Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Ike, meet the military-industrial complex
Gen Eisenhower left office warning Americans of the dangers of a "military-industrial complex." Businessweek is carrying a story on possibly the greatest embodiment of the military-industrial complex -- the outsourcing of war. Pretty damn intriguing, though the conflicts of interest are clear, when a private entity actually makes money every time the U.S. decides to fight a war. I had made a similar observation on the Carlyle group a couple of months ago.
KBR has billed the U.S. government about $950 million for work completed under contracts capped at $8.2 billion. At the same time, KBR is in line to earn tens of millions of dollars more to maintain the archipelago of U.S. military bases that now arcs from the Balkans south to the Horn of Africa and east to Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. Closer to home, KBR built the detention camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that house Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners.
KBR has billed the U.S. government about $950 million for work completed under contracts capped at $8.2 billion. At the same time, KBR is in line to earn tens of millions of dollars more to maintain the archipelago of U.S. military bases that now arcs from the Balkans south to the Horn of Africa and east to Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. Closer to home, KBR built the detention camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that house Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners.
