War & Disaster Profiteering

Efforts to rebuild water, electricity and health networks in Iraq are being shortchanged by higher-than-expected costs to provide security and by generous financial awards to contractors, according to a series of reports by government investigators. Read More

The U.S. Department of Defense is developing regulations to deal with the more than 60 private security companies -- totaling about 25,000 employees -- working throughout Iraq as the country struggles to rebuild itself during a time of war. Read More

With little experience, a tiny company owned by Sunnye Sims was asked to help set up and run screener assessment centers in a hurry at more than 150 hotels and other facilities. Her company eventually billed $24 million. Read More

Stuart Bowen finds poor controls and waste in reconstruction. Read More

Our soldiers are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries. But like those Hessians, today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits - a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify. Read More

Mazin al Nashi's worries escalated when he learned that the fledgling Iraqi insurgency had put a $250,000 bounty on the heads of interpreters. He had never received any body armor from Titan. Read More

A growing number of civilian employees of U.S. companies contracting with the military have come home wounded - both physically and psychologically - by their on-the-job experiences in Iraq. Read More

Privacy advocates and anti-war campaigners in the US are outraged at revelations that the Defense Department and a private contractor have been building an extensive database of 30 million 16-to-25-year-olds to assist military recruiters. Read More

The lawsuit, the first to be brought against a foreign company since Saddam Hussein was removed from power in 2003, threatens to discourage other investors from spending money in Iraq, further slowing reconstruction efforts since the war. Read More

An ultra-secretive network rules independent oil trading. Its mentor: Marc Rich Read More