Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers

Finally the country is waking up to the realization that things are not as they should be. Either here or overseas. The wrong people have the power and the money and wrong people are suffering on account of it. But what can we do? How can I be apart of making it all change or shift gears?

Now there is one strategy placed at your doorsteps. In the driving cinematic film Iraq for Sale. It is a documentary that the masses should see. It is is informative, engrossing, and enraging. Giving us the low down about War Profiteering and its ugly bi product, corporate greed. Is it possible that people could be making money from this unnecessary war? Why, yes it is. I wouldn't be surprised if the very necessity of the current state of affairs stems from this corrupt connection between the companies profiting and the politicians supporting them.

Iraq for Sale is a unique tool that can be used to make a difference simply by joining the grass roots movement and sharing it with the people you know. Host a screening, buy one for a friend, inform people about the movie and its website. In order to move in the direction of change you half to first take one step in the right direction. And that step has always begun with arming the people with knowledge.

The math is very simple. Contribute a couple of million dollars to key congressional figures and the Republican party and get $19 BILLION dollars worth of contracts in Iraq. You figure out the profit percentage. It's far more that your bank is paying you for your savings. How about a $4.5 million dollar investment by Halliburton resulting in so many billions of dollars in contracts that the CEO makes over $40 million. Do you really believe that the Vice-president, the former head of Halliburton, is not actively involved? Military that were involved in abuse of Abu Gahrib were court-martial-ed and jailed, while civilian contractors, after killing Iraqis were simply sent home to come back later with another contractor. At this the President dances and jokes and grins like a monkey.

The billions of dollars that we are spending in Iraq is going to companies that are major Republican contributers and they are not accountable for the fraud, waste, and abuse they are perpetrating on the American people.

It should be the obligation of every American to see this film before they cast another vote.

The story of the connection between the privately held corporations that have profited from the war in Iraq without oversight and the Bush administration has been revealed in bits and pieces over the years. This film attempts to connect the links and highlight the impact that it has had on the lives of those most affected. It is admirable that a first time director would tackle such a feat, but it could be done more successfully. Better editing and a little more research into the issues could have made this film stronger. There are a few things that I find annoying in the film. First is the sloppy use of Powerpoint like graphs & tables. The directors show names of companies and individuals in boxes and lines in between them, but never really backs this up with any explanation of what the boxes & lines represent, much less actually proving that links between the many people mentioned actually exist. The directors also make heavy-handed use of dramatic music, which usually gets on my nerves. If the story is dramatic (which it is) and effectively presented (this could have been done with better editing), such hyperbole isn't needed. A lot of the information has been previously reported in The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor & Democracy Now, what this documentary adds is the personal toll that the privatization of war has had on those who fight it. Many of the interviews are very good, though a bit repetitive in their message. A clearer structure to the film, either by a timeline or using an omniscient narrator, would have made it stronger. As it stands the film is repetitive & I found myself (someone already familiar with the story) nodding off at about the half way point. Some talking heads (NGO representatives, academics, etc.) would have also strengthened this film and give it a bit more analytical edge to it.

The war dribbles on, hundreds of billions of dollars dumped into the Iraqi sand, over a hundred thousand people dead, millions made homeless, Halliburton stock triples, Bush has his hair styled, Cheney shoots caged birds thrown from the bed of a pickup truck, heroically I guess or ain't it fun to watch the bird bodies splatter? Meanwhile, somebody somewhere has that "Mission Accomplished" banner. It should go for some serious bucks on Ebay someday. Karl Rove is writing his memoirs: "There's a new reality, the reality of power. Power makes its own reality. (And I--I!--was at the pinnacle: indeed I was the Power and the Glory. Myself. Me.)" Rumsfeld ditto. But Rummy writes of "shock and awe" and how the generals in the field bungled his best laid plans. And soon George W. himself will be writing his memoirs. The advance will be several million. The lies will probably not exceed that number.

Of course there is no way that I at my computer can find the words to really make clear the stupefying waste and the horrific immorality of what the Bush administration has done in the name that was once America. Robert Greenwald's documentary does it better, much better by focusing on the profiteering by KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater et al. He uses the camera to show the images of human carnage, of the weighty mass of trucks and equipment, of Bush administration officials lying through their teeth on TV, of Bush himself strutting, waving, smiling. There are graphs of profits going up, up, up, street level shots of the stately office buildings of the profiteering companies, silver and glass, sunlight on well-tended lawns. Condi and Rummy, and Dick and Bush lying, lying, and lying some more. And for what? Cheney will be dead soon himself. Bush will be bored (perhaps to drink), their ill-gotten millions of no value to their dying souls.

