Doug Lorimer
The December 5 directive issued by US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz provided a clear indication of what the Bush Doctrine is all about. It barred French and German companies from competing for US$18.7 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq's war-damaged infrastructure.
This doctrine was spelt out in US President George Bush's September 2002 National Security Strategy document. The document explained that the US will "use its unparalleled military strength . . . to extend the benefits of free markets and free trade to every corner of the world". Wolfowitz's directive made it clear that the Bush Doctrine — being implemented under the so-called global war on terrorism — is about using US military strength to ensure that markets and trade throughout the world benefit US corporations.
Bush's January 13 announcement that Canadian companies could make bids for reconstruction contracts sparked some media speculation about a reversal of Wolfowitz's directive. However, Bush administration officials would not say if companies from France and Germany, which more actively opposed the Iraq invasion, would also be eligible to bid on future contracts.
The January 13 New York Times reported that administration officials "left open the possibility that a major commitment of money and manpower" to the Iraq occupation "would work in their favour".
The reconstruction contracts have created opportunities for US corporations to reap enormous profits and carry out outright theft of moneys appropriated by the US government.
A Pentagon audit report published on December 11, for example, revealed that Halliburton — the company that Vice-President Dick Cheney used to run and from which he still receives six-figure annual payments — has been looting reconstruction funds through massive price gouging on petrol imported into Iraq.
The Pentagon audit found that Halliburton overcharged the US Army $1.09 a gallon on nearly 57 million gallons of imported fuel. The price paid by the US government to Halliburton — $2.64 a gallon — is twice what others in Iraq are paying for imported fuel.
Corporate swindling
This sort of corporate swindling is now built into most of the reconstruction contracts. According to an October report prepared jointly by the United Nations and the World Bank, the amount of money allocated by the Bush administration for reconstruction contacts is twice as much as what the work will cost. Thus, while Washington has allocated $5.7 billion for rebuilding Iraq's electricity system, the UN-World Bank report puts the cost at $2.38 billon. Similarly, for rebuilding the water and sanitation systems, Washington has allocated $3.77 billion while the UN-World Bank report estimates that less than $1.9 billion is needed.
The Bush administration hardly intends to lavish these extra billions on the Iraqi people — they will go to US corporations.
In addition to the $18.7 billion being poured into US corporate coffers through reconstruction contracts, another $30 billion of the $87 billion allocated by the US Congress for the US military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is being paid out to private companies for everything from food service and base construction for US troops to private security firms training Iraqi police or providing guards for personnel and installations.
California-based DynCorp has a contract to "re-establish police, justice and prison functions in post-conflict Iraq" that is potentially worth $850 million.
According to the help-wanted notice on DynCorp's web site, the company will pay as much as $153,600 for senior people in Iraq for one year.
"On top of that", NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell reported on November 4, "they get all their living expenses, and most of their salary is tax-free — a package that will cost taxpayers as much as $400,000 to put each trainer in Iraq."
Mitchell added that she had "repeatedly asked DynCorp, its parent company and the State Department for interviews about the police training contract. They all refused — even though they are spending tax dollars."
What Washington lists as "defence spending" — a record $370 billion in 2003 — is really a huge slush fund for US corporations that supply food, fuel, weapons systems, munitions and buildings for the US war machine. These corporations reap guaranteed profits from military contracts which typically provide full reimbursement of costs plus an automatic 7% profit margin.
The sort of war profiteering that Halliburton engages in is now so much a normal part of the US corporate elite's business operations that when the US Senate finally approved Bush's request for $87 billion in extra funds for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan it amended the appropriation bill to eliminate all its original anti-profiteering provisions.
The unending series of cases of corporate corruption since the collapse of 1990s stockmarket bubble have demonstrated that there is no essential difference between the methods the corporate elite uses internationally and those it employs in the United States itself.
The scandal that has enveloped Italy's eighth-largest industrial empire demonstrates that the culture of corporate fraud is not limited to the US business elite. Calisto Tanzi, the founder of food giant Parmalat, has admitted that he secretly siphoned off at least 500 million euros ($630 million) from the company to a family-owned subsidiary. Auditors reported on January 13 that Parmalat had engaged in $10 billion of fraudulent operations.
It's 'our culture'
The criminality of the US corporate elite is now so starkly exposed, that even leading capitalist commentators are being forced to acknowledge it. For example, Dick Meyer, the editorial director of CBSNews.com, wrote in a November 19 CBSNews column entitled "The Predator Class": "The emerging accounts of thievery in the world of mutual funds confirm, for me at least, something I have suspected since the go-go 1980s — the existence of an economic predator class.
"I believe there is now a professional, well-trained elite, supported by large institutions, that is adept and willing to use corrupt practices to accumulate wealth. ... There have always been scandals and crooks in the history of American money, but our predator class is a distinct creation of the late 20th century...
"The docket of this still running corporate crime spree has grown far too long to be dismissed as either a passing fluke, a few bad eggs or as regularly scheduled financial event. It is a more permanent condition of commercial culture...
"My guess is that financial historians will start the clock in this epoch with the big merger scandals of the 1980s — Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and scads of lesser cads. Next came the long running, now forgotten, S&L scandals. Then a lull (maybe), punctuated by the pretty picture of the tech boom. That delusional portrait was redrawn when we learned of the rigged IPOs, insider trading, completely corrupt 'analysis' practices of the Wall Street giants and old-fashioned flimflam.
"Coveting the vast instant riches of the techno-boomers and baby billionaires was way more than many titans of less glamorous industries could bear and in virtually all companies executive salaries soared beyond all proportions of the post-war era. And in many of those executive suites, greed morphed into felony — Tyco, Enron, Rite-Aid, Adelphia, Global Crossing, WorldCom, ImClone, Lucent, Kmart, MicroStrategy, Qwest Communications. And then scandals at the supposed auditors, like Arthur Andersen, insulted.
"As the market turned down, the corporate crime spree didn't wane as some theorists said it should. ... pension funds were raided, an entirely legal scandal. And now we're learning about the mutual fund grafting rampage that may affect Main Street as much as prior fiascos.
"So now we'll be told that the market, smarter than any deliberately organized system, will correct this. After all, who would invest in a known corrupt game? No one, so the market will fix it. Plus, the regulators are on the case.
"This time, I don't buy it. The predator class will not be exterminated by cease and desist orders, Senate hearings, independent boards of directors and the invisible hand. It's a culture. And essentially, it's our culture."
Meyer is absolutely right — legal and illegal predation for private profit is the product of his class's culture. Corporate capitalism, imperialist capitalism, is a predatory system run by and in the interests of a class of rapacious gangsters who plunder the wealth produced by working people at home and abroad.
From Green Left Weekly, January 21, 2004.
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