One Day of Iraqi Occupation = $720 Million

The Iraq war has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of U.S. military personnel. It is also costing $720 Million dollars each day - dollars that could be spent in much more constructive ways.

The privatization of War Inc. in Iraq

The world of warfare in Iraq began to change in the summer of 2003. By early 2004, the ubiquitous white sports utility vehicles used by security contractors like Blackwater, DynCorp and Aegis were a common sight on the streets of Baghdad, and private guards were taking posts outside buildings throughout the Green Zone.

Perhaps most telling, Coalition Provisional Authority director Paul Bremer's own security detail was made up not of U.S. troops but beefy, sunglass-wearing private guards. Bremer later signed an order giving such individuals - and the companies for which they work - immunity from prosecution in Iraq, a rule which was later incorporated into Iraqi law and which critics say has led to egregious injustices and human rights abuses.

Among the late entries into the security game was Triple Canopy, founded by several former U.S. Special Forces members six months after the Iraq invasion. Despite limited experience in the private security arena the company claims to have secured more than $100 million in revenue in its first year of operation. By 2005, Triple Canopy had won a contract worth tens of millions of dollars to provide security services at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

And within months [it was recruiting] in Latin America, enlisting high-ranking military officers to help fill hundreds of security positions. When the civil wars that marked much of the past 30 years in Latin America subsided, many army officers and soldiers who were disbanded didn't have any other opportunities.

Pratap Chatterjee, the author of Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation, writes: "What we're seeing here is the exploitation of poor labor. These companies are simply taking advantage of the market we all live in. This is the way globalization works. You tap into the global poor. The rule is that the lowest wage rules."

[Excerpt of article by Roxana Orellana, Salt Lake Tribune]

Bill Gates Calls for 'Creative Capitalism'

The Washington Post covers Bill Gates’ vision for a new kind of capitalism that would benefit the poor as well as the rich. Microsoft's chairman and co-founder, one of the world's wealthiest people, said business must work with governments and nonprofit groups to stem poverty and spur more technological innovation.

"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well," he told corporate leaders and politicians at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. "I like to call this idea 'creative capitalism.'"

Meanwhile, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made public its intent to donate $306 million to help the small farmers in Africa and other parts of the world. The foundation said that agriculture must be aided in the developing countries because there is where most of the world's poorest people live.

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers,” Bill Gates said.

Early on, Bill and Melinda Gates agreed to focus on a few areas of giving, choosing where to place their money by asking two questions: Which problems affect the most people? And which have been neglected in the past? So while they don't give to the American Cancer Society, they have pumped billions into the world's deadliest diseases - most importantly AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis - and failing public high schools in the U.S.

State of the Union

On Monday, President Bush delivers his seventh -- and mercifully, last -- State of the Union address. If it's going to be anything like the previous six, it will be loaded with misleading rhetoric that's completely detached from reality.

Bill Scher at The Huffington Post presents a video reality-check on Bush’s State of the Union fantasies, a critique on his speech last year:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v4UFxaaq694

Third World Warriors fight U.S. wars - for dollars a day

With U.S. forces stretched thin in Iraq, private security companies have swept in to fill the void. But abuses of third-world security workers abound. And in many cases, those helping to fight our wars can't even cross our borders.

For one year, Mario Urquia guarded the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, protecting American service members and diplomats in one of the most dangerous places in the world. He is just one of thousands of individuals from impoverished nations recruited to help fight a war for the richest country in the world. A special forces soldier in the Honduran Army with nearly 30 years experience, Urquia said he was contacted in the summer of 2005 by a senior officer, who asked him if he would go to Iraq on behalf of the U.S. State Department.

Against salaries of $150,000 a year and more being paid to American contractors, the $15,600 annual salary promised to Urquia in his contract might seem strikingly inequitable. But in the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere the wage seemed a king's ransom to the lanky, stone-faced mechanic, army reservist and father of five children.

The Congressional Research Service has estimated there are 182,000 individuals working under U.S. contracts and subcontracts in Iraq. And a federal Government Accountability Office report last year estimated that more than 48,000 of those individuals are armed. That makes America's private-for-profit security force - U.S. leaders resist the term "mercenary" - the second largest armed group in the dwindling coalition that currently occupies Iraq, well ahead of U.S. ally Great Britain.

It's unclear how many armed contractors come from third-world countries, but federal reports indicate less than a fifth are Americans. he rest are recruited from dozens of other nations, including many places like Honduras, that are not a part of the Bush Administration's so-called "coalition of the willing." And like Honduras, many of the nations from which private security contractors are drawn are steeped in abject poverty. In these places, critics say, billion-dollar American companies can find plenty of people willing to risk their lives for wages as low as $31 a day - and who don't have a voice when things go wrong.

[Excerpt of article by Roxana Orellana, Salt Lake Tribune]

More on Mario Urquia, homeless Iraqi vet

Mario Urquia is presently living on the edge of homelessness in Ogden, Utah - illegal in the nation he once stood to protect.

Urquia said he was given a debit card to access an account where his pay would be deposited. But when he tried to use it to buy food and supplies in Baghdad's Green Zone, it didn't work.

"We all complained, but they said: 'Don't worry, your money will be waiting for you when you return home,' " Urquia said. U.S. soldiers who knew of Urquia's situation would sometimes slip him some cash. Urquia said that money was all he had to spend while in Iraq.

More than a year after he returned, Urquia claims he still hasn't been paid. "Not a single penny," he said.

Arriving at the U.S.-Mexican border last spring, Urquia presented the visa, which was valid through September, expecting to be granted quick passage into Texas. But the world had changed since Urquia last visited the United States. Perhaps wary of the Middle Eastern stamps in Urquia's passport, the immigration officer took out a permanent black marker and voided the visa. Urquia said the officer gave no explanation.

"I said, 'How can you do this? Let me tell you, I went to Iraq for your country,' " Urquia recalled. "And he told me to shut up.'"

"Those who have risked their lives to help out the Americans desperately need a safe haven," said Jen Daskal, an attorney at the nonprofit Human Rights Watch. "Those individuals should be first in line."

[Excerpt of article by Roxana Orellana, Salt Lake Tribune]

George of Arabia

Since taking office, Bush has doubled the federal debt to more than $5 trillion. And, according to US Treasury figures, on net, foreign investors have purchased close to 100% of that debt. That’s $3 trillion borrowed from the Saudis, the Chinese, the Japanese and others.

Now, Bush, the Debt Junkie-in-Chief, needs another fix. George Bush didn’t go to Riyadh to tell the Saudis to cut the price of oil. The US Treasury, Citibank, Merrill-Lynch and other financial desperados need another hand-out from Abdullah’s stash. Abdullah, in turn, gets this financial juice by pumping it out of our pockets at nearly $100 a barrel for his crude.

Bush needs the Saudis to charge us big bucks for oil. The Saudis can’t lend the US Treasury and Citibank hundreds of billions of US dollars unless they first get these US dollars from the US. The high price of oil is, in effect, a tax levied by Bush but collected by the oil industry and the Gulf kingdoms to fund our multi-trillion dollar governmental and private debt-load.

The US Treasury is not alone in its frightening dependency on Arabian loot. America’s private financial institutions are also begging for foreign treasure. King Abdullah’s nephew, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, already the top individual owner of Citibank, joined the Kuwait government’s Investment Authority and others to mainline a $12.5 billion injection of capital into the New York bank. The Abu Dhabi government and the Saudi Olayan Group are taking a $6.6 billion chunk of Merrill-Lynch. So it’s no mere coincidence that Bush is in Abdullah’s tent when the money-changers made the deal just outside it.

Despite the Koranic prohibition on charging interest, the Gulf princes demand their pound of flesh, exacting a 7% payment from Citibank and 9% from Merrill. As the great economist Paddy Chayefsky wrote in the film The Network:

“The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. … It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity…. There are no nations, there are no peoples. There is only one vast and immense, interwoven, multi-national dominion of petro-dollars. … There is no America. There is no ‘democracy.’ The world is a business, one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work.”

[Excerpt from commentary by Greg Palas, author of The Network: The World as a Company Town]

US spent $43.5 billion on intel in 2007

Our tax dollars at work: The U.S. government spent $43.5 billion on intelligence in 2007, according to the first official disclosure under a new law implementing recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission.

Intelligence spending has increased by a third over 10 years ago, in inflation adjusted dollars, according to Steve Kosiak at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

How the money is divided among the 16 intelligence agencies and exactly what it is spent on is classified. It includes salaries for about 100,000 people, multibillion dollar secret satellite programs, aircraft, weapons, electronic sensors, intelligence analysts, spies, computers and software.

Much of the intelligence budget ---about 70 percent---goes to contractors for the procurement of technology and services including analysis, according to a May 2007 chart from the DNI's office.

For comparison, last year's intelligence spending was about half the $91 billion President Bush is proposing to spend over the coming year on the Agriculture Department.

The Dollar and U.S. foreign aid

With the fall of the dollar, among other things, the humanitarian aid dollar will not go as far as it did last year.

Adds Patrick J. Buchanon, “And there is an element of comedy in seeing the United States going to Beijing to borrow dollars, thus putting our children deeper in debt, to send still more foreign aid to African despots who routinely vote the Chinese line at the United Nations. “

Beneath the gloss of The Global Economy

So how is the Global Economy, a modern Orwellian term, paying out?

On the surface, it is synonymous with instant financial trading, mobile phones, McDonald's, Starbucks, and holidays booked on the net.

Beneath this gloss, the touted Global Economy is the globalisation of poverty.

The majority of the world's human beings know trade only in street stalls, many have never even made a phone call, and live on less than two dollars a day so McDonald's and Starbucks is well out of their range. In fact, 6,000 children die every day from diarrhea because they do not even have access to clean water.

Saddam a better provider than the U.S.

The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive.

According to an Oxfam International report released in July this year, "43 percent of Iraqis suffer from absolute poverty," and that according to some estimates over half the population are now without work. "Children are hit the hardest by the decline in living standards.”

Iraq's food rations system was introduced by the Saddam Hussein government in 1991 in response to the UN economic sanctions. Now the U.S.-backed Iraqi government has announced it will halve the allotted basic foodstuffs because of "insufficient funds and spiraling inflation."

IPS highlights the point that the Iraqi government is unable to supply the rations with several billion dollars at its disposal, whereas Saddam Hussein was able to maintain the food program with less than a billion dollars.

Meanwhile the Washington Post reports that the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide “battle against terrorism” stands at nearly $15 billion a MONTH!

No room in the Inn for Iraqi children

The United Nations has called for immediate action to assist about two million Iraqi children affected by poor nutrition, disease and disrupted education.

"Iraqi children are paying far too high a price," said Roger Wright, Unicef's special representative for Iraq, in a statement. "We must act now."

Unicef, the UN's children's fund, said young Iraqis were caught up in violence, with hundreds killed or injured. An average of 25,000 children a month have fled violence or intimidation this year, with their families seeking shelter across Iraq, Unicef said.

Only 28 per cent of Iraqi 17-year-olds have sat their final exams, while safe drinking water for children remains scarce, according to the UN.

Despite the urgent needs of Iraqi children, Unicef received only $40 million towards its $144 million appeal for Iraq this year, Veronique Taveau, a Unicef spokeswoman, said in Geneva.

"A new window of opportunity is opening, which should enable us to reach the most vulnerable with expanded, consistent support," Wright said. "Iraqi children are the foundation for their country's recovery ... We continue to owe them our very best in 2008 and beyond."

Family Care Foundation restaurant livelihood project

Greetings from Banda Aceh in Sumatra, where a few years back, upwards of 300,000 lost their lives to the Asian Tsunami!

You may recall that after helping with emergency relief in the weeks immediately after, our FCF partner here, Family Care Indonesia, then concentrated on replacing fishing boats for those who had lost their livelihood.

Another livelihood project that Family Care Foundation undertook was building a restaurant that a coastal village will benefit from. USAID is finishing up a new coastal road which the restaurant is situated on, offering a very convenient and gorgeous ocean view.

With business from the passenger buses alone traveling this highway, we have every reason to believe that the profit margin for the restaurant will top $4000 monthly, certainly a major windfall for this village. So for our relatively small social investment, this will be the equivalent of a $50,000 grant to the community as long as the restaurant exists.

As construction began, a local well-to-do beneficiary donated 2 hectares of beach front property, so our plans expanded to create a full “recreational stop”, offering a playground, sports field, prayer room, etc in addition to the restaurant itself. The restaurant is expected to be serving food in January 2008.

Accompanying photos show the ocean view from the restaurant, the seafood theme mosaics, and the gorgeous backdrop where monkeys, orangutans, and tigers roam!


Update: See completed restaurant

EduServe Teacher Training program

Family Care Foundation's partner here in Karachi, Family Educational Services Foundation, also operates a teacher training program, EduServe. The EduServe program is designed to strengthen the local educational infrastructure by training teachers, administrators, and parents.

