Dick Cheney’s savage revisionist history: inside his disturbing campaign to twist the facts of Iraq
"There was an estimated 31-60 billion dollars worth of contractor fraud and waste in Iraq war, and a large part of that came from Halliburton, now known as KBR. As Adam Weinstein reported for Mother Jones, KBR cost “at least $193 million in pay for unnecessary personnel, and maybe as much as $300 million,” which includes $100 million of government-furnished property that cannot be accounted for. KBR has also been blamed for the electrocution and death of 12 soldiers, because of poor wiring jobs at army bases.
In a country where leaders were held accountable, Cheney would currently be in a prison cell. Luckily for the former vice-president, we live in a country where the corrupt revolving door is everywhere and political bribery is the name of the game. Iraq was really a perfect capitalist war, and Cheney was doing what any good capitalist would. This is what many call crony-capitalism — when private industry infiltrates the government (or donates millions to political campaigns) and then uses it to their advantage — but really, it’s just plain old capitalism, and private industry has always been in cahoots with the state to some degree (today more than ever). The Bush administration invaded Iraq with the intent of privatization and ended up making millions for private industry. It’s just like when Wall Street executives from Goldman Sachs or Citibank become financial regulators, bail out big banks and then return to their banks after concluding their honorable duty. If gaining control of the government helps the profit motive, you can be sure private industry will attempt to do it."
