The first scenario shows how a young man gets killed because of lack of protection in his vehicle. Scotty had a two month contract in Iraq which also allowed him to make a lot more money working there. Blackwater security counseling is the name of the company he worked for. There were four American civilians killed and sadly Scotty was one of them. First his vehicle was not armored properly. Second there was no gunner, they should have had heavy machine guns. The poor kid was sent to a war zone with no appropriate protection what so ever. This company was close to the military but not part of it.
This company was funded by the US government. Blackwater was sponsored by the republican conservative club and had strong ties between each other. “He and his family contributed over 2 million dollars for black water security counseling,” but surprisingly Rick Santorum also had ties to this Black water strategy (Iraq for Sale). There was a strong connection within the government officials and millions of dollars unaccounted for. High ranking officer and officials were donating big money to the company especially after the incident. It is hard to explain why the vehicle was not protected. With in a year of the Folusha incidents Black Water was worth about 220 million dollars” (Iraq for Sale n. pag). It was a two hundred million dollar jump only in a year. There was always a small private army practically at a push of a button. People were cutting corners to make more money for themselves. Interrogation is not a pleasant experience especially if you were a suspected terrorist or even an ordinary civilian. Cruelty and humiliation is just two of the many types of punishments POWs. The interrogator was not considered military personal.
Most of the POS described them as ordinary civilians dressed in jeans and shirts. This was special kind of company hired to interrogate people. The Arabic man that was describing what they were doing to him was just sad. Honestly I do believe him, because there were hundred of instances where brutality has been practiced in the military. TITAN and C. A. C. I are known to be the two companies that hired interrogators. I can not believe those interrogators would tie a rope in the detainees’ private parts and cut their circulation. This guy could never have kids because he also receiving some kinds of injections. CACI Contract US Army Intelligence Services $60,000. 000” (Iraq for Sale n. pag). This is the probable amount of money send to this organization. The original contract was to get data from a computer or other sources. This was a perfect way to gets someone attention especially when large amount of money are promised. Corporations like CACI are hired to do the dirty jobs but also offered very good compensation. Their job is to get the information as quickly as possible no matter what methods they used. Those personnel did not have the proper training to perform what was asked of them.
The contractor is safe in their office back home which leaves little supervision for the employees involved. We all know that without supervision bad things are bound to happen. Most of the people who were interrogated by CACI had no involvement in what so ever. Teacher, taxi drivers, pizza delivery boy, businessman and many others where tortured in ways we can’t even imagine. “Titan is a company that provides the linguists trough Iraq,” and as long as you were bilingual in Arabic and English you were giving an opportunity as a translator (Iraq for Sale n. pag). There was no training or evaluation what so ever.
No bosses to order you around. Many of the hired were unqualified. “If you are a US contractor and you kill an Iraq civilian and that becomes know then you will be send home and then you can come back in a week and work for another company” (Iraq for Sale n. pag). Georg Bush junior was asked an interesting question which pretty much stated “what happens to a contractor that kills a civilian” (Iraq for Sale n. pag). There was no clear answer that he provided and basically laughs about it. “Investigations were outgoing,” and the government wanted to protect the people from “TITAN” (Iraq for Sale n. pag).
It is true that most of the investigators were retired high ranking officials. Military personal and high ranking government officials were all involved in this. A powerful combination which created a strong relationship between officials was occurring. TITAN, CACI, and Blackwater contributed millions of dollars to their officials. “Gean Ray was the CEO of TITAN and profited about 47 million dollars from 2004 & 2005” (Iraq for Sale n. pag). KBR contractors started working for the military and trained by the military for many purposes like fixing radios and hardware and all kinds of other work as well.
Delivering supplies in trucks, building housing, logistics, and mechanics were just a few of their duties. Most of the truck drivers were driven by Pakistani, Nepali or other drivers from near by countries. Hundreds of them were delivering supplies to the US military. There was however plenty of US civilians driving the trucks. Hired by the KBR they were promised good pay. Tony Johnson from El Paso, Texas got a job working for KBR/Halliburton. He saw the opportunity to make significantly more money for his family by working overseas so he took the chance.
This company is a fortune 500 company so people felt protected working for them. Trucks were dressed in camouflage coats and send on their way to red zones. This company had a contract with the army and provided them with millions of dollars in revenue. The human lives seemed to be irrelevant to the CEOS of those companies because there were multi millionaires. Simply the profit seemed more important then the lives of all the man that die. “KBR kill, bag and replace people” is quote that come from one of the survivors (Iraq for Sale n. pag).
