Big Bucks from Iraqui Conflict

One of the things that outrages me as much as anything else is how Bush and Cheney are profiting financially by the fiasco in Iraq. I refer, of course, to Cheney’s connection with the Halliburton conglomerate.

Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before he left to become our VP. By sheer coincidence, I’m sure, Kellog, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, was given a multi-year contract to provide support services for our military in the Mid East. This contract is worth one billion dollars. Halliburton and its subsidiaries are also in the running to for USAID contracts to rebuild Iraq to the tune anywhere from $30 billion to $105 billion dollars. This is American taxpayer money going to a foreign nation, and the recipient is a company with close ties to the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Bush administration is putting thousands of Americans out on the streets in order to cut $200 million from housing assistance for the elderly and the disabled. $105 BILLION in taxpayer dollars to Iraq while our own people are thrown to the wolves, and the cronies of the current administration get skim the profits?

As further proof of Halliburton’s close ties with the Bush administration, a week after the scandal broke involving photos of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, KBR pulled the plug on our soldiers’ private electronic communications with the folks back home. Wouldn’t want to take the chance on any more politically damaging pictures or reports getting out, now would we? Members of the military can still write letters home, a process which takes 14 days for the letter to arrive. As the daughter of of a soldier who served in the Vietnam conflict, I can tell you what hell that 10 -14 day delay causes in the minds of people back home wondering if their loved one is still OK.

If ever their was an example of our government being taking over by big business, Halliburton and KBR has got to be one of the most glaring ones around.

(edited for: ok, forget it already. If you want to discuss Composition 101, start a thread of your own)