Frank Rich in the Times today (typed in from the print edition):

Price of a share of Halliburton stock:

March 19, 2003: $20.50
March 18, 2007: $64.12 (adjusted for a split in 2006)

So, I think all the naysayers and Nervous Nellies who are all “greatest strategic disaster in American history” need to calm down and take a more balanced view!  Read more 

Yeah, I know we “knew” these things oh, three years ago or so. But this is why it makes a difference to have Democratic chairs of committees and hearings out in the bright light of day. Because then you know things from the Congressional Record and hear about them from the AP, not dirty fucking hippie bloggers. This piece from the Raleigh NC N&O/AP could be better with some copy editing, so I have taken the liberty of rearranging some paragraphs. The material is otherwise unchanged:

WASHINGTON — After numerous denials, the Pentagon has confirmed that a North Carolina company provided armed security guards in Iraq under a subcontract that was buried so deeply the government couldn’t find it.
The secretary of the Army on Tuesday wrote two Democratic lawmakers that the Blackwater USA contract was part of a huge military support operation by run by Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

Vice President Dick Cheney ran Halliburton before he became vice president.

Would we have seen that sentence, that high up in the story, without a Democratic Congress? Kinda answers itself, don’t ya think? But to continue:  Read more 

-The cost of equipping an infantry soldier tripled, from $7000 in 1999 to $24,000 today.
-The cost of Humvee’s went from $32,000 in 2001 to a breathtaking $225,000 each today.
-The cost of training, feeding and housing Army recruits went from $75,000 per soldier in 2001 to $120,000 today. (The Army uses private contractors, largely Halliburton’s Kellogg, Root & Brown, to provide most non-training services, such as food service and base maintenance.)  Read more 

Seriously, not a word from MSM.

The ranch sits atop some of the most valuable real estate in the world. It is the second-largest gold producing region on earth. Mount Tenabo is estimated to be worth $8 billion to the Gold Mining industries - but to the Western Shoshone, it is one of their most revered spiritual sites. Fishel, of the Western Shoshone defence project, told Al Jazeera: "They are offering the Shoshone people approximately 15 cents an acre. And at the same time they then turned around and were waiting to open up the same land for privatisation for multinational corporate interest." Speaking to Al Jazeera English, Dann said: "I can't believe that this is happening supposedly in America where everybody talks about democracy, and how good democracy is. As far as the indigenous people go, we have not seen that democracy." Dann is actively challenging the legality of the US government's claim of ownership to millions of acres of traditional Shoshone territory. But the US bureau of land management insists that Dann has broken the law by not applying for a grazing licence and refusal to pay fees. >>  Read more 

Ahem. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: past all the foily, racist, oil-based, hubris driven, adventuristic, pro-hardliners in Israel, and Oedipal reasons that drive this war, one stands above all others. It’s the profit, stupid. No, really. Here is one surefire winner for the Dems. Fix this:

It is virtually impossible to assess the performance of any one company working in Iraq. Only one independent monitoring agency exists, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR), a congressionally mandated office tasked with oversight of all U.S. spending on Iraq reconstruction. Of the 13,578 projects planned and paid for by the U.S. government for work in Iraq, SIGIR has assessed just 65.  Read more 

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Dorgan, but this goes a long way towards making me one. Follow along, kiddies, some of these were actually new to me:

Republicans in Congress Refuse to Demand Accountability in Iraq;
Billions of Dollars Wasted, Our Mission Undermined

Over the last three years, Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) hearings have uncovered massive waste, fraud, and abuse relating to government contractors operating in Iraq. This report presents twenty of the worst oversight outrages, as documented in testimony and evidence presented at DPC hearings:

1) Halliburton billed taxpayers $1.4 billion in questionable and undocumented charges under its contract to supply troops in Iraq, as documented by the Pentagon’s own auditors. More…

2) Parsons billed taxpayers over $200 million under a contract to build 142 health clinics, yet completed fewer than 20. According to Iraqi officials, the rest were “imaginary clinics.” More…

3) Custer Battles stole forklifts from Iraq’s national airline, repainted them, then leased the forklifts back to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) through a Cayman Islands shell company — charging an extra fee along the way. More…  Read more 

Keep this handy. You could even print out a few pages and you know, just leave them lying around your workplace or church. Most of it isn’t news to you, but I bet it is to your friends who watch the TV news:

 Read more 

You heard about it before, but you know it was only the tip of an iceberg we will never fully comprehend, except in the form of the bill we’ll all be paying unto the next generation:

Instead, the suit alleges, KBR used the military’s supplies for its own football party  Read more