building rome….

Top Defense Contractors Spent $27 Million Lobbying At Time Of Afghan Surge Announcement

With Reporting By Julian Hattem from the Huffington Post

The ten largest defense contractors in the nation spent more than $27 million lobbying the federal government in the last quarter of 2009, according to a review of recently-filed lobbying records.

The massive amount of money used to influence the legislative process came as the White House announced it would ramp up military activity in Afghanistan and Congress considered appropriations bills to pay for that buildup. All told, these ten companies, the largest revenue earners in the industry, spent roughly $7.2 million more lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2009 (October through December) than in the three months prior.

Such an increase in lobbying expenditures is partly a reflection of just how profitable the business of waging war can be. Each of these companies earned billions of dollars in defense contracts this past year. As the U.S. ramps up its military activities overseas, and the army is stretched thin by other ventures, it stands to reason that the contracts won’t dry up any time soon.

In mid-December, Congress passed a defense appropriations bill that totaled more than $635 billion. Shortly thereafter, the firm Northrop Grumman moved its corporate office to the Washington D.C. region to be closer to the heart of legislative action. Among the issues on which these ten firms lobbied, “appropriations” was the most frequently cited in lobbying forms.

“We’ve built Rome,” one longtime good-government official said of the symbiosis between contractors and the government.

On a related note, the Congressional Research Service released a report on Thursday, which showed that the number of private security contractors has bulged in the wake of Obama’s Afghanistan-surge announcement. Currently, contractors in Afghanistan make up between 22 percent and 30 percent of armed U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Below is a breakdown of the military contractor, lobbying expenditures and the amount of money the company earned in contracts last year.

Company: Boeing
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $6.13 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.71 million
Federal Contracts in FY08 (according to fedspending.org): $23,547,610,878

Company: United Technologies
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3.66 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.39 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $8,973,091,375

Company: Lockheed Martin
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3.16 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.1 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $35,729,713,235

Company: Honeywell International
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $1.94 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.66 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $2,439,634,130

Company: Northrop Grumman
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $5.43 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.62 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $24,921,637,857

Company: General Dynamics
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3,000,697
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $2,496,308
Federal Contracts in FY08: $14,244,546,441

Company: Raytheon
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $2.19 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.9 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $14,276,349,843

Company: L3
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $1.05 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $990,000
Federal Contracts in FY08: $7,464,053,901

Company: Textron
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $460,000
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $890,000
Federal Contracts in FY08: $2,858,396,315

Company: Goodrich
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $447, 098
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $425,529
Federal Contracts in FY08: $490,224,761

ratcheting up in iraq: violence escalates

THREE BOMBS KILL AT LEAST NINETY

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: December 8, 2009

Filed at 4:47 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD (AP) — An official at Iraq’s Interior Ministry says at least 90 people have been killed and more than 115 wounded in a series of coordinated blasts around Baghdad.

Three bomb-rigged cars exploded in quick succession on Tuesday, striking the Labor Ministry, a court complex and the new site of Iraq’s Finance Ministry — whose previous building was destroyed in an August blast.

Earlier, a suicide bomber struck a police patrol in southern Baghdad.

The Interior Ministry official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A series of coordinated attacks struck across Baghdad Tuesday — including three car-rigged bombs striking near government sites — killing at least 72 people and wounding 115 in the worst wave of violence in the capital in more than a month, authorities said.

The total of four attacks, which also included a suicide car bomb on a police patrol, showed the ability of insurgents to strike high-profile targets in the heart of Baghdad in another embarrassment to Iraqi forces in their expanding role as front-line security as U.S. forces plan their withdrawal.

The blasts came as Iraqi officials prepared to announced the date for next year’s parliamentary elections — a move the security forces worry could bring an escalation in attacks seeking to discredit the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The core of the attacks hit central Baghdad with three bomb-rigged cars exploding in the span of a few minutes.

The targets were the latest assaults directly at Iraq’s authorities: the Labor Ministry building, a court complex near the Iraqi-protected Green Zone and the new site of the Finance Ministry, whose previous building was destroyed in major attacks in August.

An official for Iraq’s Interior Ministry said at least 72 people were killed and at least 115 injured. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give information to media.

