Below, find the latest diary entry, then January 2021 content. Last week, the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University said the war in Iraq cost $1.7 trillion dollars, not including the $490 billion in immediate benefits owed to veterans of the war and the lifetime benefits that will be owed to them or their next of kin.EDITOR’S NOTE: Chelsea Community News welcomes back “Don’t Call it Parody ” columnist, dyspeptic pundit, and pants fancier Max Burbank, whose My CoviDiary column (published with startling regularity in 2020 and the early months of last year) looked at the pandemic in all of its forms and functions and, as time went on, as a blunt weapon wielded by then-President Trump. The costs of paying private and publicly listed war profiteers seem miniscule in light of the total bill for the war. State Department estimates that taxpayers will dole out $3 billion to private guards for the government's sprawling embassy in Baghdad. (Despite promises by President Barack Obama to reel in this habit, the trend toward granting favored companies federal contracts without considering competing bids continued to grow, by 9 percent last year, according to the Washington Post.)Įven though the military has largely pulled out of Iraq, private contractors remain on the ground and continue to reap U.S. No-bid contracting - when companies get to name their price with no competing bid - didn't lower legitimate expenses. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.Įven without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying governement employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. contracts.Īs private enterprise entered the war zone at unprecedented levels, the amount of corruption ballooned, even if most contractors performed their duties as expected.Īccording to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Together, these firms garnered $13.5 billion of U.S. The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.Īgility Logistics (KSE:AGLTY) of Kuwait and the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. Ten contractors received 52 percent of the funds, according to an analysis by the Financial Times that was published Tuesday. taxpayer money for government contracts for services that included providing private security, building infrastructure and feeding the troops. Private or publicly listed firms received at least $138 billion of U.S. military operations rose to unprecedented levels. He accounting of the financial cost of the nearly decade-long Iraq War will go on for years, but a recent analysis has shed light on the companies that made money off the war by providing support services as the privatization of what were former U.S. Cheney's Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq Warīy Angelo Young, International Business Times
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |