David Waldman, while on CNN, made several references to contractors.
one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors
NYTimes 8/11/08
Employees of two high-profile defense contractors are accused of involvement or knowledge of close to one-third of the torture and abuse incidents cited in a recent Army investigation of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
~snip~
"This is torture for profit," he claims. "The government is there is to promote 'democracy' while companies have two competing masters - shareholders and the government - and they are there for profit."
corpwatch.org Sept 15, 2004
More evidence below the fold
So, how do you grow an economy based on financial smoke and mirrors with decreasing real wages and tax cuts only for the rich? You invade a country of course! Privatize it's state industries, auction it off at a tenth it's value, cut state spending and taxes, encourage industry to invest, and let your buddies like Halliburton, KBR and others charge you ten times what they should with cost-plus no bid contracts for stuff our soldiers used to do professionally. Adding insult to injury, instead of buying the best armor we could for every soldier in the FOB, we hired a contractor who called a guy who called a guy who hired a subcontractor to build half a country for maximum profit.
The heavy reliance on private contractors to do everything from serving meals and doing laundry to protecting oil pipelines and interrogating prisoners has been a major factor in the immense costs of the Iraq war. By one measure, there may be more employees of private firms and their subcontractors on the ground in Iraq than there are U.S. military personnel.
One of the main rationales for using private companies to carry out functions formerly done by uniformed military personnel – a practice that has been on the rise since then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney commissioned a study that led to the contracting out of all Army logistics work to Halliburton in the 1990s – was that it would save money. But in Iraq, the combination of greedy contractors and lax government oversight has resulted in exorbitant costs, many of them for projects that were never completed.
globalpolicy.org
Forgotten in the torture debate ( as if this even requires debate ) is the fact that the USA, under the Bush/Cheney Junta, gave no-bid contracts to Corporations that assisted in many levels of the torture program that was initiated under the guidance of high level Bush/Cheney officials.
Why pay US soldiers to do what the private sector can do for a profit?
Why would someone participate in torture for a living? Well, it pays well, of course!
As Jane Mayer reported in her aptly titled New Yorker article, "Outsourcing: The CIA's Travel Agent," a former Jeppesen employee quoted a senior Jeppesen executive as saying: "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights – you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way." He also said, according to the article: "It certainly pays well. They" – referring to the CIA – "spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs."
aclu.org 5/30/2007
Where were we sending these "Enemy-Combatants" to?
The most common destinations for rendered suspects are Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan, all of which have been cited for human-rights violations by the State Department, and are known to torture suspects. To justify sending detainees to these countries, the Administration appears to be relying on a very fine reading of an imprecise clause in the United Nations Convention Against Torture (which the U.S. ratified in 1994), requiring "substantial grounds for believing" that a detainee will be tortured abroad.
newyorker.com Outsourcing Torture by Jane Mayer
In my opinion, sending anyone to prison in Egypt or Syria or so is the same thing as sending those prisoners to their deaths.
The article quoted above by Jane Mayer is the best source I have found so far in researching this diary. I would suggest anybody who is interested in learning about the Bush/Cheney outsourcing of war crimes for profit and to countries that repeatedly violate Human Rights and international law should read the entire article.
And who made the biggest profits?
Friends of the Bush/Cheney Administration, of course!
So, ask yourself a few questions about our nations current state of affairs.
What caused these huge deficits?
What lead to our failing infrastructure?
Why is the Taliban still thriving in the far east?
Why was it necessary to commit war crimes?
Why was it necessary to roll back civil and Constitutional rights?
Where did these fiscal conservatives put all our tax money?
And what was the goal of the Bush/Cheney Administration from day one?
ANSWER to All of The Above: INVADE IRAQ!
So, just to update the memo -
We tortured (War Crime) to get evidence (that was wrong) that links Iraq to Al-Qaeda (no link) and prevent WMD's (which were not there) from falling into our enemies hands(wrong country) so we could hand out no bid contracts at cost plus to the friends of the Bush/Cheney Administration.