An Oct. 30 McClatchy Newspapers article about the Iraqi government's plan to strip foreign contractors of immunity following the recent shooting incident involving Blackwater USA mercenaries mentioned something called Order 17.
Order 17, which gives contractors said immunity, is one of 100 orders Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority issued shortly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government. Those orders and several events that have transpired since the invasion reveal the real reasons why we invaded Iraq in 2003.
Order 39 provided for privatization and complete foreign ownership of Iraqi state-owned companies and tax-free remittances of profits to owners' home countries, thereby allowing investors to take money out of Iraq without reinvesting it. Order 49 reduced personal and corporate taxes to 15 percent. Order 54 removed import and export duties, except for the five percent "reconstruction levy" imposed on many imports. Order 81 banned farmers from re-using their seeds if agribusiness-patented seeds somehow mixed with theirs and contaminated their crops; it also prohibited them from reusing seeds of plants with similar characteristics to those of hybrids patented by agribusiness companies, according to The Ecologist magazine. Order 100 rescinded many of the orders, but transferred the remaining ones to the "independent" Iraqi government, meaning those listed here remain in effect.
In a 2004 Harper's Magazine article, Naomi Klein wrote about a 24-year-old who had applied for a White House job and ended up getting the task of setting up Baghdad's stock exchange. A 21-year-old college senior and former ice-cream truck driver got to help the Iraqis manage their finances and set up domestic security forces. The article quoted an investor gushing about the possibility of a 7-Eleven store driving 30 Iraqi stores out of business.
To put it simply, we invaded a sovereign nation, overthrew its internationally recognized government and imposed 100 decrees that allowed foreign companies quickly move in and plunder it, while letting inexperienced people who didn't make it back home run things. President Bush called this freedom, but it looks like a textbook example of colonialism.
Nonetheless, investors had every reason to gush. Just take a look at how much companies contracting with the Department of Defense and USAID have made, according to the Center for Public Integrity: Bechtel Group Inc., $2.83 billion; CH2M Hill, $1.53 billion; Environmental Chemical Corporation, $1.475 billion; Halliburton subsidiary KBR, $10.83 billion. Those are only some members of the billion-dollar club of contractors in Iraq.
Other aspects of the war appear less profitable.
Thousands of U.S. soldiers and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead. Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag estimated the war could cost $2.4 trillion by 2017. We've had scandals such as Abu Ghraib and the Blackwater USA shootings. On top of that, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. A 2005 Senate report revealed Saddam Hussein had no formal links to al-Qaeda before the invasion, but Iraq has become an incubator and rallying cry for terrorists since the invasion.
The most logical conclusion is we invaded Iraq to remake it as a free-market client state. It's not the first time we've overthrown or covertly undermined a foreign government for the sake of economic hegemony - Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973 are examples, among others.
It's simplistic to say the war is solely for oil and ignorant to say it had anything to do with ending terrorism, eliminating weapons of mass destruction or democratization. Politicians and pundits who complain that we have failed in Iraq or that progress has been too slow are wrong.
The Iraq war has been a smashing success for many American people, even if only for those legally recognized people with the last name "Corporation."
Write to Alaric at ajdearment@bsu.edu
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