International Socialists

The business of war

Mike Tait

Two years ago George W. Bush Junior was appointed US President by the conservative Supreme Court. Even though he won less than half of the popular vote (in an election with about 50% turnout), he acted as if he had a mandate for extremely right wing policies – paying back companies that supported his campaign and appointing corporate lobbyists and right wing ideologues to his administration.

Bush killed federal lawsuits against big tobacco companies – they donated US$7 million – but have saved themselves up to US$100 billion in damages. Rules that would make mining companies (who gave $2.6 million) pay for water contamination were scrapped. Most extreme of all, Bush’s energy policy was largely written by the energy industry themselves, unsurprisingly the US pulled out of the Kyoto agreement and coal, oil, and electricity companies saved billions in carbon dioxide emission controls.

In April last year, Robert Reich, Labour Secretary under Clinton, warned, "At some point – perhaps as soon as the 2002 mid-term elections, surely no later than the next presidential election – the public will be aghast at what is happening. The backlash against business may be thunderous."

Bush was saved by the September 11 terrorist attacks. Instead of facing a backlash, Bush has declared an open-ended war on "evil," rolled back domestic civil liberties, occupied Afghanistan, and stands on the brink of renewed war with Iraq. Bush’s cabinet represents an increasingly parasitic elite, that has grown rich from the economic deregulation and stock market speculation of the 80s and 90s. In this cabinet, Rumsfeld and Cheney personify the corruption and the militarism of the US elite.

Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld is a Cold War veteran. He served in the Nixon Administration, and was Ford’s Defence Secretary from 1975-7. He was appointed shortly after the US defeat in the Vietnam War, and was in office during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Rumsfeld made millions in the private sector during the 80s and 90s, working as CEO for pharmaceutical giant G.D. Searle, and as a director of ABB, among other companies. He owns between $50 and $210 million worth of shares in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and energy.

But Rumsfeld continued to keep his hand in at politics, sitting on commissions into space warfare and the ballistic missile "threat" to the US. He was also Ronald Reagan’s Middle East envoy, visiting Iraq in 1983 to assure Saddam Hussein of US help in the Iran-Iraq war – even though US intelligence knew Saddam would use chemical weapons against Iran.

Rumsfeld’s appointment signals the triumph of US "hawks," especially the Ballistic Missile Defence lobby. More than anything BMD illustrates Rumsfeld’s approach to foreign policy. The US has won the Cold War, and now must lock in US military pre-eminence forever – to achieve what the Clinton Administration called "full spectrum dominance." A missile shield would violate the ABM treaty, but more importantly it would also break another treaty banning weapons in space. With the collapse of its Soviet rival, the US now has the chance to put weapons into space unchallenged, and cement US dominance for all time. The 2000 Rumsfeld Commission on space security concluded that: "We know from history that every medium – air, land and sea – has seen conflict… Reality indicates that space will be no different."

But the warmongers around Donald Rumsfeld were not just dreaming of space war: "The end of the Soviet threat does not mean we no longer need nuclear weapons," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2002. "To the contrary, the US nuclear arsenal remains an important part of our deterrence strategy, and helps to dissuade the emergence of potential or would-be peer competitors, by underscoring the futility of trying to sprint toward parity with us or superiority."

A document prepared for Cheney and Rumsfeld in January 2001 by the Project for a New American Century think tank (of which Rumsfeld and Cheney are founders) proposed military control of the Gulf region as essential, suggesting the unresolved conflict with Iraq as a perfect justification for US intervention. The document, "Rebuilding America’s Defences," also identifies Iran and China as potential threats after Iraq; and advocates the development of bio-weapons.

The enemy has changed from the Soviet Union to "rogue states," or "potential peer competitors," but the insatiable need for more military spending has remained.

But isn’t military spending just a drain on the economy? There’s no clearer statement of the importance of war to capitalism than Donald Rumsfeld’s speech to US armed forces in Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo: "How much should we spend on the armed services?… My view is we don’t spend on you, we invest in you. The men and women in the armed services are not a drain on our economic strength. Indeed you safeguard it. You’re not a burden on our economy, you are the critical foundation for growth."

Cheney
Cheney avoided the draft (conscription) in the Vietnam War. "I had other priorities in the 60s than military service," Cheney said in 1989; but he told the Senate that he "would have been obviously happy to serve had I been called."

He got his start in politics as Rumsfeld’s sidekick in the 70s, and later served as Defence Secretary for George Bush senior, where he appointed Colin Powell as Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Under the slogan, "Arms for America’s friends and arms control for its potential foes," Cheney, oblivious to irony, attacked allies Panama and Iraq. He also sent troops into Somalia.

In 1992, Cheney hired an oil services and construction company called Halliburton to provide a report on privatising certain army functions, such as constructing camps and providing food. The report – for which Halliburton was paid nearly $9 million – of course, recommended that the privatisation go ahead. The privatisation was one of the largest carried out by the military, and a windfall for Halliburton.

Two and a half years after leaving his job at the Pentagon, Cheney became chief executive officer of Halliburton. He had no experience in business administration or construction, but he did have a close relationship with the military establishment. According to the current CEO of the company, David Lesar, Cheney "never pitched a particular contract or closed a piece of business. He opened the door." During Cheney’s five years, the company doubled the amount of revenue it received from government contracts.

Not satisfied with these plum contracts, the Halliburton subsidiary responsible for military contracting, Kellogg, Brown and Root, was charged with swindling the Pentagon during the mid-1990s, and forced to pay a settlement of $2 million to avoid criminal charges.

Cheney has more than repaid Halliburton since becoming Vice-President. Kellogg, Brown and Root is involved in the construction of cells for Al Qaeda and Taleban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and military bases in Central Asia and Afghanistan. According the New York Times, KBR’s services in Central Asia will cost the government ten to 20 percent more than if the military performed the services itself.