War & Disaster Profiteering

The U.S. Government has defended its decision to award a £293 million Iraq Security contract to British mercenary Tim Spicer, in reponse to concerns raised by the family of Belfast man Peter McBride, who was shot dead by Scots Guards soldiers under Spicer's command in 1992. Read More

Federal authorities in New York today charged David B. Chalmers, a Houston oil trader, and his company, Bayoil, with making millions of dollars in illegal kickback payments to Iraq while trading oil under the program. Separate charges were brought against Tongsun Park, a South Korean businessman who figured in a Washington influence-peddling scandal some 30 years ago, accusing him of acting as an unregistered agent for Iraq in behind-the-scenes negotiations in the United States to set up and administer the program. Read More

The Defense Department is unable to track how it spent tens of millions of dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the U.S. war on terrorism, Congress's top investigator said. While there was no doubt that appropriated funds were spent, "trying to figure out what they were spent on is like pulling teeth," he said, referring to an accounting effort that is under way for Congress. Read More

Pentagon auditors have questioned $212.3 million of $1.69 billion that a Halliburton subsidiary charged the government over the past few years, mostly for importing fuel to Iraq under a no-bid contract. Halliburton spokeswoman Beverly Scippa said in an e-mail that the questioning by auditors "is all part of the normal contracting process." Read More

In the thick of the reconstruction effort, American Energy Association's representative Charles Ebinger proposed, Afghanistan should jack up power tariff with a view to speeding up the revival of its economy hit by decades of war. Read More

Many of the 800 U.S. military advisors in Colombia are assigned to Arauca where California-based Occidental Petroleum in a joint partnership with the Colombia state company Ecopetrol runs the main oilfield. Occidental lobbied heavily for this project, which marks a departure from the erstwhile U.S. policy of only assisting ostensible narcotics enforcement operations in Colombia. Read More

Iraqi officials have crippled scores of water, sewage and electrical plants refurbished with U.S. funds by failing to maintain and operate them properly, wasting millions of American taxpayer dollars in the process, according to interviews and documents. Read More

The lawsuit charges that Halliburton, Tim Bell's employer, concealed the dangers of working in Iraq, failed to protect him once there, and maliciously sent him and other convoy drivers into a known combat zone on April 9, 2004. Read More

An attorney for the family of a Alabama contractor who disappeared in Iraq during an attack on a convoy a year ago has filed suit in Texas against Halliburton Co., accusing the firm of concealing the dangers of the job from the missing man. Read More

The State Department has ordered a major reevaluation of the troubled $18.4-billion Iraq reconstruction effort. The adjustment, the third such funding change in nine months, is the latest sign of disarray in the effort to help quell the insurgency by improving living standards and providing jobs for Iraqis. Read More