Stephen Darley, Adelaide
We all know that the invasion of Iraq wasn't about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or how bad Saddam Hussein was, or any other of the threadbare excuses that have been exposed as barefaced lies. It was about money and power.
In particular, it was about the profits to be made from one of the most oil rich regions in the world, and from the other assets of the Iraqi people. Iraq has now been carved up like a butcher carves a joint — this blood-bespattered bit to this transnational corporation, this bit to that one.
One of the greatest beneficiaries of this carve-up is Halliburton — which provides oil and gas drilling, construction and military support. Until he was "elected" to office, the CEO of Halliburton was current US Vice-President Dick Cheney. He is still a major shareholder, holding US$45 million worth.
The Pentagon didn't even go through the fig-leaf of tendering, when it awarded a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a A$11.5 billion contract last year to clean up Iraq's oil industry. While Cheney denied he knew about this in advance, a recent Pentagon memo has shown that contracts were "coordinated" with the White House.
KBR's global infrastructure division is in Adelaide, and it has its grubby fingers in lots of pies. KBR has reported positively to the federal government on the nuclear dump plans for South Australia. KBR was heavily involved in the building of the Alice Springs to Darwin railway, and remains a major shareholder. And we now know that the US government wants to build a so-called training base, most likely in the Northern Territory.
Halliburton's contracts in Iraq are worth three times those of its next biggest rival, the Bechtel Corporation — Halliburton made A$6.4 billion from such contracts last year, its most profitable year to date.
Iraq. It is also heavily involved with oil and gas infrastructure work via contracts with some of the world's most repressive military and autocratic regimes — such as Burma, Kazakhstan, Colombia and Nigeria. Halliburton is far from unique — but it is one of the best (or worst!) examples of what the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the whole "war on terror" is really about.
[Stephen Darley is an activist in the NOWAR coalition, which is planning to protest outside KBRs offices. Check the activist calender for details, when decided.This is abridged from a speech given to a June 28 "Troops out" rally.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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