We've heard so much about WMDs, oil, human rights, the spread of truth justice and the American Way in the last few months, but lingering in the background there are other theories about why the US went to war with Iraq. Personally I favour oil plus daddy's unfinished business, but these two are worth a look.
The business case
In the August 25 issue of BusinessWeek Harvard professor of economics Robert J. Barro gives a solid outlook for the second half of the financial year, attributing this lift to a number of factors, the first of which is growing defence spending.
Spending is $US76 billion higher than it would have been before September 11 2000, and 25% up over 2001. According to his analysis each dollar of defence spending lifts real US GDP by 75 US cents, equating to an increase of $US57 billion in 2003 GDP or 0.6% of total.
Crucially, he notes, the results would be different for wars in which productive capacity was destroyed, not something the US has traditionally had to worry about to any significant degree.
For the US war is good for business. And what’s good for business is good for America. This isn’t the first time war has served its purpose to rev-up the US economy
Forget oil, it’s all about water
It is common knowledge water rights are a key issue between the Israelis and Palestinians. It is also an issue with Syria and between Turkey and Iraq.
But how could these essentially local issues be considered a cause of the US invasion of Iraq? After all, Iraq is a downstream state. Its water supply is threatened by the activity of others, particularly dam-building in Turkey, but it has little ability to threaten the water supplies of neighbors. Does it?
Well, the existing water supply maybe. But according to this site Iraq was an obstacle to a grand water supply scheme that would have benefited US ally Israel considerably.
The so-called “Peace Pipeline” would have tapped the source of the Tigris and Euphrates in Turkey to deliver water to gulf states and Israel, to the considerable detriment of Iraq. Will we see some variant on this scheme reemerge now the US has knocked out the key political obstruction?
Another argument can be made around what the US promises to do in Iraq. When the occupier talks about the “reconstruction of Iraq’s economy” we probably think of getting oil pipelines working, power plants operating, getting productive capacity moving again. But is “reconstruction” being used as a euphemism for “restructuring”? And will that restructuring take the form of the good old-fashioned crony capitalism George and his buddies specialise in? The signs are already there in the way reconstruction contracts are being awarded. There’s not an open tender or selection process in sight.
The Iraqi economy will be rebuilt, for sure, and it will be rebuilt along different lines. There’s nothing essentially wrong with that. After all, the pre-war economy was built for the benefit of Saddam’s family. However, it is now distinctly possible it will be rebuilt for the benefit of George Bush’s mates and benefactors. This crew has never done business in a free market in their lives. They wouldn’t know what a free market looks like and would run a mile and grease any number of palms rather than engage in fair and open competition. Like George himself, they make their money by wielding their political influence to win exclusive favours.
So, has the military been used to grab markets? Undoubtedly. Is George Schultz’s old company Bechtel getting ready to control the Iraqi water supply through privatization, as it did in Bolivia and elsewhere? We’ll have to wait and see.
Former Army War College professor and CIA analyst Stephen Pelletiere, in an op-ed in the New York Times, has suggested a bigger geo-political picture.
Pelletiere says when the Iranians seized Halabja, they were aiming to control the Darbandikhan dam, the largest in Iraq. Control of Iraq’s water, he says, would “alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades....”
While Pelletiere’s credibility on some fronts is doubtful (he has been known to suggest the gassing of Halabja was undertaken by the Iranian not the Iraqi military, despite massive evidence to the contrary), you only have to look at a map to see where those rivers run.
Meanwhile…
No Right Turn and numerous other blogs have carried the item below in recent days. However, I can find no way of verifying this story. I’ve tried numerous different Googles, but can find nothing official or even from a reliable source on the subject. In fact, this is the only item that even mentions such a contract. It’s all a bit smelly.
If anyone out there can shed some light, drop me a line.
"One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.
As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.
Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.
A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000!!"