How Much Are You Making on the War, Daddy?: A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the Bush Administration

The central question posed by William Hartung is this-Are we as a democracy prepared to deal with the threat implied by the dangerous gathering of corporate,military,and governmental power in a small circle or group?"Why didn't we realize that George W. Bush was a radical,right-wing,neo-conservative 'wolf' dressed up in compassionate conservative 'sheep's' clothing?" is a question on page 4 that I have found myself pondering. I call it voter's remorse.Some issues that the author addresses quite well in the book are:-The identity of the "Vulcans", what their task was, areas of experience, how they got their nickname, and who chose and assembled them.-The farcical process by which Cheney basically selected himself as vice president.-The delusional exaggerations that have been Rumsfeld's trademarks throughout his career and his ties to various companies as an expensive lobbyist.-Rumsfeld's connection to Saddam Hussein in the 80's and his "nuclear" connections with North Korea.-The Carlyle Group and it's infamous crony connections.-The many fiascoes of John Bolton.-How think tanks are biased by means of financial support.-The neoconservative think tanks membership and how they set policies in Dubya's administration.-The identity of the warhawks that schemed up the policy of "preventive war".-The abuse of his position as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board by Richard Perle in solicting funds for his company-Trireme. Which coincidentally, was incorporated in November of 2001 in time to benefit from the foreseen military/security spending boom.Mr. Hartung references a Seymour Hersh report of Perle's unethical pursuit of funding.He quotes Paul Krugman on Bush's policy-"leave no defense contractor behind".The author has Chapter notes at the end of each chapter which cite sources."How Much Are You Making on the War Daddy?" is an excellent expose' on the profiteers of the current wars and the people that actually make the policies of the current president.

The author points out how Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense in 1976, was a prime mover behind the CIA's infamous Team B. That panel forced acceptance of its "findings' that the Soviet Union was rapidly overtaking the United States in military power. The author notes that the Soviet archives reveal that even the supposedly too low original estimate of the CIA was vastly exaggerated. .Rumsfeld of course, played a key role in the late 90's arms industry funded movement to portray North Korea as able to quickly develop missles to hit the U.S. These frauds avoided addressing the issue of whether North Korea would really build up some missiles, then just haul off and launch them at the United States, knowing full well North Korea would be wiped off the planet in retaliation. Rumsfeld, he observes, played a role in opening the funnel of American arms and WMD materials to Saddam in his visits with Saddam in 1983-84.He shows how Rumsfeld might have alerted Carlyle Group CEO Frank Carlucci about the planned cancellation of one of it's subsidiary's programs to build the Crusader artillery system. Several months before the cancellation, Carlyle suddenly put the subsidiary on the stock market so that it might draw in shareholders and took out a huge loan based on the inflation of the value of the subsidiary and distributed it to shareholders and execs. Carlyle is of course the group which George Bush Sr. advises and whose executive James Baker and his law firm are representing the Saudi royal family against the families of 9-11 victims.Rumsfeld was on the board of the Swiss engineering firm ABB for years.. That firm made the contract to oversee the construction of North Korea's two light water nuclear reactors. North Korea of course is one of the reasons we have to spend 400 billion on defense according to people like Rumsfeld who of course advocates that the reactor deal shouldn't have been made. . Rumsfeld claimed ludicrously to know nothing about the deal. Of all the ABB board members, all but one, who insisted on anonymity refused to talk to a Fortune magazine reporter about Rumsfeld and this deal. Rumsfeld is obviously very feared, the author notes.He discusses the deal that had the Pentagon be leased a hundred Boeing commercial aircraft to be transformed into aerial refueling tankers. And it seems from documents released by John McCain's office that Darleen Dryun, Airforce undersecretary, gave Boeing the details of its rival Airbus's bid for the project. Dryun then quit her Pentagon job to become a top official of Boeing's Missile Defense division. The author discusses the none-too subtle campaign contributions made to Senator Ted Stevens, Senate appropriations chair just before this deal was put through.The author notes that Richard Perle, while head of the Defense policy board, used that position to try to lobby some rich Saudis into investing in his new security oriented firm, Trieme. Perle claimed that he wanted to talk about Iraq, but his interlocutor in the deal, Adnan Koshoggi of Iran-Contra fame, only mentioned in his message to the Saudis about investing in Trieme. Then Stephen Laboton of the New York Times revealed that Perle offered his services to the bankrupt telecom firm Global Crossing to influence the U.S. government to allow it to sell one of its firms to China, which is not allowed to receive U.S. high tech resources. Perle advertised himself in his affidavit to Global Crossing as someone with great insider connections because of his post. Perle insisted that this affidavit was a clerical error. He tried to use his influence to allow Loral to resume selling high tech satellite stuff to China. According to Hirsch none of Perle's fellow board members knew of the existence of Trieme and were quite upset about it.Then there's the redoubtable Mr. Cheney and Halliburton. After going through the motions of competitive bidding under public pressure, the army corp of Engineers suddenly accelerated the schedule for work in Iraq's oil infrastructure so that Halliburton would be the best placed firm to do that under the schedule, it already being in Iraq as a result of a no bid contract to put out oil fires. Cheney receives hundreds of thousands in "deferred compensation" from the company. He denied any remaining "ties' with the firm but his spokesperson, accoding to the author, said that the deferred payment technically did not constitute a "tie."The author notes one of the more blatantly questionable appointments in the present administration, former Lockheed Martin executive Everett Beckner being picked to oversee the Nevada Nuclear test site, which Lockheed partly runs. Many Bush officials sit on the board of groups like the Center for Security Policy run by Frank Gafney Jr. Gafney dosen't seem to think his intellectual integrity is compromised by his group being funded by the arms companies who stand to make huge profits with the policies he advocates. The author cites some statistics about the dramatic rise in CEO pay since 9-11. He points out that Lockheed Martin's annual income from government contracts is more than that for the top Federal program for the poor. The Leave No Child Behind Program is being underfunded by 10 billion. About 800 million in taxpayer money was used to subsidize the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta, supposedly to encourage these two firms to consolidate, making them more efficient. This Clinton administration encouraged merging has left a few big firms in control of the arms market and with this oligopoly are in an even better position to easily get expensive contracts from the government. The merging-consolidation has also encouraged defense worker layoffs as this impresses shareholders that the firm is trying to become efficient.

