Corpwatch, July 6th, 2005

With little fanfare and no public announcement, the U.S. Army quietly awarded $4.972 billion in new work to Halliburton on May 1 to support the United States military occupation of Iraq. www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12487

Dear War Profiteer Supporter,

I’m writing to you following a recent trip to Washington DC and the latest major hearing on Halliburton convened by the Democratic Policy Committee in the US Senate. This is one of the results of our regular articles on the subject (similar to the one above) and the launch of CorpWatch’s successful new book, Iraq Inc. Today I’m hoping you can support CorpWatch’s continued efforts to expose corporate profiteering on the War on Terror.

Indeed CorpWatch’s Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation, published by Seven Stories Press, has been very well received everywhere. Oliver Robinson of the Observer (UK) called it a “damning guide to the web of private companies and hired guns parasitically conjoined to the war on terror,” and Ian Pindar of the Guardian (UK) named it “… comprehensive evidence of dereliction and venality … (t)here’s the raw material here for a Michael Moore film or a collaboration between David Hare and the ghost of Brecht.”

The book has sparked a lot of discussion even in the hallowed halls of United States Congress in Washington, DC. The staff of Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) used Iraq, Inc. as a key source to identify witnesses for a Senate hearing focused on waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq, convened by the Democratic Policy Committee in February. Two of the four speakers: a former senior advisor to the Iraqi Media Network (IMN), the lawyer for two whistleblowers from Custer Battles, a private security company with contracts in Iraq, were invited because of their coverage in CorpWatch.

But the problems of war profiteering have not gone away and we are just as determined to turn up the heat up on Lesar and his government cronies. I’m heartened by the fact that 250 people came out for the 8 am protest at Halliburton’s annual shareholder meeting in Houston this May. Even Halliburton CEO David Lesar approached me at the meeting too say he was following our reports personally!

At CorpWatch, we plan to keep up the pressure on companies like Halliburton in Iraq and the dozens of other war profiteers like Blackwater, Custer Battles and Dyncorp.

We have become an important source for the media: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BBC and our progressive friends at Pacifica and Democracy Now! But that’s not enough – we need to reach even more policy makers as well as the mainstream media.

You can help. We are being inundated by letters from whistle-blowers who want the public to know what is really going on inside the military-industrial complex. Your generous financial contribution will enable our continued investigations of these stories and pulications for activists, the media and the public.

CorpWatch’s newly released 2005 alternative Halliburton annual report, Houston, We Still Have A Problem, is yours as a thank you gift from us for $35 or more. Click on the link below to Donate Now or send a check to CorpWatch. Thanks for your support!

Sincerely, Pratap Chatterjee Director, CorpWatch

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