The Iraq War Profiteer No One Is Talking About

What's it going to take for us to hold the Iraq War profiteers accountable? The Bush administration's $3 trillion war in Iraq has been the direct cause of our current recession, and yet private defense contractors continue to reap billions in profits. I'm not even talking about KBR for the moment. That loathsome Cheney-backed Halliburton subsidiary has actually been the focus of a bit of media and Congressional attention recently (though not nearly enough) for contaminating our troops' water supplies, ignoring electrical safety standards that led to troop casualties, and dodging hundreds of millions in tax payments. No, I'm talking about L-3, the second largest employer in the Iraq occupation behind KBR.

L-3 makes about $1 billion a year off of the outsourcing of intelligence gathering in Iraq. The U.S. government hired L-3 to work with the military in interrogating and running background checks on Iraqi prisoners and civilians. L-3 now employs approximately 7,000 translators and 300 intelligence experts in Iraq, and has grown to become the ninth largest defense contractor in the U.S and the sixth largest Iraq war profiteer. While this outsourcing alone is cause for alarm, it is how L-3 runs its company that is particularly egregious.

Not only is L-3 the parent company of Titan -- the company that provided the translators at Abu Ghraib prison -- but they have also suffered more casualties than any other civilian contractor. 280 L-3/Titan employees have already died. According to a new report from CorpWatch, L-3/Titan employees are "dying at a rate that is far greater than that of the U.S. military itself." That is because L-3 employees face daily threats of assassination for collaborating with our military. Even worse, L-3 doesn't provide employees with proper training or medical care.

CorpWatch Managing Editor Pratap Chatterjee claims that L-3 fills positions with unqualified personnel simply to meet their contractual quotas. Of course, these interrogators, analysts, and screeners don't want to lose their jobs, since they are getting paid upwards of $100,000 a year. And so, as ex-Titan translator Marwan Mawiri has said, these translators are willing to say and do whatever it takes to keep their jobs safe. Just watch Chatterjee and Mawiri on Democracy Now, as they explain how L-3 failed to prepare employees as to what to expect in Iraq.

The Abu Ghraib scandal was a direct result of this disgraceful mismanagement, but what was L-3/Titan's response? They covered their own asses by implementing mandatory refresher courses for interrogators: power-point presentations delivered by officers, many of whom have never been interrogators themselves. CorpWatch calls these training sessions nothing more than "window dressing."

Perhaps this will be enough to prevent another scandal of Abu Ghraib's magnitude from leaking to the press, but how many L-3 employees will die before the company is forced to provide adequate training for its employees? How many innocent Iraqis will be victimized and how much will we compromise in terms of national security because our government put L-3 in charge? And how many billions will our government pay L-3 along the way while we should have put reconstruction in the hands of capable Iraqis?

Meanwhile, L-3 met last week to tell its shareholders just how well their company is doing, and how much money they've made.

Comments

[dadw5boys]

Well ZP HELLER has not been reading the Huff long if he think "no one" has been talking about these war profiteers!

We have been screaming about it for several years!

[Novista]

Had a look at SAIC lately?

[ItsNeverOver]

What is ironic is that the Pentagon, for all its rhetoric of supporting our troops and defending our national security, is actually putting the profits reaped from the war by themselves and their cronies above the health, security and success of our troops. A hearing by the Senate Appropriations Committee on war funding waste, fraud and abuse, saw that the lack of accountability and governmental regulation over the services performed in the war effort led to the misplacement of moneys and weapons which ultimately ended up in the hands of insurgents. This compounds the stories of contractor abuse of privelages at the expense of our troops, because, as the contractors deny our troops basic necessities such as water and electricity, their irresponsibility ends up aiding their enemies. I sometimes wonder if the Pentagon even wants to see a victory in Iraq anymore.

Next week, my organization, Progressive Future, will be running a five-part blog series I've been working on called, "Who's Supporting Our Troops?" It shares an extensive interview I conducted with Rachel, a formerly deployed soldier in Iraq who bravely shared her stories of contractor abuse and negligence. Heller is right; what has been missing in the MSM is firsthand reporting of contractor behavior that has been detrimental to the efforts of our troops. Please stay tuned next week for this series on the Progressive Future website: www.progressivefuture.org

[americaforme]

L3 It figures, war profiteering at its best. Where will all these blood suckers live when its over, Daubi. Quit frankly its all about Arab security, they had deversified into financials, then back into fixing oil profits. Bush dosen't play games without much profit. He's laughing all the way to the bank. Do you really think he cares, if we think he's stupid.The new world Order will be Daubi. We have a pres. who's linning his pockets in global security. We hear very little about Daubi, built by US tax payers money. But oil at $122.00 should give us a clue at whats going on. They threw Haliburton under the bus for the continuation of others like L3.

[Sundialsvc4]

The United Nations had something to say about this in 1974, in Resolution 3314 which specifically referred to: "the employment of armed irregulars or mercenaries to carry out acts of aggression." While this resolution is not binding under International law, it is abundantly clear that the US has repeatedly and knowingly violated it.

Wikipedia fans should review the article on "Nuremberg Principles" and related subjects.

And basically ... for us ordinary Americans it's really going to come down to, "exactly how-long and at what cost do we intend to, corporately, put up with this?" General Dwight D. Eisenhower must be spinning in his grave for having warned us so explicitly in January of 1961. (Wikipedia: "Military Industrial Complex" et al.)

I don't think for a split-second that these actions represent the desires of the people of America, nor are they in the best interests either of this nation or of the world. It is true that we did not anticipate that all three Branches of our government could be twisted toward the pursuit of what well may become "World War Episode III: The Return of the Nukes." But, being now faced with that reality, we must swiftly work to make our Constitution once again be more than "a blip-blip piece of paper."

[elbzee]

If US service members were wiring those bathrooms I have to believe it's highly unlikely that any brother/sister in arms would get electrocuted. Nor would they foul their own water. I also doubt that honorable officers would shame our military by violating the Geneva Convention independently. Let's consider the quality of character a mercenary must possess. The level of his/her honor. Many, many years ago, when I was in elementary school, they taught us about the American Revolution. They told us that the Hessian mercenaries were horrible violent criminals who raped and pillaged. I seriously doubt that ours today are that bad, but they lack the restraint of the military. 4 years ago we were spending $122,820 per minute on this war. How much of that was to these contractors? How much could have been saved without outsourcing?

[Oldchef]

Seems to be a republican idea to outsource jobs the government can and should do better and cheaper. Their idea for smaller government involves having corporations do the same jobs for a lot more money than the government could do the job and do it better. Just another way to get deeper into our wallets while enriching their corporate masters.

[jhNY]

Our conduct in Iraq is obviously so disgraceful and disgusting I despair of ever finding out very much in detail about it, as both political parties, as a means of covering up connections and donor interests, and in the name of sparing the American public's tender self-regard from collapse, will bury whatever information they can about our doings there, and 'move forward'. The war in Iraq is a war crime, always has been, always will be, but in this case, nobody's going to trial. Ever.

[knowhelpnow]

The sickness in Iraq is so bad we might as well bring our military home and all the contractors there can do the work for each other. I don't believe that contracting in war time is good at all. It's not good for our military, it is not good for our economy, it is just a way to make some contractors billions of dollars. I think that if the American people knew the whole story and all the damage done by contractors this country would be screaming at there representatives. You can forget about the Administration they don't care, they just want to push around as many countries as possible and have as many wars going on as they can, I really believe they want to bring down the USA and bring in the New World Order. I maybe paranoid but it all smells to me.

[dadw5boys]

The USA seems to be the only country with a cycle of war in it's history!