Teacher Training Seminars are held on weekends to make it convenient for local teachers to attend, and at subsidized prices depending on their ability to pay.

Courses conducted include:

• Early Learning Techniques
• Sight Reading and Encyclopedic Knowledge
• Motivational Teaching Skills and Methodology
• Classroom Control and Discipline
• Group Management
• Classroom Organization and Management
• Time Management
• Basic English Skills and Communication
• Story Telling
• Mega Skills: Character Building

Additionally, FESF produces a series of educational audio/visual materials that are widely used in schools and institutions throughout the country. Other FESF activities include music therapy for mentally and physically handicapped children, organizing activities for orphaned and homeless children, and educational seminars for parents.

Deaf Reach Training Centers in Pakistan

Instead of highlighting the "bad news" on the international aid scene, here's some "good news" from my recent trip to Asia, on behalf of Family Care Foundation:

Today I toured the Deaf Reach Training Center in Karachi, where all ages of deaf people, both male and female, receive training. (A similar school operates in Lahore and a new branch is presently being established in Hyderabad)

Most deaf people in Pakistan lack any opportunity to even learn local sign language, let alone learn 4 languages (local sign, American Sign Language, English and Urdu -- the main language of Pakistan) which they are taught at Deaf Reach. So students of all ages are making a giant leap from a totally silent and non-communicative world to one that offers them a productive life style! –Most of these students from low-income families are so hungry to learn that it is difficult to get these students to want to stop their classes, when it’s time for the next class to enter the classroom!

Having the ability to communicate allows them to develop their full potential and vastly increase their opportunities for success. The center also meets the academic and vocational needs of the deaf community, with particular emphasis on IT training, and other vocational skills, as well as social skills needed to land a job.

Through a Job Placement Program, graduates are able to obtain gainful employment whereby they can help to support their families and be self-sufficient. For example, I visited a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) branch operated wholly by deaf graduates of our Deaf Reach program, rated the number 2 branch in the whole country's KFC chain. (Hiring and training a deaf staff has never before been undertaken by the franchise, and now pther fast food outlets are likewise considering a similar approach. Keep in mind that American fast food restaurants here offering relatively high-paying jobs.)

Additionally, I met Deaf Reach students now employed by a medical firm, and others earning a living as computer programmers. Deaf Reach graduates are presently some of the highest paid and educated deaf individuals in the country.

If you're interested, you can read more at http://familycare.org/network/i04.htm

US Ranks Low in Humanitarian Aid

A new tool to evaluate governments' humanitarian spending can help countries get aid out more efficiently to those who need it, say former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Spain-based non-profit DARA. Their Humanitarian Response Index (HRI) ranks the U.S. scores a lowly 16th out of 23.

Surprised at the findings? The index is less about total funding (although, per capita, the U.S. is no world leader by that measure either), and more about how well aid dollars reach their beneficiaries.

Those principles, among other things, enshrine the goals of humanitarian aid as alleviating suffering according to need, irrespective of political goals, and in a way that supports long-term development.

For the U.S., a mediocre ranking reflects mixed performance. While funding is allocated relatively well along international guidelines, much of the country's aid is tightly earmarked for specific projects or comes as physical goods instead of cash.

It's bottom of the pack in implementing international humanitarian and human rights laws, having refused to ratify key international treaties. Survey responses also rank U.S. aid lowest in perceptions of "neutrality" and "independence" from political and strategic considerations.

[Newsweek]

The US on Humanitarian Response Index 2007

Humanitarian Response Index 2007 rankings:
1. Sweden
2. Norway
3. Denmark
4. Netherlands
5. European Commission
6. Ireland
7. Canada
8. New Zealand
9. United Kingdom
10. Switzerland
11. Finland
12. Luxembourg
13. Germany
14. Australia
15. Belgium
16. United States <<<<<
17. Spain
18. Japan
19. France
20. Austria
21. Portugal

Iraq Money Down the Rat Hole

What can you get for a trillion bucks? Or make that $1.6 trillion, if you take the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as tallied by the majority staff of Congress' Joint Economic Committee (JEC).

Or is it the $3.5 trillion figure cited by Ron Paul, when expressing concern about the true cost of this war.

Given that the overall defense budget is now double what it was when Bush's father presided over the end of the Cold War, at a time when we don't have a militarily sophisticated enemy in sight, you have to wonder how this president has managed to exceed Cold War spending levels. What has he gotten for the trillions wasted? Nothing, when it comes to capturing Osama bin Laden, bringing democracy to Iraq or preventing oil prices from tripling and enriching the ayatollahs of Iran, while messing up the American economy.