The blasts marked the most serious spate of violence in Baghdad since twin car bombs on Oct. 25 struck outside Baghdad administration offices, killing at least 155 people.

The breakdown of casualties among the sites was not immediately clear, but the most serious bloodshed had been reported outside the new Finance Ministry building.

About an hour before the Baghdad blasts, a suicide car bomber struck a police patrol in the mostly Sunni district of Dora in southern Baghdad, killing at least four people and injuring five others, said a police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

In August, suicide bombers hit the Finance and Foreign ministries, killing more than 100 people.

Overall violence has dropped sharply around Iraq in the past year, but insurgents have stepped up attacks at government sites.

mercenary method: one hundred million in payoffs to iraqi officials

Whistleblowers: Blackwater approved payoffs of Iraqi officials

To stifle criticism of civilian killings, the American mercenary group formerly known as Blackwater approved payoffs of up to $1 million for Iraqi politicians, according to former company officials who spoke to The New York Times.

“Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees,” the Times reported. “American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”

The paper added that the four whistleblowers, who were all former Blackwater executives, accused president Gary Jackson of personally approving the payoffs. They did not name the recipients and could not say whether the money was ever delivered.

One of the sources told the Times that officials at the Interior Ministry, where decisions over company operating licenses are made, were the intended recipients of the payments, which were aimed at quelling criticism and eliciting support.

The accusations are only the latest in a long series of scandal and controversy for the firm, now known as Xe.

halliburton and erka ltd. added to “burn pit” suit by veteran

Iraq “burn pits” suit over toxic smoke filed against Halliburton, KBR, by 2 Ky. men

By Brett Barrouquere, AP

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — An Air Force veteran and a one-time contractor who served in Iraq are suing military contractors Halliburton Co. and KBR Inc., accusing the companies of exposing them to toxic fumes and ash from “burn pits” for waste.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Louisville on Monday by former Air Force Sgt. Sean Alexander Stough of Stanton and Charles Hicks of Bellevue, claims the military contractors burned everything from human remains to tires in open-air pits, exposing everyone nearby to harmful ash and smoke.

The men are seeking class-action status for the lawsuit.

“The burn pits are still going on,” said attorney Susan Burke, who represents the two men. “It’s everything you can think of.”

The suit in Kentucky, which names KBR, Halliburton and a Turkish company, ERKA Ltd., is the latest in a string of litigation on behalf of former military members and contract workers who claim they were exposed to toxins from burning waste in the warzone. At least 32 suits over burn pits have been filed in 32 states against KBR and Halliburton, which are both Houston-based, and other contractors.

The suits have been merged for pretrial proceedings under U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus in Greenbelt, Md. Burke expects the Kentucky suit to be transferred there for pretrial purposes.

KBR spokeswoman Heather Brown said the company denies the allegations and follows military regulations on the disposal of waste.

“KBR operates burn pits in accordance with guidelines approved by the Army,” Brown said.

A Halliburton spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Tuesday. An e-mail sent to ERKA’s offices in Adana, Turkey, was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Stanton, who was stationed at Camp Bucca, near Umm Qasr, Iraq, until April 2006, and Hicks, who was stationed at Balad Air Base north of Baghdad in 2004 and 2005, both claim exposure to the burn pits caused multiple medical issues, including pulmonary and breathing problems.

Earlier this year, several members of Congress asked Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to investigate potential burn pit hazards. Shinseki said his agency is conducting a health study of 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and noted the VA “has learned important lessons from previous military conflicts” as it deals with environmental exposure questions.

our soldiers and many civilians poisoned in iraq….

KBR may have poisoned 100,000 people in Iraq: lawsuit

Defense contractor KBR may have exposed as many as 100,000 people, including US troops, to cancer-causing toxins by burning waste in open-air pits in Iraq, says a series of class-action lawsuits filed against the company.

At least 22 separate lawsuits claiming KBR poisoned American soldiers in Iraq have been combined into a single massive lawsuit that says KBR, which until not long ago was a subsidiary of Halliburton, sought to save money by disposing of toxic waste and incinerating numerous potentially harmful substances in open-air “burn pits.”

