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War & Disaster Profiteering

CorpWatch looks at the intertwined relationship between private industry, the US Armed Forces and federal policy makers. We look at the domestic and foreign impacts of this dangerous complex.


News Articles

AFGHANISTAN: Paying Off the Warlords, Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption
by Pratap ChatterjeeTomDispatch.com
November 17th, 2009
Among the dozens of businesses with lucrative Afghan and U.S. taxpayer-financed reconstruction deals are two extremely well connected companies -- Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid -- that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country's new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim.

FRANCE: France jails 'Angolagate' power players
by Pascale JuilliardThe Times Online (South Africa)
October 27th, 2009
A French court slapped jail terms Tuesday on the main players in a network that smuggled arms to war-torn Angola and included an ex-minister and the son of the late president Francois Mitterrand.

US: Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows
by Thom ShankerNew York Times
September 6th, 2009
Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.

AFGHANISTAN: Wackenhut aids inquiry into its Afghanistan contractor
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/03/afghanistan.contractors/
September 3rd, 2009
This week the Project on Government Oversight released damning allegations of deviant hazing at a camp for security guards in Afghanistan. Sparking questions from the State Department, POGO warned the problems are "posing a significant threat to the security of the embassy and its personnel."

AFGHANISTAN: Wackenhut aids inquiry into its Afghanistan contractor
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/03/afghanistan.contractors/
September 3rd, 2009
This week the Project on Government Oversight released damning allegations of deviant hazing at a camp for security guards in Afghanistan. Sparking questions from the State Department, POGO warned the problems are "posing a significant threat to the security of the embassy and its personnel."


CorpWatch Blog

CorpWatch Bribery Report Helps Spark Dutch Inquiry
by Anton Foek
August 20th, 2009

Hemispheric Conference against Militarization Says No to Merida Initiative, U.S. Military Bases
by Laura CarlsenAmericas Policy Program, Center for International Policy
December 30th, 2008

Military contractor’s 747 crashes just before Memorial day
by Pratap Chatterjee
May 25th, 2008
A Kalitta Air plane en route to Bahrain in the Middle East has crashed. The Michigan based company has been linked to the CIA rendition program. It is also the main contractor that flies home bodies of U.S. soldiers after they are killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

KBR Questioned on Labor Abuses in Iraq
by Pratap Chatterjee
May 7th, 2008
Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), the former subsidiary of Halliburton, announced today that it was buying Alabama-based BE&K for $500 million.

An Afternoon with L-3 Communications/Titan
by Tonya Hennessey
April 30th, 2008


CorpWatch Exclusives

Black & Veatch's Tarakhil Power Plant: White Elephant in Kabul
by Pratap ChatterjeeSpecial to CorpWatch
November 19th, 2009
In a secluded valley a few miles from Kabul's international airport, $285 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars have flowed into a Black & Veatch-built power plant outside Tarakhil village. But, far from the public relations coup the project was intended to supply, the plant has run into problems with planning, cost over-runs and alleged corruption.

Spies for Hire: New Online Database of U.S. Intelligence Contractors
by Tim ShorrockSpecial to CorpWatch
November 16th, 2009
CorpWatch joins with Tim Shorrock today, the first journalist to blow the whistle on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, in releasing Spies for Hire.org, a groundbreaking database focusing on the dozens of corporations that provide classified intelligence services to the United States government.

Uranium Corporation of India Limited: Wasting Away Tribal Lands
by Moushumi BasuSpecial to CorpWatch
October 7th, 2009
In Eastern India's Jharkand State, tensions are mounting between Indigenous tribal communities and the Uranium Corporation of India Limited, or UCIL. Heavy security at a May public hearing in Jadugoda prevented many local activists and villagers from entering. But outside the hearing, activists from the Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation (JOAR) argued their case for protecting their health and the environment from horrific impacts of radioactive contaminated waste resulting from uranium mining.

Mission Essential, Translators Expendable
by Pratap ChatterjeeSpecial to CorpWatch
August 11th, 2009
Ohio-based Mission Essential Personnel supplies over 2,000 translators to the Pentagon in Afghanistan, who play a critical role in protecting local and military lives. These interpreters are a key communications link. But if they are wounded or killed, they are often left to fend for themselves. This special features video of CorpWatch interviews with three Afghan whistleblowers, recorded in country in April. Click through to hear their story.

Is Halliburton Forgiven and Forgotten? Or How to Stay Out of Sight While Profiting From the War in Iraq
by Pratap ChatterjeeTomDispatch.com
June 3rd, 2009
At Halliburton's recent annual shareholders meeting in Houston, all was remarkably staid as the company celebrated its $4 billion in 2008 operating profits, a striking 22% return at a time when many companies are announcing record losses. Just three months ago, however, Halliburton didn't hesitate to pay $382 million in fines to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the settlement of a controversial KBR gas project in Nigeria in which the company admitted to paying a $180 million bribe to government officials.


Commentary & Analysis

The Road From K Street to Yusufiya
by Frank RichThe New York Times
June 26th, 2006
The Bush brand of competitive sourcing, with its get-rich-quick schemes and do-little jobs for administration pals, spread like a cancer throughout the executive branch. It explains why tens of thousands of displaced victims of Katrina are still living in trailer shantytowns all these months later. It explains why New York City and Washington just lost 40 percent of their counterterrorism funds. It helps explain why American troops are more likely to be slaughtered than greeted with flowers more than three years after the American invasion of Iraq.

US: GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton
by Bob GeigerAlterNet
June 20th, 2006
I suppose it's old news at this point that the Bush administration lied us into the Iraq war and that the cost of this mess will be fully realized by the next generation when Bush leaves office with the biggest budget deficit in U.S. history.

KATRINA: Sunlight needed on sub-contractor records
by John HillThe Shreveport Times
January 15th, 2006
Louisiana state law makes public all contracts between state agencies and the primary contractor, but subcontracts are off limits to public scrutiny.

US: Corporations, The National Security Agency and Their "Customers"
by Bill WillersCommon Dreams
January 12th, 2006

USA: A WorldCom of Trouble
by Molly IvinsAlterNet
June 20th, 2003
My, my, my, the great Iraqi Gold Rush is on, and who should be there at the front of the line, right along with Halliburton and Bechtel, but our old friends at WorldCom, perpetrators of the largest accounting fraud in American history.