But that money could have paid for a lot of things we could have used here at home. As Paul points out, for what the Iraq war costs, we could present each family of four a check for $46,000.

On the matter of covering the medically uninsured in America, it should be pointed out that we are the lone industrialized nation which can't afford to covered 47 million uninsured Americans.

[Excerpt of an article by Robert Scheer, Yahoo News]

Suffer the Children

According to a report by aid agency Save the Children, “Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by a staggering 150 per cent since 1990, more than any other country.”

The report said that some 122,000 Iraqi children - the equivalent of one in eight - died in 2005, before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of the deaths were among newborn babies in their first month of life.

“Since 2003, electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation have worsened already difficult living conditions.”

The study listed pneumonia and diarrhoea as major killers of children in Iraq, together accounting for over 30 per cent of child deaths.

“Conservative estimates place increases in infant mortality following the 2003 invasion of Iraq at 37 per cent,” it said.

Experts draw parallels between the dire state of Iraq’s health care system today and the way it was when the country was under sanctions during the 1990s, when there was a similar limited supply of drugs and other medical resources.

[Excerpt of article by Hind al-Safar, IWPR contributor in Baghdad]

George Bush Big Government Spender

George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is “a big government guy,” said Stephen Slivinski, the director of budget studies at Cato Institute, a libertarian research group.

Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors.

When adjusted for inflation, discretionary spending — or budget items that Congress and the president can control, including defense and domestic programs — shot up at an average annual rate of 5.3 percent during Bush’s first six years, Slivinski calculates, topping the 1.9 percent of Ronald Reagan.

Discretionary spending went up in Bush's first term by 48.5 percent, not adjusted for inflation, more than twice as much as Bill Clinton did (21.6 percent) in two full terms, Slivinski reports.

Defense spending: Under Bush it's grown on average by 5.7 percent a year. Under LBJ — who had a war to fund, too — it rose by 4.9 percent a year. Both numbers are adjusted for inflation.

Including costs for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending under Bush has gone up 86 percent since 2001, according to Chris Hellman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Current annual defense spending — not counting war costs — is 25 percent above the height of the Reagan-era buildup, Hellman said.

[McClatchy Newspapers]

Other Uses for the $611 Billion Spent on Iraq

The Boston Globe has taken a unique view of the latest Iraq War funding request, offering a look at what the $611.5 billion that would be spent so far on the war could buy if it was not used for the military operation.
Among the findings:

"According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015,

"...while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.

Additional applications:

• The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health plan for the States.

• $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free years of education at Harvard University.

[Excerpt of article by Joe Strupp, The Boston Globe]

Iraq “a human tragedy”, says Red Cross

The hundreds of thousands of people missing in Iraq are just the tip of the country’s looming humanitarian crisis, the International Red Cross warned today.

Around 375,000 of the population have vanished due to continued fighting, sectarian, ethnic, and religious violence and forced displacement, said Karl Matley, outgoing head of the Iraqi branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A report called 'Humanitarian Tragedy in Iraq' said the missing included tens of thousands who were held in the custody of Iraqi authorities and the multinational forces.

The Geneva-based independent humanitarian organisation works to protect the lives of victims of war and internal violence also highlighted the issue of detainees in Iraqi jails, which exceed 60,000 prisoners. The ICRC has been allowed to visit “only a small portion” of them, he said, without providing the number.

[Evening Echo]

A 2 point 4 Trillion Dollar War

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.

A previous CBO estimate put the wars' costs at more than $1.6 trillion. This one adds $705 billion in interest, taking into account that the conflicts are being funded with borrowed money.

"The number is so big, it boggles the mind," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.

The CBO estimates assume that 75,000 troops will remain in both countries through 2017, including roughly 50,000 in Iraq. That is a "very speculative" projection, though it's not entirely unreasonable, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the non-partisan Lexington Institute.

As of Sept. 30, the two wars have cost $604 billion, the CBO says. Adjusted for inflation, that is higher than the costs of the Korea and Vietnam conflicts, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

AlterNet

U.S. unlikely to halt Pakistan aid

For six years, the United States has staunchly supported Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, choosing to back a military leader seen as a strong ally in the "war on terror" rather than push the general more forcefully for democratic reforms.

