COMMENTARY: Profiteers Bursting Out All Over Iraq
By Joseph J. Honick
In several articles on these pages, I made the point that, not only
have Americans and their NATO taxpaying allies paid with lives and
money in Iraq, but that those we saved and helped would not cough up a
dime.
And so it has come to pass.
We now learn what we really should have known about the oil boom coming that would make Iraq second only to Saudi Arabia. And who would be on the profit end of all this?
Why, surprise, surprise … none other than the likes of oil barons like Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum, according to Kiplinger News as being among those who would help develop Iraq’s rich oil fields. Others include Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, Statoil to mention a few.
But those are just the tip of a mountain of money to be made off the bloodshed by tens of thousands of American and allied military and Iraqi civilians. In addition to all these oil field boons, there are familiar names like KBR, Halliburton and others to provide engineering, exploration, drilling, equipment and oilfield services.
Nowhere in the announcements pouring out of Iraq is there any mention of the slightest payback to the NATO nations who sent their men and women to do the dirty work. Nowhere is there a mention of even the slightest contribution from the Royal Saudis whose 400 mile border with Iraq we have been defending for nearly nine years.
And it is understandable there are no such offers. Simple reason is that neither the Bush/Cheney bunch nor the current administration even suggested it would be a good idea, with the Obama group working hard to make nice, nice to the Arabs.
You may recall I wrote recently that Afghanistan is a lovely war for profiteering contractors and cited just the top of the pile of billions they are making, many off of non-compete contracts. The larger sum of those goodies will soon be totaled up more publicly. For now, we finally get a closer look at the rewards the big boys are reaping in Iraq with absolutely no return for the American, British and other nations’ taxpayers who have served up these great deals.
How big is this new deal in Iraq? According to available data that may not measure the whole picture, there are 74 identified oil fields though only 15 have been developed so far, according to energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, as noted by Kiplinger’s Jim Ostroff on March 10.
It is only mildly amusing but certainly ironic that many of those supporting the trillion plus going into these campaigns are also fighting any efforts to update health care for Americans arguing against the expense.
As for the Saudis, a recent blog here noted they are the biggest deadbeats in this whole affair while claiming to be our warm ally. But they sure spent big on PR, more than $14 million in just six months to overcome the fact that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers hailed from that country and to ward off a trillion dollar lawsuit brought by 9/11 victims’ families.
Despite these realities and many more we have reviewed, the silence of the media lambs and high level government types from NATO nations and especially the United States has been both puzzling and deafening.
It should not be lost on Americans as well that a major PR/Communications Summit just recently attracted some pretty heavy media hitters to, of all places, Abu Dhabi, that no doubt presages a new round of vastly expensive PR investments.
Among the questions that will remain because few want to ask them are:
1. What was our mission in Iraq that benefited America?
2. Why has not one American politician demanded some financial repayment from the oil wealth now available?
3. Who will guarantee the peace, or its imitation, that resulted and at what cost to us?
4. What programs will these new profiteers and the Saudis, among others, create to do something for the NATO men and women deployed and redeployed over and over during this fracas?
5. Where are all the hot rod media commentators on these urgent important issues?
Does anyone reading this remember President Eisenhower’s impassioned warning about the “military-industrial complex”? Just asking … and wondering why others are not.
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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications, including huntingtonnews.net. Honick can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com He wrote about Martin Luther King in January. This commentary was previously published in O'Dwyer's PR Report and is reprinted by permission.