The Norman Transcript
February 1, 2012

NORMAN — Editor, The Transcript:

The commentary “Avoiding a catastrophic war with Iran” published in the Norman Transcript on Jan. 21 made a worrisome observation: “Another war would destroy America’s painful recovery from the indebtedness of two wars and the 2008 economic crash.”

But, actually, another war would be economic suicide only for some of us.

The arms industry and defense contractors — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrope Grumman, et.al., will, of course, make out like bandits. Since starting the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, private corporations such as Halliburton, Blackwater, Titan, KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) have made a killing in Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan. The so-called War on Terror has become the largest war profiteering racket in history.

The Department of Justice is investigating more than 900 cases of alleged fraud by contractors, while our Defense Contract Audit Agency is withholding $289 million billed by KBR and is asking for the return of $121 million already paid.

This is barely the tip of the iceberg, as in 2010 the Department of Justice filed a civil fraud case against KBR for unauthorized billing estimated to amount to about $100 million.

KBR is reported to have collected $32 billion in Iraq-related war profits from 2003 to 2009 alone. In spite of these findings and the electrocution, contaminated water and other scandals, KBR is still receiving military contracts.

Another war will undoubtedly continue the shameless profiteering. But Big Oil corporations aren’t the only ones who benefited from the misery of the Iraq war. China, who gets almost half of their oil from the Middle East, has acquired five lucrative Iraqi oil deals and long-term mining contracts all over Afghanistan while our troops provide security. And Iran is China’s third largest supplier of oil, following Angola and Saudi Arabia.

In the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists, professor Hymans at USC calls out the fear-mongers with a few facts and some history. Read the statement “Crying wolf about an Iranian nuclear bomb” at thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/crying-wolf-about-iranian-nuclear-bomb: “In fact, those assessments are extreme, worst-case scenarios that invite a replay of the tragic pre-emptive war that the United States launched against Iraq’s phantom nuclear program in 2003.”

MARY FRANCIS

Norman