Contract Sport by Jane Mayer
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040216fa_fact
Baghdad Year Zero by Naomi Klein
http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html
The debts are so in the past; what about the future? For those who argue that the Bush administration had no plan for "liberated" Iraq at the end of major combat operations, here's an attempt to cobble together the possible inner workings of the war planners. (Leaving aside the possibility that the "war president" wanted things to deteriorate into utter chaos, only to rest upon his symbiotic Brain's reasoning that voters wouldn't dare change leaders in a time of war)...
Because Iraq has large oil deposits, Richard Cheney is a natural place to start. Describing a top-secret document she obtained, New Yorker writer Jane Mayer reported that Cheney's Energy Task Force "directed the [National Security Council] staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the "melding" of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: the review of operational policies towards rogue states," such as Iraq, and "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields."" Cheney's fixation with Iraq's oil production would later translate into his prior employer, Halliburton, obtaining, in the fall of 2002, a contract to put out oil fires--should war break out in Iraq and should Saddam decide to then torch his country's oil wells. Yet, as Rep. Henry Waxman's staff would uncover, the oil-fire contract for Halliburton was, in fact, a contract for Halliburton to fully restore Iraq's oil industry--to a level higher than ever before. So it's safe to say Cheney left his mark on post-war Iraq well before the invasion: Iraq's oil was what mattered, and his colleagues at Halliburton would build Iraq's oil production infrastructure.
What about the "liberated" Iraqis? Naomi Klein writes on how the Bush administration may have felt Iraqis would react to the occupation. In short, the shock is all--though "Shock and Awe" was just the beginning. "A declassified CIA "Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual from 1963 describes how a trauma inflicted on prisoners opens up "an interval--which may be extremely brief--of suspended animation, a kind of psychological shock or paralysis. ... [A]t this moment the source is far more open to suggestion, far likelier to comply." To what end? "A country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen. Every policy that liberates multinational corporations to pursue their quest for profit would be put into place: a shrunken state, a flexible work force, open borders, minimal taxes, no tariffs, no ownership restriction. The people of Iraq would, of course, have to endure some short-term pain: assets, previously owned by the state, would have to be given up to create new opportunities for growth and investment. Jobs would have to be lost and, as foreign products flooded across the border, local businesses and family farms would, unfortunately, be unable to compete. But to the authors of this plan, these would be small pieces to pay for the economic boom that would surely explode once the proper conditions were in place, a boom so powerful the country would practically rebuild itself." (How could a flat tax fail?) Military shock, then economic awe was the policy.
It hadn't been done before. Was it legal? And what if Iraqis preferred a 21st century Eighteenth Brumaire to a multinational corporate utopia? Alas, the plan incorporated this with the inclusion of a puppet government operating under the auspices of an "interim constitution". The Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations, note Ms. Klein, restrict what occupying powers can do to the occupied. Puppet governments, however, are not mentioned, so that must mean they are not covered. So draw up the contracts, have an interim government ratify the wishes of the multinational corporations, and then give the Iraqis their country back--subject to easements. Iyad Allawi's a good boy. Who said there wasn's a plan? Halliburton move over! Big Oil move in!