Iraq

Blackwater our war profiteer of the month of June has made war profiteers to be main-stream news more than ever. Mainly because Blackwater personnel killed 11 Iraqis and wounded 14 during what the company said was an attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy travelling through the Mansour district of Baghdad. Blackwater employees have been involved in at least 195 shooting incidents since 2005.

A new public opinion poll, has found that a majority of Iraqis oppose plans to open the country's oilfields to foreign investment. 63% of respondents said they would prefer Iraq's oil to be developed and produced by Iraqi public sector companies rather than foreign multinationals. The US government has been pressing Baghdad to pass an oil law by September but most Iraqis say they do not feel adequately informed about the law. Meanwhile UPI is reporting a top member of the Iraqi prime minister's party says the new oil law should be delayed until U.S. occupation forces leave Iraq.

BAE

Albert Beale reports...

Iraqi soldiers who desert their units now face execution, according to a decree by the country's Presidential Council. The offense is the latest of nearly 200 others convicted Iraqis are to be punished with death penalty. The council slapped three-year imprisonment on absentee soldiers.

The harsh penalties come following reports of large-scale desertion from army ranks in the wake of the latest surge in rebel attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces. The penalties are also applicable to the cadets of military academies in the country.

A Hydrocarbon Law which advocates a radical restructuring of Iraq’s oil industry was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in February. It was crafted in secret over an eight month period from July 2006, in consultation with 9 foreign oil companies, the US and UK governments, and the IMF. Iraqi Parliamentarians saw it for the first time this February. Iraqi civil society has had no involvement in the process – despite lobbying for inclusion.

The Pentagon has taken an important first step by canceling the contract for Halliburton 's military logistics contract in Iraq and putting it up for open bid. Halliburton has only itself to blame for shoddy management, over-charging and thumbing its nose at military investigators.

We are happy to present our 2nd edition of War Profiteers' News.

In this edition, we highlight the cancellation of Halliburton's exclusive Iraq deal. At the same time we present what is happening in Cabinda where WRI affiliate Union Pacifiste from France is supporting a local campaign for the respect of human rights in Cabinda and against the pollution of the mouth of the Congo River. In this issue, we also inform about Caterpillar's shareholders meeting in Chicago, where the issue of the use of their equipment for demolishing Palestinians homes was again raised.

The BBC reported on 28 May that more than 1,000 British soldiers deserted from the Armed Forces since the beginning of the war in Iraq.

The USA section of Amnesty International focuses in their 2006 annual report on the role of private military contractors. PMCs are one of the most scandalous part of the spectrum of war profiteering and the U.S. government is their main contract provider “the U.S. government is outsourcing key security and military support functions, particular in Iraq and Afghanistan, to private companies whose civilian employees carry out the work.

Presentation for the ESF Seminar USA's military bases and the militarisation of the European Union in the service of "global war against terror".

organised by the Intergroup on Peace Initiatives (http://www.quaker.org/qcea/intergroup/index.html), co-chaired by Tobias Pflueger (Germany, European United Left/Nordic Green Left - GUE/GNE) and Caroline Lucas (UK, Greens)

Additional reading

English summary of the Federal Administrative Court decision on Florian Pfaff's case, with link to original documents in German
Presentation by Rudi

Statement made at Ft. Benning, GA on November 17, 2005 by SPC Katherine Jashinski, first woman in the military to publicly declare resistance to participation in the war:

"My name is Katherine Jashinski. I am a SPC in the Texas Army National Guard. I was born in Milwaukee, WI and I am 22 years old. When I graduated high school I moved to Austin, TX to attend college. At age 19 I enlisted in the Guard as a cook because I wanted to experience military life.