Stop the Merchants of Death

Did you know:

* That the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has 82 preliminary and criminal investigations still open involving a variety of crimes, including bribery/kickbacks (21), theft/larceny (19), contract fraud (17), falsified billing, embezzlement and other alleged crimes?

* That numerous American Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) employees have been charged with crimes related to the pilfering of "Iraqi people's" money? That one CPA official ran off with a wad and bought a cadillac and hot-tub for her home back in New Jersey? That the CPA shipped $12 billion in CASH to Iraq (after being withdrawn out of an Iraqi fund managed by the Federal Reserve), money that was spent "with virtually no financial controls or reliable accounting."

* That a judge tossed out the first civil fraud (False Claims Act) case against Custer Battles based on a technicality, AFTER a jury found the company and its executives guilty?

* That half of the CIA's budget in 2005 (i.e. $20 billion) was used to pay intelligence contractors? And that the GAO has stated it won't conduct oversight of intelligence contracts unless it is specifically tasked to do so by the Congressional intelligence committees, while the National Intelligence Czar can exempt businesses from any SEC reporting requirements?

* That after charging taxpayers over $40 per case of soda and $100 to wash 15-lb bags of laundry, and a total of $250 million in cost reimbursements, profits and bonuses that the Pentagon's own auditors said were unreasonable and unsupported, Halliburton still claims it hasn't made much money off the war?

* That ESSI -- the company closely affiliated with the president's uncle -- was given a sole-source contract as a result of pressures exerted by an Air Force procurement officer who was convicted for helping another contractor?

* That the word "mercenary" has the same root as "merchant"? (a tip of the hat to Lewis Lapham for including this factoid in his great column in this month's Harper's).

There are a lot of astonishing war profiteering facts like these. I managed to include just a few in my story about war profiteering published yesterday on AlterNet.

For those who want more, I would encourage you to start by seeing Robert Greenwald's new film about war profiteering, Iraq for Sale, which opens in theatres this Friday.

(To find out if there's a screening near you, go here. Those in the Bay Area should plan to attend the protest at Bechtel's HQ's, which is being planned for right before screening at the CounterCorp film fest..)

The film and the resources Greenwald's team have compiled on their web site are useful tools to educate people about the problem and what can be done about it. So consider organizing your own screening of the movie, and tell your friends, family and colleagues who won't be able to attend
a screening that they can order a DVD copy.

People will be angry when they see the movie. So it's important they understand that we can do something about the problem.

First: We can demand that Congress establish a permanent investigative committee to investigate war profiteering modeled after Harry Truman's committee in World War II.

Second: We can demand that Congress pass The Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006 (S. 2361), which includes a provision making war profiteering a crime. For information on the bill, go here.

Of course, soon we will have a chance to vote the bums out who have refused to support these pretty modest reforms. To learn who voted for and against the Truman Committee proposal, go here.

There's always more we can do. If you're in the midwest, you might consider attending an upcoming conference on war profiteering being organized in Minnesota with the help of the War Resisters League.