Two Hearings, One Reality
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Friday 11 May 2007
The fur was most definitely flying in Washington, DC yesterday. Newspaper reports
revealed a White House meeting between several GOP House members and Mr. Bush.
Those congressmen, according to the stories, read the riot act to Bush regarding
the situation in Iraq, and further warned him that the Republican support he
has enjoyed to date will fall to dust if progress isn't made soon. Several reporters
and pundits were reminded, by this, of that "Long Walk" to the Nixon
White House taken by GOP senators seeking his resignation.
The main event on Thursday, however, was a House Judiciary oversight hearing
chaired by Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) and starring Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales. The hearing was a reprise of the Senate Judiciary grilling
Gonzales endured back in April, during which he deployed dozens of "I don't
recall" replies to his questioners and essentially debased the entire concept
of public testimony itself.
Thursday's hearing wasn't much different. Despite the best efforts of Conyers
and his fellow committee members, the hearing became, for the most part, another
empty exercise. House member after House member attempted to pin Gonzales down
on some basic details surrounding the firing of several US attorneys, but had
little success in the endeavor. "You can answer these questions in three
sentences," Chairman Conyers noted at one point, but to no avail. The "I
don't recall" answers from Gonzales were so thickly applied once again
that, by mid-afternoon, most of the committee members began to preface their
questions with, "You may not be able to answer this, but ..." More
often than not, they were correct in that assumption.
Another hearing took place on Capitol Hill yesterday that was truly chilling
to observe. Representative John Murtha's (D-Pennsylvania) Subcommittee on Appropriations
heard testimony from two investigators whose work has been focused on the phenomenon
of private military contractors in Iraq. The first to give testimony was Jeremy
Scahill, author of "Blackwater: Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary
Army." The second witness was Robert Greenwald, a documentary filmmaker
who recently released a new film titled "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers."
Both men painted a stark picture of reality in Iraq. According to Scahill,
there are tens of thousands of private military contractors - a kind euphemism
for mercenaries - operating today in Iraq. They are paid with American tax revenues
to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while operating with virtually
no oversight and free from the strictures of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Dozens of acts of brutality and murder reportedly committed by these contractors
have been alleged, but almost no contractor has been punished, sanctioned or
even investigated for these acts. Because the Iraqi population does not make
the distinction between American soldiers and these private contractors, the
questionable activities of these contractors are blamed on US troops, further
fanning the flames of outrage and vengeance.
Even more disturbing was the testimony offered by Greenwald. Some excerpts:
I remember clearly my interview with Stewart Scott, a former Halliburton employee.
With pain and rage in his voice, he asked how dare Halliburton put its people
up at five-star hotels while the soldiers, who he was there to help, were sleeping
on the ground. I did not believe him at first, but then he began naming the
hotels and the locations. It was all true.
I also spoke with Shane Ratliff, a truck driver from Ruby, South Carolina.
He saw Halliburton advertising a job for truck drivers in Iraq and he signed
up. When Shane started telling me that empty trucks were being driven across
dangerous stretches of desert, I assumed he was mistaken. Why would they do
that? Then he explained that Halliburton got paid for the number of trips they
took, regardless of whether they were carrying anything. These unnecessary trips
where putting the lives of truckers at risk, exposing drivers and co-workers
to attack. This was the result of cost-plus, no-bid contracts.
Another young Halliburton worker named James Logsdon told me about the burn
pits. Burn pits are large dumps near military stations where they would burn
equipment, trucks, trash, etc. If they ordered the wrong item, they'd throw
it in the burn pit. If a tire blew on a piece of equipment, they'd throw the
whole thing into the burn pit. The burn pits had so much equipment they even
gave them a nickname: "Home Depot."
The trucker said he would get us some photos. And I naively asked, how big
are they, the size of a backyard swimming pool? He laughed and referred to one
that he had seen that was 15 football fields large and burned around the clock!
It infuriated him to have to burn stuff rather then give it to the Iraqis or
to the military. Yet Halliburton was being rewarded each time they billed the
government for a new truck or new piece of equipment. With a cost-plus contract,
the contractors receive a percentage of the money they spend. As Shane told
me, "It's a legal way of stealing from the government or the taxpayers'
money." These costs eat up the money that could be used for other supplies.
Cost-plus, no-bid contracts are hopelessly undermining our efforts and costing
the taxpayers billions. They do not operate within a free-market system and
have no competition, but instead create a Stalinist system of rewarding cronies.
In a letter from Sgt. Jon Lacore talking about the enormous amount of waste,
he said, "I just can't believe that no one at all is going to jail for
this or even being fired or forced to resign."
The information put forth in this second hearing is placed in better context
when held up to the debate over the supplemental Iraq war funding bill recently
vetoed by Mr. Bush, who, along with his allies, have accused the Democrats of
abandoning the troops during war by playing politics with the funding for their
operations. One is forced to wonder, however, how much of the funding already
allocated was frivolously wasted by profiteering military contractors who burn
perfectly serviceable vehicles and make fake supply runs, all to cash in on
the endless river of money flowing into the Iraqi sand.
Dina Rasor, author of the recently released book "Betraying Our Troops:
The Destructive Results of Privatizing War," offered further insight into
the private contractor phenomenon in a Huffington Post story on Wednesday. "There
is also evidence that these contractor billings are sucking up the supplemental
money and making other logistical areas suffer," wrote Rasor. "The
supplemental money is flexible so that the Army can use it where they need it,
but there is evidence that the contractor over-billings are taking away much
needed money for replacing basic fighting equipment such as night vision goggles,
workable radios and armored vehicles. The most common email that I get from
Iraq makes the point that while troops can get luxury items at the large bases,
such as soft-serve ice cream and plasma televisions, they can't get enough equipment
needed to save their lives when they leave the cushy bases and go out into hostile
areas. There is real resentment among the troops that KBR makes life very nice for the military brass and others at the base, but
will not go out of the gate, as required, to make sure that they have the basics
that they need."
Beyond this is one central point hammered home by Scahill and Greenwald: How
can we justify the usage of private armies that profit from this war, and thus
have a financial interest in continuing and expanding this war? Is this not
a recipe for endless conflict and bottomless profiteering?
Two hearings took place on Thursday, both of which served to reveal one absolute
and unavoidable reality: Oversight of and investigations into the activities
of the Bush administration, especially regarding Iraq, could not have come soon
enough. It was a day of many questions, a few answers, and plenty of truth for
all to see.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.
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