This video is the film Iraq for sale, by Robert Greenwald from the USA.
By Naomi Spencer:
US: Defense and oil company executives reap windfalls from Iraq war
15 September 2006
Since September 11, 2001, and the Bush administration’s initiation of the “war on terror,” inequality in the US has grown at a rapid rate and to grotesque proportions.
The criminal nature of war on Iraq is reflected in every facet of American life, least surprisingly of all in the enormous fortunes of the ruling elite.
Indeed, the current war, the most privatized in history, is viewed by a wide range of corporate executives and investors as an open-ended outsourcing opportunity.
Congress has appropriated more than $314 billion thus far for the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, largely at the expense of infrastructure, education, and other basic requisites for modern life at home.
The massive government expenditures and cuts in vital social programs that characterize the US war economy, however, far from fostering restraint on the part of big business, have paved the way for shameless price gouging, corporate windfalls, tax cuts, pension-gutting and pay cuts for average workers in the US.
Results of “Executive Excess 2006,” the thirteenth annual chief executive officer compensation survey by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), underscore the fact that the war has benefited a very few to the detriment of the broad mass of the population, both domestically and internationally.
Business Week estimates that in 1980 the ratio of US executive to worker pay was 42-to-1.
IPS found that by 1990 the CEO-worker pay gap had grown to 107-to-1.
In the period following 1990, one dominated by unprecedented deregulation and globalization, executive pay soared while workers’ wages by and large stagnated, generating a pay gap of 411-to-1.
“If the minimum wage had risen at the same pace as CEO pay since 1990,” the report notes, “it would be worth $22.61 today, rather than the actual $5.15.”
Similarly, average worker pay would be more than $108,000 in 2005, rather than $28,314.
After 9/11, pay levels of defense and energy CEOs soared.
According to the IPS, CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors saw their average compensation double, from $3.6 million in 2002 to $7.2 million in 2005.
Since September 11, these 34 executives have pocketed a combined total of nearly a billion dollars, which the IPS estimates would be “enough to cover the entire wage bill for more than a million Iraqis for a year.”
Average defense CEO pay was 308 times the pay received by a deployed US Army private in 2005, $25,000.
George David, CEO of Black Hawk helicopter manufacturer United Technologies, raked in over $200 million between 2002 and 2005, making him the highest paid defense executive.
In 2004, David took in $88.3 million in pay and stock options; last year his pay was $31.9 million, still the top defense executive.
Boeing CEO W. James McNerney Jr. was not far behind in 2005, with $28.4 million.
The sharp rise in executive pay is directly tied to Pentagon budget increases.
Last year alone, government expenditures for military contracts totaled $269 billion.
As the ISP points out, the excessive funds have accelerated “the virtual revolving door between the Pentagon and private contractors.”
Former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, for example, resigned in 2001 to become a lobbyist for the defense industry.
Divestitures in military health care contributed to the enormous profits of managed care company Health Net and the fortunes of its top executives.
CEO Jay Gellert hauled in over $28 million between 2002 and 2005, a 1,134 percent increase in compensation over the four years prior to war.
Gellert is the defense executive posting the biggest pay increase in the IPS survey.
Greenwald on Blackwater: here.
Cheney and Halliburton: here.
British Iraq war fat cats BAE Systems: here.
More Halliburton: here.
Big oil: here.
Australian Wheat Board and Iraq war: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Llumina Press
STRANGE LIBERATORS
Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit
By Gregory Elich
With an introduction by Michael Parenti and an afterword by Mickey Z.
From war and sanctions to corporate plunder and the looming threat of
climate change, the harrowing accounts in Gregory Elich’s Strange
Liberators comprise an essential source for understanding today’s
world. This is U.S. foreign policy as seen by those on the receiving
end.
“Gregory Elich is the model investigative journalist of the anti-imperialist
left; tenacious, thorough, penetrating, meticulous and above all,
uncompromising. On Yugoslavia, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Iraq, no one
digs deeper, and no one uncovers more, than Elich.”
Stephen Gowans, political commentator, What’s Left
“Using a wealth of historic evidence and revelatory analysis, deep research
and eye-witness investigation, Gregory Elich treats what lawyers call the
‘hard cases’: Yugoslavia, Croatia, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and certain
untouched questions about Iraq, issues that have been most thoroughly
misrepresented in the corporate media and even by political commentators
and activists who claim to be on the left. Elich wastes no time with
genuflections to the dominant ideology. Instead he sticks to the awful facts
and glaring truths that compose the underlying reality of the U.S. global
empire. He ties in his deeply informed case studies to the wider issues of
U.S. imperial policy, the broader questions of war and peace, and the
general crisis that faces the entire world and the planet’s ecology itself.
Thereby he performs a most valuable service to persons all across the
political spectrum.”
Michael Parenti, author of The Culture Struggle, The Assassination of Julius
Caesar and To Kill a Nation
“For years, Gregory Elich has made his mark as a journalist-historian who
pairs a special literary flair with a talent for uncovering real time, tightly
held intelligence secrets. In this profoundly ominous time of modern
history, there are precious few contemporary writers who brook no
compromise with the truth. This volume stands tall, and the author is a
special breed.”
Louis Wolf, publisher of Covert Action Quarterly
“Informed Americans know about their government’s interventions into
Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. They know about the
violations of international law, the injustices, the lies, and the harm
caused by these actions. But the case of Yugoslavia tends to draw a blank.
Even worse, it tends to elicit support for this ‘humanitarian’ intervention.
Correcting this gross misunderstanding and distortion of history is one
reason among many for reading this book.”
William Blum, author of Killng Hope and Rogue State
“Gregory Elich offers a clear and vital analysis of the goals of private
interests and their secret collusion with the Bush administration to cover
up a broad range of dangers, from war to global warming. Scholars,
researchers and the lay public interested in US foreign policy will find
this book both vital and illuminating.”
Lenora Foerstel, Vice President of Women for Mutual Security and author of
Confronting the Margaret Mead Legacy
“Gregory Elich has dedicated himself to skillfully unearthing and
disseminating the information that typically goes unsaid. He provides us
with the well-researched fundamentals we cannot and should not expect to get
from our newspapers or televisions. Put another way, Elich teaches us to
identify the ‘gates’ that restrict our freedom of thought.”
Mickey Z, author of The Seven Deadly Spins and 50 American Revolutions
You’re Not Supposed to Know
About the Author:
Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research
Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Korea Truth Commission. His
articles have appeared in newspapers and periodicals across the world,
including the U.S., Canada, South Korea, Great Britain, France, Zimbabwe,
Yugoslavia, Russia, Denmark and Australia.
Publication: Strange Liberators
Author: Gregory Elich
Paperback
ISBN: 1-59526-570-8
Pages: 424
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