But the risks associated with that strategy have become increasingly apparent in recent months, as Al Qaeda and the Taliban have gained strength in Pakistan's northwest frontier area despite billions of dollars in military aid to Musharraf's government since the Sept. 11 attacks.

That funding is Washington's main source of leverage over Musharraf. But officials said that it would be risky for the United States to withhold such aid to pressure Musharraf to reverse the emergency powers he decreed Saturday, acknowledging that the United States is dependent on Pakistan and can't afford to alienate its leadership.

The United States is likely to continue to scold Musharraf but not impose significant sanctions.

[Excerpt of article by Greg Miller, LA Times]

US spent $43.5 billion on intel in 2007

The U.S. government spent $43.5 billion on intelligence in 2007, according to the first official disclosure under a new law implementing recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission.

How the money is divided among the 16 intelligence agencies and exactly what it is spent on is classified. It includes salaries for about 100,000 people, multibillion dollar secret satellite programs, aircraft, weapons, electronic sensors, intelligence analysts, spies, computers and software.

For comparison, last year's intelligence spending was about half the $91 billion President Bush is proposing to spend over the coming year on the Agriculture Department, and somewhat more than the $35 billion budget of the Homeland Security Department.

National security analysts outside the government usually estimate the annual budget at about 10 percent of the total U.S. defense budget, which in 2007 was about $430 billion plus nearly $200 billion in war spending. These analysts believe around 80 percent of the intelligence budget is consumed by the NRO, NSA, DIA and NGA, the national military intelligence agencies.

[AP]

Blackwater USA well suported

Reports that State Department investigators offered immunity deals to Blackwater security guards accused of shooting dead 17 Iraqis dealt an embarrassing blow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday.

Meanwhile the Pentagon is offering huge bonuses to hold onto its top warriors: The Pentagon's Special Operations Command is paying reenlistment bonuses of up to $150,000 to Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs to keep them from fleeing the military to take high-paying jobs with private security contractors such as Blackwater USA.

Armed security professionals working in Iraq and Afghanistan for firms such as Blackwater can earn as much as $500 a day -- $130,000 a year.

Doug Brooks, president of the industry group International Peace Operations Association, tells the AP that the typical 19-year uniformed veteran receives about $63,000 a year.

Rumsfeld flees France

Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of “ordering and authorizing” torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military’s detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.

US embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush’s “war on terror” for six years.

A complaint was filed with the Paris prosecutor's office by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Federation of Human Rights. as Rumsfeld arrived in France for a visit.

This is the fifth time Rumsfeld has been charged with direct involvement in torture since 9/11.

US Govt cannot account for Billion Dollar contract

The State Department does not know specifically what it received for a billion-dollar contract with security firm DynCorp International to provide training services for Iraqi police, a U.S. watchdog agency said on Tuesday.

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said it was forced to suspend its audit of the DynCorp contract after administration officials told investigators they had no confidence in their own accounting records. The inspector general said the agency had not validated the accuracy of invoices received before October 2006 and described bills and supporting documents as being in disarray.

INL does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program. INL's prior lack of controls created an environment vulnerable to waste and fraud," SIGIR said in an interim review.

The report coincides with a controversy over the use of private security firms in Iraq, particularly Blackwater USA, which is under scrutiny over a Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad in which 17 people were killed. The Pentagon employs at least 7,300 security contractors in Iraq and the State Department thousands more. U.S. officials say they are needed to free up soldiers for other tasks.

AlertNet

US Homeless Vets Play the Waiting Game

In December 2006, when U.S. Army Specialist James Eggemeyer filed a disability claim with the Veterans Administration, he had already joined the ranks of the United States's burgeoning population of homeless veterans, and was living out of his girlfriend's Ford Explorer. So when the VA responded with a letter to his old address requesting that he come in for a physical examination, he missed the appointment.

Eggemeyer pawned everything he could and then he went to get help, from Tony Reese, a Veterans Services representative working for Martin County, Florida. Reese let Eggemeyer use his office as his address and made sure that James showed up at all his appointments. He checked that all of James's documents were in order and used the VA computer system to ensure his claim was on the right bureaucrat's desk at the regional office in Saint Petersburg.

But even with that, the process dragged on. Indeed, the VA's own statistics show that Specialist James Eggemeyer received what could best be described as "standard treatment".

Since the start of the Iraq war, the backlog of unanswered disability claims has grown from 325,000 to more than 600,000. On average, a veteran must wait almost six months to have a claim heard. If a veteran loses and appeals a case, it usually takes at about three years.

