Corporations Cash in on War on Terror
by Dave Zweifel

When "Fighting Bob" La Follette was in the U.S. Senate he crusaded against what he called war profiteers.

It was the main reason he was so opposed to the U.S. entry into World War I. The only interest we had in that war, he said, was for our big corporations to make obscene profits on the backs of our military.

Our interests in today's war on terror, of course, are much broader and personal. But La Follette would have a field day pointing out who is enjoying the spoils of that war.

U.S. News and World Report devoted a major portion of a recent issue to what it called the "Profiteers of War." The magazine showed in graphic detail just how much money some of this country's biggest companies are making off the defense buildup since Sept. 11.

Many U.S. military contractors have received tens of millions in contracts from the Defense Department that have little if anything to do with the war against terrorism.

One of the plum contracts that will supposedly aid in the terrorist war is scheduled to go to the Boeing Aircraft Co. The Air Force would lease 100 767s from Boeing at a cost of $20 billion for 10 years. The 767s (a new, large plane used by many commercial airlines) would be converted to refuelers and then after 10 years the Air Force would pay to reconvert them to commercial planes and give them back to Boeing.

The modern-day military spending watchdog, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., calls the Boeing deal "obscene. Twenty billion dollars over 10 years and nothing to show for it."

But McCain's on the short end. Too many senators stand to gain jobs or military spending from the contract. Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, for example, spoke passionately in favor of the Boeing deal.

The planes would be important in the war in Afghanistan, she insisted. Of course, not one of the planes would be ready to fly until long after the war on terror had moved elsewhere. Kansas, incidentally, is where the planes would be converted.

In an accompanying piece headlined "Wages of Sin," the magazine reported on how many major corporations have been caught cheating and defrauding the government on defense contracts, but even when convicted, wind up with lush new ones. Lockheed, for example, has been named in at least 33 cases covering overcharges, falsifying reports, environmental pollution and so on. So far the company has paid more than $145 million in penalties.

Its penalty? Last fall the Defense Department awarded Lockheed the richest military contract in history - for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - which some estimate could be worth $200 billion over several decades.

'We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," President Dwight Eisenhower said in his last speech as president in 1961. "The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

And when the president and Congress are enamored with war at any cost, it makes that acquisition of power and influence all the easier.