The Daily Grasshopper

Well, that settles it. I'm an idiot. Vice President Dick Cheney said so. Here's what he told the American Society of Newspaper Editors yesterday in New Orleans, responding to a question about whether U.S. forces deliberately attacked foreign reporters in Baghdad: "You'd have to be an idiot to believe that." So there you have it.

At least I'm not a lonely idiot. Cheney's quote appeared in an article in today's New York Times entitled "Spanish Journalists Assail U.S. Over Colleagues' Deaths in Iraq" (NYT, 4/10/03, p. B12). The short article, buried deep in the back of the "A Nation at War" section, reveals that "hundreds of journalists in Madrid downed their cameras and gathered outside the heavily guarded American Embassy" yesterday. Idiots, all of them, I'm sure. And angry ones: "The crowd directed cries of 'killers' and other insults at the embassy compound."

"Spanish Journalists Assail U.S. Over Colleagues' Death in Iraq"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/international/worldspecial/10SPAI.html

I suppose I'm also an idiot for thinking that the U.S./U.K. victory in Iraq is great news for U.S. corporations, who are now lining up for multimillion dollar reconstruction and oil extraction contracts. Like the dope I am, I suspect companies that have close ties to the Bush administration and their friends will eventually get the nod. Yes, Dick, we're all idiots out here, looking at the obvious motives behind your attack on Iraq and drawing the inescapable conclusions. Fortunately for us morons, there's more than a bit of evidence to corroborate our simple-minded theories, and they appear in the mainstream press.

For beginners, there's the story on page C2 of today's Times, "Competing for Work in Postwar Iraq." Here's part of it:

"According to unsuccessful bidders, the Raytheon Corporation in Lexington, Mass., and the Kellogg, Brown & Root unit of the Halliburton Corporation in Houston have received a $30 million contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to dismantle and neutralize any chemical or nuclear weapons found in the region. Neither Raytheon nor the agency would confirm any contract.

But there is still no word on who will win the grand prize in the current round of bidding: a wide-ranging $600 million reconstruction contract that will be awarded by the United States Agency for International Development. The contract will cover early work on rebuilding Iraq's essential infrastructure, including airports, roads, water and power systems, schools and hospitals. The agency previously said it had narrowed the bidders to two finalists and would announce a decision by the end of last week.

The Bechtel Group of San Francisco and Fluor have both been mentioned as finalists, although neither the companies nor the agency would confirm that status. But an executive of the Parsons Corporation in Pasadena, Calif., said that her company had not been eliminated from consideration.

And although Halliburton announced publicly last week that it had not bid to be the lead contractor on the work, other bidders say that Halliburton is named in procurement documents as an integral subcontractor in the Parsons bid. Neither company would confirm that arrangement, but Halliburton's latest public statement on the contract noted that the company remained 'a potential subcontractor.'

Last month, Halliburton received an open-ended contract from the government to extinguish oil well fires in southern Iraq, along with subcontractors Boots & Coots and Wild Well Control."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/international/worldspecial/10REBU.html

Halliburton's decision to remove itself from the bids, while remaining "a potential subcontractor," is like Richard Perle's decision to step down as chair of the Defense Policy Board while remaining a member. A totally meaningless public gesture designed to fool the easily-fooled - which means most mainstream reporters.

Democrats in Congress, finally realizing that the war may have been motivated by something other than "liberating" the Iraqis, are asking for an investigation of whether Halliburton "has received special treatment from the administration over the past two years in the awarding of Defense Department contracts." I'm sure they're idiots, too, for even suspecting such a thing.

There's also the article on page B14 of "A Nation at War" in the Times. It's title is "U.S. Is Banking on Iraq Oil to Finance Reconstruction," and here's part of what it says:

"Iraq's oil income will determine the extent to which the United States will have to finance the country's reconstruction and how much Iraq will need to rely on investment from foreign oil companies, including American corporations.

Bush administration officials say Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people, but they have not spelled out what that means in practice. The administration is seeking advice from two former Iraqi oil officials who are among the most optimistic about their nation's oil prospects, even though projections by their consulting group were rejected by scientists at the geological service, officials at both institutions say.

Whatever the numbers, Iraq's oil industry is going to face thedifficult prospect of balancing the need for the resources of foreign oil companies with the political sensitivities of bringing in Western corporations...

But Mr. [David] Horgan [of Petrel Resources] made clear the allure of Iraq, even though his company knew that its drilling could come up empty.

'We estimate we will only have to spend between $2,200 and $2,700 for every barrel of capacity,' compared with development costs of between $5,000 and $20,000 a barrel in other oil producing regions, he said.

'That's why people are interested,' he said, 'it's the cheapest oil in the world.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/international/worldspecial/10OIL.html

Bob Herbert, the Times' most liberal columnist, and a fellow idiot, offers his thoughts on the unseemliness of the awarding of postwar construction contracts to the Bush administration's friends:

"Follow the money.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz is on the board of directors of the Bechtel Group, the largest contractor in the U.S. and one of the finalists in the competition to land a fat contract to help in the rebuilding of Iraq.

