Congress

are beginning to do - the consequences of Bush-style " reconstruction "

in the United States.

 

Those no-bid, cost-plus contracts already being dealt out to the usual

suspects tell you what you need to know about future cost overruns,

klepto-reconstruction activities, and the like, which are practically

guaranteed to deconstruct the bulk of the Gulf Coast and leave New

Orleans, the destroyed parts of Mississippi, and the hundreds of

thousands of evacuees, not to speak of Congress, gasping for breath

amid a landscape largely sucked dry, not of water, but of cash and

sustenance.

 

Bush's version of capitalism is of a predatory, parasitical kind. It

feeds on death, eats money, goes home when the cash stops flowing and

leaves further devastation in its wake. New Orleans, like a rotting

corpse, naturally attracts all sorts of flies. Reports have been

trickling in that the private security firms - call them mercenary

corporations like Blackwater USA - which have flooded Iraq with an

estimated 20,000 to 25,000 hired guns (some paid up to $1,000 a day),

have been taking the same route back to New Orleans and the

Mississippi coast as KBR, Bechtel and the Shaw Group.

 

They first arrived in the employ of private corporations and local

millionaires who wanted their property protected. A week or so into

September, however, Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo of Democracy

Now! found the hired guns of Blackwater cruising the streets of New

Orleans, carrying assault weapons, claiming to have been deputized,

insisting that they were working for the Homeland Security Department

and that they were sleeping in camps the department had organized.

( " When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in'? " ,

said one of the Blackwater men.) Then, on September 13, the Washington

Post reported that " Blackwater USA, known for its work supporting

military operations in Iraq, said it would provide 164 armed guards to

help provide security at FEMA sites in Louisiana. "

 

Today, New Orleans' streets are under military occupation; its

property is guarded by hired guns; and the corporations of the

whirlwind are pouring into town. All that's missing is the insurgency.

 

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is

the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The

End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold

War.

 

Nick Turse works in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia

University and is associate editor and research director of

TomDispatch. He writes for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco

Chronicle, the Village Voice and regularly for Tomdispatch on the

military-corporate complex and the homeland security state.

 

(Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse. Used by permission of

Tomdispatch.)