I liked the way Greenwald predicted the Blackwater scandal, more or less with his focus. (You should check it out.) All those macho guys with their military pensions in their back pockets finding Soldier of Fortune jobs at Blackwater, toting their guns, shooting the enemy in self-defense, making an additional six figures a year. Pallets of hundred dollar bills forklifted off of military transport planes...

Well, Greenwald didn't get THAT shot (too bad), but he did show EMPTY trucks, a convoy, on an Iraqi highway (paid for as LOADED according to the contract). The contract of America with Halliburton. Halliburton with America. What's good for Halliburton is good for America. He shows the hundred dollar a meal meals contracted for those inside the Green Zone. It's surreal and then some. We airlift the PX, the movie theaters, the gym equipment, the computers, the TVs, the Pepsi Cola--well, actually Halliburton was able to substitute some local Iraqi cola at a fraction of the cost. We create a virtual reality army base inside Bagdad where our forces can hang out in safety. Who gains? Those doing the transporting.

More than any war in history, this documentary shows the influence of privatization. With no-bid contracts, of course. Bush hates big government. The way to reduce government is to make it go broke. How do you do that? You create a useless war and sell the contracts to your buds at inflated prices. It's amazing but this is what has happened. And Greenwald documents it.

Problem is, this fine documentary will be lost in the vast sea of information that we ourselves are lost in. Hide in plain site is what the profiteers have been able to do. Your stock triples, it's reported on the five o'clock news and in the pages of the New York Times ("our paper, man") but who can see it amid the myriad details of other stock prices or of the endless parade of other numbers, and words, words, words. A billion dollars lost here and there. Pentagon accountants clueless. Just another story on CNN, spun out of sight by Fox News.

You can watch this without the sound. The images tell the story.

This is another fine piece of work by Greenwald. He also directed Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War (2003) and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004). He does a great job with the visuals, the interviews, and the narrative.

I have one tiny criticism. No captions. No English subtitles. Every film and documentary on DVD should have subtitles. That way we can be sure of the exact phrasing of the lies.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Robert Greenwald is a filmmaker I'm familiar with well from his very prolific output of politically charged documentaries (with one regular dramatic feature also) from the past several years, my favorite being Outfoxed. Now he comes with Iraq for Sale, a documentary aimed at exposing one of the gravest injustices to come out of the invasion of Iraq. The contractors who have been given carte-blanche (primarily Haliburton aka KBR) to take control of how the military is taken care of and that just to turn a profit (albeit a major, huge one) people who didn't sign up to fight for the USA die off. Greenwald, as in other docs, takes on the subject matter from two angles- the emotional side, where those close to those who died air their grievances and outrage at losing members of their family and friends; and the factual side, where it's laid out pretty plainly the message- something very, very corrupt and fascist is going on in both the so-called protection of the soldiers and in the Abu-Gharib scandal.

Greenwald's film-making style isn't too bad at all, and is held back from being flashy with the usage of graphics and charts and such when interviewing his subjects. And a lot of the archival footage and testimonies do all add up to something that leaves one with a feeling of near hopelessness (saying near because there should still be hope that this can change). But at the same time I also felt that Greenwald could only go for so much in the 70 minute running time. He un-earths a couple of things I didn't know of, such as the corporations Caci and Titan, one of which was partly responsible for the torture in the prisons (half in military get-up, half in just regular attire, all torturing mostly random civilians). The numbers are also pretty staggering at times, though at this point with the practically one-party rule in the country- where corporate interests go hand in pocketed hand with lobbyists and firms- things shouldn't be surprising at this point. But that it feels a little rushed at times too is my only real complaint overall about the picture.

It's really worth a viewing though, regardless of political affiliation (even as the Right would get uncomfortable and have to take their views into account when seeing Bush and Rumsfeld on screen). It deals with things that should be of consequence to all Americans, who are the ones paying out their tax dollars to intolerable problems in monopolized power structures. It almost comes off towards the last part, in discussing Halburton, like watching something out of a ice-cold communist structure where people in high places getting paid a lot give menial, awful conditions to those who are technically those to take care of. As Greenwald shows to his most prominent point, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and in this case during this 'war on terror' going on in Iraq.