Halliburton/KBR was making huge profit in time of war and seemed not to care about all the casualties. Ben Carter was a former water purification specialist for KBR and within a week he started to realize that he didn’t want to be there. His company was supposed to provide clean water for the military. He discovered there was no chlorine in the water and after further testing he found out that the water was very contaminated. Malaria Taigas and many other diseases were found. This company was so careless that they exposed our military to contaminated water.
It was a serious health risk that our military faced. 63 of the facilities were not provided safe water but no one seems to care because there was all making money. Mr. Carter brakes down in tears during this documentary because he remembers how this company did not care about the consequences. There were a lot of soldiers that came back severely sick and contaminated because of Halliburton. In my eyes the company knew what was happening but they didn’t even bother to at least address the issue. KBR is a company that was hired to clean the water for our troops.
Ben Carter was formal water Purification Specialist who experienced first hand what was happing overseas. One of its employees actually had seen bacteria wiggling in the water. When Ben Carter went to test the water he found that it was severely contaminated with visible bacteria moving. Our troops were coming back sick with malaria. There were showering with contaminated water with many harmful bacteria simply because Halliburton did not put chlorine in the water. Soldiers were faced with series health risk simply because certain individuals in this company wanted to make huge profits. Out of the sixty seven treatment plans sixty three were not providing safe water” (Iraq for Sale). Mr. Carter brakes down during the documentary because he knows this could have been easily prevented. A good point he made was that our soldiers would never if they might me contaminated because Halliburton is sure not going to tell them. Their blood could be contaminated and if a soldier doesn’t get tested he could possibly die. Their commercial hover shows us how wonderful and carrying they are towards our troop. Good food, great care, taking care of our troops is just some of the slogan words they provide.
Halliburton managers were buying 50,000 thousand vehicles for their enjoyment in Kuwait (Iraq for Sale n. pag). CD players, navigation systems, Crone rims and everything you can possibly add in your SUV. There was no need to have all this luxuries in time of war, especially when it comes out of the tax payer’s pocket. Why do they need Cadillac escalades? These guys did not care about using their money wisely. If something ever happen to the vehicle they just burn it and claim it as a loss and simply get another one. Millions of dollars where spend for unnecessary.
Eighty thousand dollar trucks were being burned simply because they had flat tire. Several times equipment was burned to the ground only because it had a mechanical problem. When something bad happens no one was worried because they just billed the government. This particular truck driver was interviewed and he shared an interesting event. He and many of his co workers were send to deliver mail very often even thought there was barely any mail. Huge convoys were sent almost every day just so companies can receive even more compensations.
The deadly roads to Bagdad took the lives of many truck drivers who actually had no involvement in the military. US fuel convoys was attacked that day and as a result four Americans lost their lives. Shorty after seven Americans were declared missing. This documentary shows how in time of war certain companies can make millions of dollars. There is so much that goes unreported but even this cases show examples of how people suffered for no reason. A lot of bad things happened because everyone was focuses on how they can make a profit. The information is accurate and reliable because it comes directly from first hand witnesses.
In conclusion nine years and thousands of deaths later the war has pretty much ended. With a whole lot of loss, and not very much gained. Before it began the estimated costs for the war about fifty billion. Nearly a decade later the estimates were completely of the charts. Along with costs, we lost family, friends and relatives that no amount of money can repay. In addition to the emotional scarring came an extreme increase in what U. S citizens were paying for their taxes. These wars become the most costly military venture for the United States since the Vietnam.
Tax payers spend over one trillion dollars in takes for this was which also a big reason why we have such a huge debt left over. That amount of money spent escalated to the biggest crisis since the cold war and the great depression. If only the U. S government had taken the time to analyze what kind of damage was being done earlier, some difficult economical times could have been avoided. Luckily after nine years Obama and his bureaucracy have notice some of the flows in the system. They have realized that the costs of the war became too much when compared with what was being accomplished.
Today many soldiers have returned home and hopefully they will stay here with their loved once. For this war was not only a toll on Americans, but we must remember that it was also a toll on innocent pedestrians Most of us hope for peace, no war and for all to be united.
Work Cited
Iraq for Sale. ” Download Free Political Documentaries And Watch Many Interesting, Controversial Documentary Films On That You Wont Find On The TV! ::. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. “Iraq for Sale Reviews & Buzz. ” IRAQ FOR SALE: The War Profiteers. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. <http://iraqforsale. org/reviews. php>.
