Follow the money...

[blufive]

For those who haven't noticed yet, there's another Baghdad blogger out there. She's written an instructive little piece on who stands to gain from the war in Iraq. A brutally edited out-take:

Yesterday, I read how it was going to take up to $90 billion to rebuild Iraq. Bremer was shooting out numbers about how much it was going to cost to replace buildings and bridges and electricity, etc.

One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad [...] well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq.

[In May], his manager told him [...] to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, [...] did the necessary tests and analyses [...] and came up with a number [...] - $300,000.

Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. [...] Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.

A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!

[note I should have included the first time around: go read the lot, there's much more detail in the original. Riverbend has lots more stuff worth reading, too]

<rant mode="bitter and twisted">
I'm becoming more and more convinced that the idea that "it's all about the oil" was optimistic. It implies that Bush & co actually cared about anything resembling long-term strategy, rather than just flattering their own egos about their ability to act "decisively" and "improve" the world political situation^*, whilst making a fast buck for their favourite industrial friends along the way.
</rant>

^*because, of course, all the Middle East needed was some good ol' boy straight talking and decisive action, and everything would be sorted in no time.

I find it rather depressing that I can't just dismiss a rant like that out-of-hand, as "too paranoid".

[slightly late attribution: BoingBoing]

Comments

Re: heh

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Ah, but it's private industry, of course. Giants of global capatalism, no less.

So, of course, they must be the most cost-effective option. Goes without saying, dunnit?

:)

Re: heh

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

At first when I heard Al Sharpton bitching about the no-bid process, I was like, "Dude, do you want some contractors from Brooklyn doing it or something?"

Dude, the first thing I thought of when I heard about the no-bid process was, right, that's a great way to make sure American companies make loadsamoney and Iraqi companies don't get the contracts to rebuild their own country.