[Excerpt of an article by Aaron Glantz, IPS]

One in five Iraq veterans return home seriously impaired by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Veterans' disability payments and demobilization costs could reach a price tag of $1 trillion.

South American nations to launch IMF rival

Venezuela's leftist government is leading Brazil, Argentina and other regional economies in creating a new bank with the ambition of casting off unwelcome oversight by the IMF and World Bank.

The finance and economy ministers of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela met last week in Rio de Janeiro to outline the main elements of the "Banco del Sur" -- or Bank of the South.

"There will not be credit subjected to economic policies. There will not be credit that produces a calamity for our people and as a result, it will not be a tool of domination," said Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabeza.

Chavez speaks of liberating regional countries from the tutelage of the IMF, the World Bank and the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) which, he argues, impose economic policies that condemn millions to poverty.

Bolstered by robust economic growth, Latin American countries are displaying a new assertiveness toward the IMF now that several of them -- notably Brazil and Argentina -- have paid off their debts early.

The Bank of the South is supposed to finance public and private projects for development and regional integration. The official launch and the signing of a founding charter is set for November 3 in Caracas, which will host the bank's headquarters.

[AFP]

Blackwater Contractors: Mercenaries by Definition

Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater mercenaries, has been a huge financial supporter of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. That might explain why Mister Bush's State Department initially worked with Prince's people to try and cover up the latest Blackwater slaughter of civilians in Iraq, and could be a big part of the reason why so many Republicans came to the chief mercenary's defense during Congressional hearings.

Blackwater's Prince has a problem with people calling his mercenaries well ... err ... mercenaries. He appeared on CBS's "60 Minutes," and said with a straight face, "You know the definition of a mercenary is a professional soldier that works in the pay of a foreign army. I’m an American working for America."

Erik Prince's mercenaries make a great deal of money. They're paid much, much, much more than the average U.S. soldier. Though Prince chose to ignore it, a mercenary is also defined as someone who is, "motivated solely by a desire for monetary or material gain."

Prince would probably insist that the people in his employ are motivated by a desire to serve the United States' interests. If it were true, everyone in Blackwater could have joined the U.S. military. But obviously "a desire for monetary or material gain" played a role in their choosing Blackwater over the Army and the Marine Corps.

One wonders too -- as it relates to his men being hired out to corporations -- how Erik Prince would defend his company against the mercenary charge? Is the person defending an oil company's platform in Africa doing it out of a desire to serve his or her country, or is he or she doing it because the money is so damned good?

[Excerpt of article by A. Alexander, Progressive Daily Beacon]

Blackwater and American bodyguards

The U.S. State Department now has its own little army in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater gunmen who protect American officials and their local collaborators. Some reports say the State Department has spent $678 million alone with Blackwater since 2003.

Afghanistan's U.S.-installed leader, Hamid Karzai, is surrounded at all times by 200 American bodyguards, his own people not being trusted to protect their president. Iraq's U.S.-installed leaders are similarly guarded by U.S. mercenaries.

Nearly all Washington's contracts for mercenaries are awarded without competitive bidding to firms close to the Republican Party. Blackwater's owners are major contributors. Their 7,000-acre base in the southern U. S. is likely the world's largest non-government military operation and a menacing creation straight out of the famous film, Seven Days in May.

This unprecedented use of mercenaries has masked the depths of U.S. involvement in Iraq ... has also allowed the U.S. to sustain an imperial war that could never have been waged with conscripted American soldiers, as Vietnam showed.

[Excerpt of an article by Eric Margolis, Edmonton Sun]

America's own unlawful combatants?

As the Bush administration deals with the fallout from the recent killings of civilians by private security firms in Iraq, some officials are asking whether the contractors could be considered “unlawful combatants” under international agreements.

Unresolved questions are likely to touch off new criticism of Bush's conduct of the unpopular Iraq war, especially given the broad definition of unlawful combatants the president has used in justifying his detention policies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The designation of lawful and unlawful combatants is set out in the Geneva Convention. Lawful combatants are nonmilitary personnel who operate under their military's chain of command. Others may carry weapons in a war zone but may not use offensive force. Under the international agreements, they may only defend themselves.

The issues surrounding the private security contractors are being examined by lawyers at the departments of State, Defense and Justice. Disagreements about the contractors' status exist between agencies and within the Pentagon itself.

[Excerpt of an article by Julian Barnes, LA Times]