Advocates of War Now Profit From Iraq's Reconstruction

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

Looks like the news is catching up with DU...Salin started a thread members of the Defense Policy Board that stood to profit from the war in Iraq back in 2002...it was in the meeting room in old DU...I don't have the link but if another DU'er bookmarked it, please add it to this thread...we have many more profiteers that were promoting the war ...for instance, this article makes no mention of the former management from Bechtel that sat on the Defense

LA Times, free registration required

WASHINGTON — In the months and years leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, they marched together in the vanguard of those who advocated war.

As lobbyists, public relations counselors and confidential advisors to senior federal officials, they warned against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, praised exiled leader Ahmad Chalabi, and argued that toppling Saddam Hussein was a matter of national security and moral duty.

<snip>

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey is a prominent example of the phenomenon, mixing his business interests with what he contends are the country's strategic interests. He left the CIA in 1995, but he remains a senior government advisor on intelligence and national security issues, including Iraq. Meanwhile, he works for two private companies that do business in Iraq and is a partner in a company that invests in firms that provide security and anti-terrorism services.

<snip>

Before the war, Woolsey was a founding member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an organization set up in 2002 at the request of the White House to help build public backing for war in Iraq. He also wrote about a need for regime change and sat on the CIA advisory board and the Defense Policy Board, whose unpaid members have provided advice on Iraq and other matters to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The article mentions a number of people profiteering that DU'ers were well aware of...noticably missing from the article, however, is Perle

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. kick

[Karenina]

2. You mean folks like the ones mentioned

in this thread?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1490769

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. that's one awesome piece of work!

[maddezmom]

7. worthy of a bookmark, thanks for posting

:)

[UpInArms]

8. more on John Foster Dulles

and the overthrow of Iran in 1953 here:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Iran_KH.html

"So this is how we get rid of that madman Mossadegh," announced John Foster Dulles to a group of top Washington policy makers one day in June 1953. The Secretary of State held in his hand a plan of operation to overthrow the prime minister of Iran prepared by Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt of the CIA. There was scarcely any discussion amongst the high powered men in the room, no probing questions, no legal or ethical issues raised.

"This was a grave decision to have made," Roosevelt later wrote. "It involved tremendous risk. Surely it deserved thorough examination, the closest consideration, somewhere at the very highest level. It had not received such thought at this meeting. In fact, I was morally certain that almost half of those present, if they had felt free or had the courage to speak, would have opposed the undertaking."

Roosevelt, the grandson of Theodore and distant cousin of Franklin, was expressing surprise more than disappointment at glimpsing American foreign-policy-making undressed.

The original initiative to oust Mossadegh had come from the British, for the elderly Iranian leader had spearheaded the parliamentary movement to nationalize the British owned Anglo-lranian Oil Company (AIOC), the sole oil company operating in Iran. In March 1951, the bill for nationalization was passed, and at the end of April Mossadegh was elected prime minister by a large majority of Parliament. On 1 May, nationalization went into effect. The Iranian people, Mossadegh declared, "were opening a hidden treasure upon which lies a dragon".

...more...

[BeFree]

4. So... that's why

Boosh couldn't wait just a few more weeks before invading....

Had he waited just a few more weeks, the UN inspectors would have finished their report: No WMD in Iraq.

The whole deal would have stopped right then and there, and all that business would have been delayed. There was just too much money riding on getting in and destroying Iraq so these as**oles could start raking in the dough.

Funny ain't it, how so much capitalism is based on socialism?

[Democat]

5. Why isn't this illegal conflict of interest?

If he is getting paid by the government for advice and also working for a company that benfits from the advice he gives, should that be agains the rules?

[Karenina]

9. Errraaa...

It prolly is or at least WAS till the *neocons seized the gub'mint and simply changed the rules. Hell, they don't need no STINKING RULES!

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Everything woolsey etc. do is in the interest in creating more wealth

for themselves and their associates. This is their only mission. The only ones who would actually believe that these guys are doing any of this for the best interest of mankind are probably the Mom and Dad freepers who have sent their children off to Iraq to fight for the "cause".