War & Disaster Profiteering

Warren Langley, former President of the Pacific Stock Exchange, talks with CorpWatch about his sojourn from the executive suites to activism in the streets. Read More

Bush administration officials have been clear in saying that as the war winds down and they begin their campaign to bring political reform to Iraq and the Middle East, a critical step will be opening the region's markets to trade and investment. Read More

Fifteen activists bound together by a mixture of roofing tar, chicken wire and nails wrapped around PVC piping were arrested Tuesday after trying to block the entrance to General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products Co. Read More

Well the war has been a huge success, and I guess it's time for congratulations all round. And wow! It's hard to know where to begin. First, I'd like to congratulate Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) and the Bechtel Corporation, which are the construction companies most likely to benefit from the reconstruction of Iraq. Contracts in the region of $1 billion should soon coming your way, chaps. Well done! And what with the US dropping 15,000 precision-guided munitions, 7,500 unguided bombs and 750 cruise missiles on Iraq so far and with more to come, there's going to be a lot of reconstruction. It looks like it could be a bonanza year. Read More

An Anglo-Iraqi billionaire who has close links to the Blair government, built his financial empire on peddling his influence with Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. Read More

Private Jessica Lynch is a hero, the kind who in her hopefully long life will never escape her youthful fame. The baby-faced 19-year-old fought off Iraqis in an ambush, endured broken bones, gunshot and stab wounds, and went eight days without food. This movie played in real time has all the elements that make fast-paced war flicks like "Behind Enemy Lines" box office magic. Her face, frozen with what must have been shock, pain and relief during her rescue, is already one of the most haunting images of the war. Read More

When the dust finally settles on post-war Iraq, the United States may have unleashed virtually all of its state-of-the-art weaponry on a country already devastated by 13 years of rigid U.N. sanctions. Read More

Even before winning the war, the United States appears intent on managing the peace and the costly reconstruction on its own. This opens Washington to criticism that the conflict is partially about profiteering, rather than simply the removal of a vile dictator and the introduction of some stability to a volatile region. Read More

The subtleties surrounding the sensitive role oil plays in the Iraqi war may have eluded the United States Army. Deep in some newspaper coverage yesterday was a report that the 101st Airborne Division had named one central Iraq outpost Forward Operating Base Shell and another Forward Operating Base Exxon. Read More

Anti-war demonstrators are turning away from the widespread protests that disrupted San Francisco last week and are instead using smaller actions focusing on the government and businesses that contribute to the U.S. war effort, activists said Monday. Read More