He is also the chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a fiercely pro-war group with close ties to the White House. The committee, formed last year, made it clear from the beginning that it sought more than the ouster of Saddam's regime. It was committed, among other things, 'to work beyond the liberation of Iraq to the reconstruction of its economy.'

War is a tragedy for some and a boon for others. I asked Mr. Shultz if the fact that he was an advocate of the war while sitting on the board of a company that would benefit from it left him concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest.

'I don't know that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it,' he said. 'But if there's work that's needed to be done, Bechtel is the type of company that could do it. But nobody looks at it as something you benefit from.'"

Sure you don't, George. Sure.

"Jack Sheehan, a retired Marine Corps general, is a senior vice president at Bechtel. He's also a member of the Defense Policy Board, a government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon on major defense issues. Its members are selected by the under secretary of defense for policy, currently Douglas Feith, and approved by the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

Most Americans have never heard of the Defense Policy Group. Its meetings are classified. The members disclose their business interests to the Pentagon, but that information is not available to the public."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/opinion/10HERB.html

The Wall Street Journal has reported regularly on the U.S. corporations angling for the Iraq reconstruction work, and their ties to the Bush administration. In today's paper, in an article entitled "After War, America Must Decide What Kind of Power to Be," they report that "Russia's giant OAO Lukoil threatened this week to impound Iraqi oil tankers if the U.S. tries to negate a large oil-exploration contract that Lukoil signed with Iraq in 1997. Similar actions, as well as international lawsuits, could mount quickly if the U.S. follows through on hints it will reward its supporters in the war with fat reconstruction contracts" (WSJ, 4/10/03, p. A6). You know who the "supporters in the war" were, right? Forget about the "coalition" of Eastern European and island nations - who probably don't have a backhoe between them. So, we see that it's not just the "liberal" Times that worries about the potential for conflict of interest.

Today's papers are full of pictures of Iraqis "looting" Baghdad. Believe me, the real "looting" of Iraq is merely getting underway. The plundering of Saddam's palaces is nothing compared to the plundering of Iraq's oil wealth that will begin as soon as Halliburton gets done with its reconstruction work. Then again, what do I know? I'm an idiot.

The editorial writers of the Times, it should be noted, are definitely not idiots. Given the opportunity to weigh in on the U.S. attacks on foreign reporters in Baghdad the other day, the Newspaper of Record sides squarely and definitively with the administration. You can read the editorial, "Covering the War," here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/opinion/10THU2.html

Here's the important part:

"It is not surprising that Al Jazeera staff members lashed out angrily in a moment of great pain, but their suspicions were groundless. The Bush administration has gone out of its way to accommodate the Arab media, particularly Al Jazeera, the first completely uncensored TV channel in the Arab world. The last thing the military wanted to do, with dozens of cameras from all over the world focused on its activities, was to assault the one foreign news network where it most covets favorable coverage.

But the military should have admitted that both attacks had been mistakes that it heartily regretted. The hotel in particular was on everyone's list of sites that should not be targeted, and the military's claim that the tank had been shooting in self-defense against a sniper was disputed by the journalists in the building when the event occurred."

How do you like that? With the blood of their fellow journalists still fresh on the walls of the Palestine Hotel, the Times declares that suspicions about U.S. intent to target journalists are "groundless" - even as they acknowledge that the Pentagon's claims are disputed by eyewitnesses (many of whom, it should be said, are veteran reporters). What's even more revealing is their rationale. Despite the fact that no independent investigation has been launched, and despite the fact that "the hotel in particular was on everyone's list of sites that should not be targeted," the official denial stands and the suspicions are "groundless." According to the Times, the mere fact that Washington sought to enlist al-Jazeera in its propaganda campaign in Iraq settles the matter. The possibility that the administration's overtures had failed to produce the desired effect, and that silencing al-Jazeera was now a necessity, doesn't occur to them.

The Times editorial might as well have called them "idiots." I happen to think they're on to something. We all know what the Vice President thinks.

p.s. - there's a story in the Times about the fact that the Senate is holding up the President's $75 billion Iraq war appropriation because they want to lard it up with pork (not the war-related kind, like Halliburton gets - the non-war-related kind). The Times reporter, David Firestone, tells us that there are "many pork-barrel and special interest items that the Senate has inserted into its version of the bill," and that they're trying to add "dozens of items unrelated to the war, like money for dams and farm interests in the United States." Keep in mind that when U.S. senators start talking about "farm interests," they're really talking about massive U.S. agribusiness corporations - Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Monsanto, etc. You know - our farmers, the ones who soak up all those subsidies in total violation of the "free trade" principles we insist on for other people. You can read Firestone's article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/international/worldspecial/10COST.html

PK
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