The Ming Report

FUN AND PROFIT

April 13, 2004 - On Easter Sunday 674 Americans, 59 Brits, 17 Italians, 11 Spaniards, 5 Bulgarians, 4 Ukrainians, 2 Thais, 2 Poles, and 1 Dane, Estonian, and Salvadoran were reported dead in the war in Iraq. Add to that the 30 dead employees reported by Kellogg, Brown & Root and the 4 roasted Blackwater men and the allied death toll exceeds 800. It is only fair that we include those civilian employees of the contractor in the count of military casualties. They are, after all, performing military functions, running the supply lines, providing security and fetching kitchen supplies for military mess tents. They are running the same risks as the soldiers do even if they are bringing home 10 times the pay working for contractors with cost plus contracts and guaranteed profits.

It is not a new system, this privatization of an Army’s logistical tail, though the GIs that ran the Red Ball Express from the channel ports to Patton’s spearhead for a private’s pay would not understand it. States Dyckman built fine estate in the Westchester County with the profit he made hiring wagons and teams to both Washington’s rebels and the King’s redcoats. As the rebellion wore on he found the King's gold much more reliable than Continental shinplasters and buttered his bread from that side. It helped that he found employment as the clerk for the British Quartermaster and shared his good fortune with his patron. Even then he spent the post revolution years shuttling between New York and London courtrooms defending his fortune against claims of corruption. Even his patron sued him claiming that he had held out money from the agreed share. Overcharging is not a new phenomenon of the 21st Century.

Even before the weekend attacks on KBR convoys, marines in Fallujah were complaining of shortages in supply, notably a restricted supply of ammunition. Both the military brass and the contractors claim that the frontline units have ample stores and that there are no shortages. Many of the routes from Kuwait north to Baghdad and from the capitol to the fighting in the Sunni Triangle are marked with Black or Red on the map to indicate that they are unsafe to use. According to Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt most routes are marked Orange which he said involved a “certain measure of risk”. That risk was measured Monday when a convoy hauling armored personnel carriers to the front was ambushed and burned south of Baghdad. With drivers dead and held hostage and repeated ambushes of supply trains a regular feature of their employment the KBR corporate spokesman vows the company will “stay the course” at least while the employees continue to report for work. After all the Vice-President’s severance package depends on it.

It is the American Way – war for fun and profit. It really is an unfair division, you know. Halliburton gets all the profit and the Marines have all the "fun".