Your suspicions confirmed

Just forget everything Bush has ever said about his objectives in Iraq other than to remove its dictator. Everything else is smoke and mirrors to hide his corporate empire building.

Oh yeah, and the oil. Never forget the primary goal of securing the oil for US companies.

[Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time]: You know, in the report that you [Amy Goodman] were quoting in the beginning of the hour, which said that the reconstruction failed because of poor planning, it’s a myth that there was not a post-war planning done by the Bush administration. The reason why it failed was because the interests it was serving were U.S. multinationals, not reconstruction in Iraq.

That plan was ready two months before the invasion. It was written by BearingPoint, Inc., a company based in Virginia that received a $250 million contract to rewrite the entire economy of Iraq. It drafted that new economy. That new economy was put into place systematically by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the occupation government of Iraq for 14 months, who implemented exactly one hundred orders, basically all of which are still in place today. And everyone who is watching who is familiar with the policies of the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Bank, the I.M.F., will understand the orders.

They implement some of the most radical corporate globalization ideas, such as free investment rules for multinational corporations. That means corporations can enter Iraq, and they essentially don't have to contribute at all to the economy of Iraq. The most harmful provision thus far has been the national treatment provision, which meant that the Iraqis could not give preference to Iraqi companies or workers in the reconstruction, and therefore, U.S. companies received preference in the reconstruction. They hired workers who weren't even from Iraq, in most cases, and utterly bungled the reconstruction.

And the most important company, in my mind, to receive blame is the Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco. They have received $2.8 billion to rebuild water, electricity and sewage systems, the most important systems in the life of an Iraqi. After the first Gulf War, the Iraqis rebuilt these systems in three months' time. It’s been three years, and, as you said, those services are still below pre-war levels.

I'm not sure there was a formal plan. That this was Bush's intent is indisputable in my eyes.

And this is typical of Bush's way of dealing with difficult situations. Make sure the big guys get the spoils.

In the immediate cleanup and restoration of infrastructure [in NOLA], big outside contractors were getting most of the work and local/small businesses were getting the crumbs.

I hope this information makes your skin crawl. If not...

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