Holloween Story: Hollow Corporation in Iraq

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

The money from the Hollow Goverment to supplement the Hollow Military goes to the Hollow Corporation. Just as the Hollow Government doesn't actually do the public business, and the Hollow Military doesn't conduct the war, the Hollow Corporation doesn't do the work. They all hire somebody else to do it. And often enough, the people they hire, hire somebody else. And so on.

Sometimes this results in luxurious overspending and immense waste, as in the Green Zone and military installations in Iraq. As writes, "The operation is one of the most lavishly supported ever, and most of that has been due to contractors to whom we have outsourced almost all the logistics, and the protection of that enormous supply chain. But it has proven to be remarkably inefficient, all the while undermining our counterinsurgency efforts. According to testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Defense Contract Audit Agency has identified more than a staggering $10 billion in unsupported or questionable costs from battlefield contractors -- and investigators have barely scratched the surface."

In other situations, such as the billions wasted on the supposed "reconstruction" efforts in Iraq, it's a chain of subcontracts leading to no results at all, except waste and fraud, and to such situations as Bechtel being contracted to fix the electricity system, and after years, leaving Iraq with the electricity system in worse shape than when it arrived. Much of this travesty is a matter of public record through congressional investigations. As Klein writes:

"Freed of all regulations, largely protected from criminal prosecution and on contracts that guaranteed their costs would be covered, plus a profit, many foreign [non-Iraqi] corporations did something entirely predictable: they scammed wildly. Known in Iraq as 'the primes,' the big contractors engaged in elaborate subcontracting schemes."

Money would pass through one subcontractor after another, each taking their cut, until there was little left for the actual work, so it isn't too surprising that the materials were cheap, the work shoddy, and nothing was accomplished--while conditions got worse, and insurgency grew.

In the end the cheapest workers were hired, and often imported. Thus the mystery of why a country in which electrical and water systems, bridges, schools, etc. had been constructed before American bombs destroyed them could not be re-constructed is solved. I recall reading riverbend's blog early in the occupation in which she wrote about Iraqi firms eager to reconstruct their own country, and with the skills, knowledge and creativity to do it quickly and cheaply--but they were being ignored. These were the same people who constructed all this infrastructure in the first place--but U.S. based multinationals saw Iraq as a major opportunity to get richer quickest, and so Iraqis were rarely hired to rebuild their own country, especially not professionals. Which of course added immensely to the frustration and emnity of the Iraqi people.

But the story of the Hollow Corporation does not begin in Iraq--nor does it end there. Which will bring us, very soon, to Christmas.