本日（２００４／２／２８）発売の「ブッシュほっかほか本」。著者は世界政策研究所（ＷＰＩ）主宰で軍事経済学専門家ウイリアム・ハートゥング氏。ＷＰＩの調査で、政権内には石油・エネルギー産業関係者２１人に対し、軍需産業との関係者が３２人もいるという。米『ネーション』誌への寄稿で「軍需産業はブッシュ政権にロビー活動をする必要がない。なぜなら、かなりの程度まで彼らは政権そのものだからだ。」と、喝破したという。小泉首相が淡い期待を示す「大量破壊兵器の発見」が無く、侵攻の大義が揺らぐイラク戦争。「公共事業」として常に戦争をビジネス・チャンスに変えてきたアメリカの構造を、「軍・産・官複合体」等と癒着するブッシュ政権の現状を通して暴き出す渾身の一書。

あらすじは他の方々にお任せするとして、米国では新聞は調査報道を売り物にしており、またB. ウッドワードの所謂ブッシュ物等ノンフィクションも人気があります。が、気をつけなくてはいけないのは、ノンフィクション本に書いていることが全て「実話」なのかというと必ずしもそうではないということです。即ち最悪の場合には偏った立場からその主張にあった「事実」だけを拾い上げて話として繋いでいくことも可能だからです。本書がそうだとは思いませんが、仮に「話半分」としても十分リアルで説得力があります。ブッシュ軍団は自分達が真に米国のために働いたのか、それとも繋がりの深い防衛産業と丸儲けを狙ったのかと問われれば「両方ともイエス、と答えるだろう」というくだりは実にアメリカ的でした。蛇足ですが、こうした防衛産業との唖然とするばかりの癒着も、「製薬や不動産業界のロビー活動に比べれば可愛いもの」というワンフレーズが妙に頭から離れません。そちらの方も誰か書いてくれるといいのですが。