[A-List] UK corporate state: military PPPs

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Private Eye

No. 1063, 20 September-3 October 2002

The Hot Dogs of War

A firm formerly run by American vice-president Dick Cheney stands to
make millions from the American and British armies if an attack on Iraq
becomes a big enough operation.

Until he stood for office, Cheney was boss of America's Halliburton. He
took a massive $36m pay-off from the firm -- and is currently being sued
over allegations that he covered up losses there through creative
accounting. While asbestos claims have hurt Halliburton's share price,
its Brown & Root subsidiary is winning valuable military contracts
worldwide.

Last December the US army awarded Brown & Root the 10-year contract to
feed and house troops under the "logistics civil augmentation program",
or LOGCAP. Thus Halliburton now builds barracks, feeds troops and
services US army equipment overseas. It did this work in the Balkans and
is now facing a bonanza thanks to the War on Terror as the US creates
bases in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Halliburton won a $9.7m
contract to build prison cells for Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.

Attempting to oust Saddam Hussein could lead to even more work should
the US need to maintain a presence in Iraq after a "regime change".
Critics argue that the army's enthusiasm for Halliburton has more to do
with the firms' contacts -- including vice-president Cheney -- than the
value-for-money the company offers.

In 2000 the general accounting office, the US equivalent of Britain's
national audit office, said the US army had failed to rein in spending
by Halliburton in the Balkans. And just as Halliburton was winning the
LOGCAP deal, it was paying the US army $2m to settle a lawsuit alleging
that it ha fraudulently overcharged for work at Ford Ord, California.

Despite the overpricing, Britain has also given Halliburton contracts in
the continuing privatisation of war. Last January Labour's Baroness
Symons gave Halliburton a £300m contract to transport the army's tanks
-- into the battlefield, if necessary. Halliburton's truck drivers will
transform themselves into troops if they come under fire. These
"soldiers" are also supplied by Cheney's old firm, effectively making
them PFI mercenaries under the "sponsored services" scheme.

The tank transporters will not be operational until late 2003, so are
likely to miss out on early battles against Saddam. But if a war on Iraq
leads to longer-term commitments in the region, Cheney's old firm could
be driving our boys around the desert.

Halliburton also charges a lot for its services here in Britain. It runs
the Devonport nuclear dockyard in Plymouth, where costs to the royal
navy have ballooned. However, Cheney has charmed British ministers. In
April 2000, while still chief executive at Halliburton, he chaired a
conference in Oxfordshire on privatising the military, attended by then
armed forces minister John Spellar and six senior MoD and army
officials. Among the delegates was Peter Ryan, director of the MoD's
"public-private partnership unit". Britain's tank transporter PFI deal
was extensively discussed. Soon afterwards Halliburton became a leading
bidder for the same deal.