Free market, Dubya style
"Companies awarded $8 billion in contracts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan have been major campaign donors to President Bush, and their executives have had important political and military connections, according to a study released Thursday." — MSNBC report, October 30.
Purely coincidental
"The top contract recipient was the Halliburton subsidiary KBR, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to support the US military and restore Iraq's oil industry. Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney before he resigned to run with Bush in 2000." — MSNBC report, October 30.
Iraqi democracy, Dubya style
"SADR CITY, Baghdad — First, US soldiers helped select representatives to work in the district council building. Then supporters of a radical Shiite cleric kicked them out and installed a rival council. Today, the Sadr City council building stands empty. Two American tanks and yards of concertina wire seal this experiment in Iraqi self-rule off from more controversy, which resulted in one council meeting in private, and another being arrested and disbanded by coalition forces." — Christian Science Monitor, October 29
Except the US Army
"In order to have free and fair elections, you can't have undue influence from any group", Major Aaron Marler, a political officer with the US Army's Second Armored Cavalry who "worked with the US-sponsored council" in Sadr City, explaining to the Christian Science Monitor why the US occupation troops arrested the non-US sponsored council.
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From Green Left Weekly, November 5, 2003.
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