According to one of the lawsuits (PDF), filed in a federal court in Nashville, KBR burned “tires, lithium batteries … biohazard materials (including human corpses), medical supplies (including those used during smallpox inoculations), paints, solvents, asbestos insulation, items containing pesticides, polyvinyl chloride pipes, animal carcasses, dangerous chemicals, and hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles.”

And they did so within plain sight of US troops operating in Iraq, the lawsuit states. “In some instances, the burn pit smoke was so bad that it interfered with the military mission,” the Nashville lawsuit states. “For example, the military located at Camp Bucca, a detention facility, had difficulty guarding the facility as a result of the smoke.”

The plaintiffs note that the military “did not prevent” KBR from disposing of the waste “in a safe manner that would not have harmed plaintiffs. The military wanted the defendants to solve the burn pit problems.”

The lawsuit “claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ ‘utter indifference to and conscious disregard’ of troops’ welfare,” notes the Courthouse News Service.

At a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Friday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said that KBR continues to use burn pits at the US’s largest base in Iraq.   “The Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal — Kellogg, Brown, and Root — made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of US troops to toxic smoke,” Dorgan said.  ”Burn pits are still used at the Balad Airbase in Iraq, which is the largest US base in that country.”

A 2008 report by the Pentagon asserted that “adverse health risks are unlikely” from the burn pits, but that assertion was challenged by retired Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, a biomedical sciences officer who took some of the air samples used in the report.  “Although I have no hard data, I believe that the burn pits may be responsible for long-term health problems in many individuals,” the Air Force Times quoted Curtis as saying. “I think we are going to look at a lot of sick people.”

 The plaintiffs filing the lawsuits say they have suffered from health problems ranging in seriousness from shortness of breath to cancer.  Russell Keith, a paramedic from Huntsville, Alabama, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee his doctors believe his development of Parkinson’s disease was triggered by 15 months of daily exposure to the burn pits at Joint Base Balad in Iraq.  Another plaintiff claims to have developed kidney disease as a result of exposure.  Former KBR employee Rick Lambeth told the committee: “Since returning home in July, I have suffered from a number of respiratory problems related to the exposure. Now the military will not pay for my medical care.  They claim that these conditions … existed prior to service.” For its part, KBR says that it has been “improperly named” in the lawsuit, and points the finger at the military.

“There are significant discrepancies between the plaintiffs’ claims in the burn litigation against KBR and the facts on this issue,” Heather Browne, director of corporate communications, told the Nashville Post. Browne said that KBR doesn’t operate all the burn pits in Iraq; that the Army, and not the company, decides on burn pit locations; and that the Army decides when to fund an incinerator and when to burn waste in the open air.

exxonmobil obtains rights to 8.7 billion barrels

 Group wins bid to develop west Qurna as baghdad signs up slew of big contracts

BAGHDAD: An ExxonMobil-led consortium has beaten rival Russian, French and Chinese groups to bag initial rights to develop Iraq’s West Qurna field, the Oil Ministry said, adding momentum to Iraq’s bid to unlock its oil riches. With reserves of 8.7 billion barrels, West Qurna is among the prized Iraqi fields eyed by Western oil majors as they face flat or lower output at home and stiff competition from Chinese and Indian oil companies in bidding for oilfields elsewhere.

“The consortium led by ExxonMobil, which includes Shell, won the contract to develop West Qurna Phase One oilfield,” Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said.

The initial deal was signed in Baghdad on Thursday but needs Cabinet approval before it can be finalized.

The 20-year contract is part of a raft of deals Iraq is close to formalizing in a bid to catapult itself to the world’s third largest oil producer after decades of war and economic decline.

There is no guarantee that Iraq’s next government – to be elected in January ­– will honor the deals, but it injects optimism into prospects for Iraq’s battered oil sector and a second oil bid-round in December, after a lacklustre June auction.

ExxonMobil, partnering Royal Dutch Shell, beat Russia’s LUKOIL – which had teamed up with US oil-major ConocoPhillips – and two other groups led by France’s Total and China’s CNPC.

ExxonMobil’s output target for West Qurna Phase One beat those of its rivals and allowed it to clinch the contract, said an Iraqi oil official, who was part of the negotiating team.

