NP? There's No Business Like War Business

[pynchonoid]

<http://www.ips.org/>

There's No Business Like War Business 

Analysis - By Thalif Deen 

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 2 (IPS) - When the dust finally
settles on post-war Iraq, the United States may have
unleashed virtually all of its state-of-the-art
weaponry on a country already devastated by 13 years
of rigid U.N. sanctions. 
After 14 days of heavy pounding, U.S. military forces
so far have dropped over 8,700 bombs, including more
than 3,000 missiles, and also fired millions of rounds
of ammunition on military and civilian targets inside
the country. 
When U.S. fighter pilots in B-2 stealth bombers
launched the initial attack on a residential compound
in Baghdad - believed to be a meeting place for Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein and senior Baath Party
officials - the opening salvo included a pair of 2,000
pound bombs and 36 deadly long-range Tomahawk
missiles. 
The U.S. military will have to replace all of these
weapons - worth billions of dollars - giving a
tremendous boost to the U.S. military industry, which
has been on the skids since the last Gulf War in 1991.

In the latest 'Congressional Budget Justification for
Foreign Operations', the U.S. State Department
predicts that U.S. arms sales are expected to reach
over 14 billion dollars this year, the largest total
in almost two decades, compared to 12.5 billion
dollars in 2002. 
''A tragic indicator of the values of our civilisation
is that there's no business like war business,'' says
Douglas Mattern of the New York-based War and Peace
Foundation. 
''I believe arms sales will increase even beyond the
staggering amount we have today, due to a continuing
destabilisation of the area and the lobbying for sales
by the armament industry,'' Mattern told IPS. 
One writer describes a ''charmed circle of American
capitalism'', where Tomahawk and cruise missiles will
destroy Iraq, Bechtel Corporation (which once employed
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney) will rebuild the
country. And stolen Iraqi oil will pay for it.'' 
''U.S. weapons contractors are likely to gain
significant profits because of this war,'' says
Natalie Goldring, executive director of the Programme
on Global Security and Disarmament at the University
of Maryland. 
''They'll be paid to replace the weapons that are used
or destroyed in the war. The companies will also
trumpet their successes at next summer's Paris Air
Show, searching for foreign buyers,'' Goldring told
IPS. 
Global annual military spending was 780 billion
dollars in 1999, 840 billion dollars in 2001 and is on
target for one trillion dollars, according to U.N.
estimates. 
Besides the human casualties, the 14-day-old Iraqi war
has seen the destruction of millions of dollars worth
of military equipment on both sides of the
battlefield. 
A U.S. Apache Longbow helicopter, brought down by
Iraqi farmers, costs about 22 million dollars. The
U.S. Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, which is also
on the casualty list, is priced at over 1.2 million
dollars. The war has also seen the destruction for the
first time on a battlefield of a monstrous U.S.-built
Abrams battle tank. 
Goldring pointed out that Washington has armed Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan for decades. ''The
strategy was to give and sell these countries weapons
so that they could defend themselves, and we wouldn't
have to deploy U.S. forces to the region. This
strategy has clearly failed,'' she added. 
Of the world's 10 major buyers of U.S. weapons systems
last year, five were from the Middle East: Egypt (1.1
billion dollars in U.S. arms), Kuwait (1.0 billion
dollars), Saudi Arabia (885 million dollars), Oman
(826 million dollars) and Israel (710 million
dollars). The other five nations in the top 10 were
South Korea, Japan, Canada, Greece and Britain. 
''We have armed unstable regimes with our most
sophisticated weapons, and have then used the
widespread proliferation of the weapons as the
argument for producing the next generation of more
expensive weapons. The vicious cycle continues,''
Goldring said. 
The really big money for U.S. defence contractors,
says Mattern, is in the annual Pentagon budget, which
has risen from 294 billion dollars in 2000 to about
400 billion dollars in 2003. At the current rate of
growth, the budget is expected to hit 500 billion
dollars by 2010. 
He said the Pentagon will spend about 60 billion
dollars to buy new arms this year and over 30 billion
dollars in research and development of new weapons.
''The U.S. armament industry is the second most
subsidised industry, after agriculture,'' he added. 
The Iraqi war will also affect the global fight
against poverty, because of the huge cost of the war
and its aftermath. ''It will also degrade health care
and other needs in the United States,'' according to
Mattern. 
One-half of the world's governments spend more on the
military than on health care, he added. ''The war
business is the world's ultimate criminal activity.'' 
U.S. President George W. Bush last week sought
Congressional approval for a hefty 75 billion dollars
to fund the first six months of the Iraqi war and
related anti-terrorism and foreign aid expenses. 
''With the intensity of the war so far,'' says
Goldring, ''the 75 billion dollars is probably just
the down payment on the war''. 
The bottom line, says 'New York Times' columnist Paul
Krugman, is that the United States will win on the
battlefield, probably with ease. 
''I am not a military expert,'' he wrote, ''but I can
do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget
was 400 billion dollars, while Iraq spent only 1.4
billion dollars.'' (END/2003)




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