“This is better for us,” the Iraqi oil official said. “We need higher production. This is a supergiant field and it has the capacity to produce even more than the target set by Exxon.”

The group plans to raise the field’s output nearly five-fold to 2.325 million barrels per day (bpd) from less than 500,000 bpd at present, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said.

He also said the consortium planed to spend as much as $50 billion in investment and operating costs for the project over six years, but there was no immediate confirmation of the figure from the companies.

The consortium would get a remuneration fee of $1.9 per barrel, the minister said.

The pact on West Qurna comes after British oil major BP Plc. and China’s CNPC on Tuesday signed an agreement for the Rumaila oil field: Iraq’s first major new oil deal since the 2003 US-led invasion.

A group led by Italian oil major Eni also signed an initial agreement on Monday to develop the Zubair oilfield, and Iraq said it also expected to ink an agreement with Nippon Oil Corp on Nassiriya in the coming days.

Analysts said the timing of the deals ahead of the January 16 poll in Iraq was convenient for both the Iraqi government and oil companies.

The Daily Star | Friday, November 06, 2009

iraqi officials face abuse scandal

Allegations of mistreatment

Iraqi officials face prison-abuse scandal

Sunday,  July 19, 2009 3:53 AM

By Deb Riechmann and Bushra Juhi

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials outraged by the abuse of prisoners at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison are trying to contain a scandal of their own as allegations continue to surface of mistreatment inside Iraqi jails.Accounts of Iraqis being beaten with clubs, blindfolded and coerced into signing false confessions are attracting increased attention partly because the United States is getting out of the prison business in Iraq. The U.S. has transferred 841 detainees into Iraq’s crowded prison system, and more are on the way.

Allegations of mistreatment have persisted since 2005, when U.S. troops raided an Interior Ministry lockup in a predominantly Shiite area of southeastern Baghdad and found scores of emaciated prisoners. The matter returned to the spotlight after the June 12 assassination of Sunni lawmaker Harith al-Obeidi, an outspoken advocate of prisoner rights.

The issue is a test of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s commitment to the rule of law and to reconcile with the Sunni minority, who account for most of the prisoners held in security cases. Sunnis say they are being unfairly singled out by security forces run by al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government.

“The cases are as bad as what took place at Abu Ghraib, but it is painful when these things take place in Iraqi prisons,” said Sunni lawmaker Salim Abdullah. “We met some of those who were released and saw the scars on their skins. They use different kinds of torture, like tying the shoulders and hanging the body, which normally leads to dislocation of the shoulders.”

The allegations pale in comparison with the horrific accounts of Saddam Hussein’s prisons, where inmates were systematically beaten, jammed into tiny windowless cells and executed on the flimsiest of evidence, and where men were forced to watch their wives and daughters raped.

Still, the current Iraqi leadership came to power with the promise to hold itself to a higher standard and respect human rights.

An eight-member panel that al-Maliki set up after al-Obeidi’s assassination to look into abuse is expected to complete its investigation in a month or two.

A military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said the panel has visited three detention centers in Baghdad and will inspect others. He said most of the abuse uncovered so far took place in Rusafa prison in eastern Baghdad.

kurds lay claim to land and oil

Kurds Defy Baghdad, Laying Claim to Land and Oil

Hadi Mizban/Associated Press:  Members of the Kurdish parliament read a draft of the proposed new constitution, which claims disputed natural resources, in Erbil on June 24.

By SAM DAGHER, Published: July 9, 2009

BAGHDAD — With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, a step that has alarmed Iraqi and American officials who fear that the move poses a new threat to the country’s unity.

The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum this year, underscores the level of mistrust and bad faith between the region and the central government in Baghdad. And it raises the question of whether a peaceful resolution of disputes between the two is possible, despite intensive cajoling by the United States.

The proposed constitution enshrines Kurdish claims to territories and the oil and gas beneath them. But these claims are disputed by both the federal government in Baghdad and ethnic groups on the ground, and were supposed to be resolved in talks begun quietly last month between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments, sponsored by the United Nations and backed by the United States. Instead, the Kurdish parliament pushed ahead and passed the constitution, partly as a message that it would resist pressure from the American and Iraqi governments to make concessions.

The disputed areas, in northern Iraq, are already volatile: There have been several tense confrontations between Kurdish and federal security forces, as well as frequent attacks aimed at inflaming sectarian and ethnic passions there.

The Obama administration, which is gradually withdrawing American troops from Iraq, was surprised and troubled by the Kurdish move. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., sent to Iraq on July 2 for three days, criticized it in diplomatic and indirect, though unmistakably strong, language as “not helpful” to the administration’s goal of reconciling Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds, in an interview with ABC News.

Mr. Biden said he wanted to discuss the proposed constitution with the Kurdish leadership in person but could not fly to Kurdistan because of sandstorms. Instead he spoke to Kurdish leaders by telephone on Tuesday, and Christopher R. Hill, the new ambassador in Baghdad, met with them in Kurdistan on Wednesday.

American diplomatic and military officials have said the potential for a confrontation with the Kurds has emerged as a threat as worrisome to Iraq’s fate as the remnants of the insurgency.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is already not on speaking terms with the Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani. Iraqi political leaders have vociferously denounced the constitution as a step toward splintering Iraq.

“This lays the foundation for a separate state — it is not a constitution for a region,” said Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of the national Parliament. “It is a declaration of hostile intent and confrontation. Of course it will lead to escalation.”

Kurdish officials defended their efforts to adopt a new constitution that defines the Kurdistan region as comprising their three provinces and also tries to add all of hotly contested and oil-rich Kirkuk Province, as well as other disputed areas in Nineveh and Diyala Provinces. Iraq’s federal Constitution allows the Kurds the right to their own constitution, referring any conflicts to Iraq’s highest court.

Susan Shihab, a member of Kurdistan’s parliament, said she no longer had faith that the rights of Kurds under the federal constitution from 2005 would be respected.

“What is missing the most in the new Iraq is confidence,” she said.

At the same time, though, some Kurds acknowledge that they have grown frustrated with the halting talks to resolve territorial disputes and other issues involving Kurds’ political power in Iraq.

“This is a punch in the face. We are fed up with them,” said a senior Kurdish official, referring to the government in Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his role in the United Nations negotiations.

The dispute started when the term of Kurdistan’s parliament ended June 4, before local presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for July 25. But the parliament, which is firmly in the grips of the two parties that have ruled the region for nearly 20 years, approved an extension and overwhelmingly passed a new draft of the constitution on June 24.

The Kurdish government announced that it wanted the document put to a referendum during the July elections, a vastly accelerated timetable given that most people in Kurdistan say they have not even heard of the constitution.

Iraq’s electoral commission, which oversees elections nationwide, said Monday that the earliest it could hold the referendum was Aug. 11.

The regional parliament said Thursday that it did not oppose a postponement but that it stood by the constitution and was “determined to hold a referendum” by September, according to its spokesman, Tariq Jawhar.

Most expect that the new constitution will be approved. The Kurdish ruling parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan — control all levers of power in the area and maintain legions of loyal followers through jobs and patronage.

But many people in Kurdistan are deeply troubled by how the constitution was hastily passed and the extraordinary powers it gives the president, without meaningful checks and balances.

A group of civil society organizations in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya began a campaign last month opposing the constitution. Namo Sharif, an activist involved in the effort, said a Kurdish government official called him a “traitor.”

Kwestan Mohammed, a member of the regional parliament who joined a new coalition running against the two ruling parties in the July elections, said that Kurdistan needed its own constitution but that the document in its current form planted the seeds of endless conflict with the central government and made the region’s president an “absolute” ruler.

“It turns all the other powers, including parliament, into cardboard figures,” Ms. Mohammed said.

Gareth Stansfield, an associate fellow at Chatham House in London, a nonprofit organization that focuses on international issues, who is an expert on Kurdish politics, said the Kurds’ insistence on a separate constitution was an unequivocal message to the central government that they were serious about their claims, especially as the clock ticks on America’s presence in Iraq.

“They are not backing down anymore,” Mr. Stansfield said. “They are being very forceful.”