The Wall Street Journal describes it as “the largest government reconstruction effort since Americans helped to rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II.” Just how much the rebuilding of Iraq will cost American taxpayers is a figure still too elusive to capture. But, the President’s request for an additional $87 billion in September atop the $3.7 billion a month we are already spending, indicates the final figure will be, as one pundit described it, quite “an adult number.”

Recent estimates now put the final figure somewhere between $200 billion to as much as half a trillion dollars over the next ten years.

America’s Iraq-sticker-shock may turn to anger when taxpayers discover the small group of men and companies reaping the benefits of President Bush’s newly found appreciation for nation building.

While Vice President Dick Cheney’s company, Halliburton, has attracted most press attention for its Iraq-related contracts, Halliburton is hardly the whole story. Its share is but a slice of the multi-billion dollar pie being divided up among a brotherhood of unusually well connected and economically related individuals and entities.

…the biggest US defense contractors who have cornered critical chunks of defense work have achieved an even more dubious status: TBF/ TBJ - “Too Big to Fail/Too Big to Jail.”

Read the report (Adobe PDF) by Misleader.org. Misleader.org will provide an accurate daily chronicle for journalists of mis-representations, distortions and downright misleading statements by President Bush and the Bush Administration.

The Corporate Invasion of Iraq-Profile of U.S. Corporations Awarded Contracts in U.S./British-Occupied Iraq (Adobe PDF) prepared by the U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW).

This report details the labor, human rights, environmental and social records of 18 U.S. corporations that have been given contracts for work in Iraq.

By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad

Neville left us early this morning to head back to Australia via the states where he will spend a week. He will be able to visit with Kathy Kelly. As Cynthia, Neville, Ed and I sat on the roof last night under the stars one final time together, we felt so grateful to be here and to have had this time together again. Despite the struggles that the maintenance and problems that this large house and the newspaper downstairs have brought with it– something that none of us had bargained with– we were surrounded by a feeling of peace. We had just spoken with the Chicago Voices office over the phone. People are coming. People are going. Life is such a mystery. Sometimes it is not for us to try and figure out. It is enough to just be grateful for the moment. Ramadan is coming. I am expectant and apprehensive at the same time. I hope I can be watchful and attentive. Love to you all, cathy

By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad

At home and here we are all struggling to understand the situation. It is such a complex one. The threat of civil war is just one piece of the puzzle, as is the role of the governing council, the coalition authorities, the U.N., etc. We need to be listening and learning what people here representing different sectors believe and sense.

Just the other night our reporter friend stopped by to tell me about the most recent press conference where the CPA (coalition authority) spokesperson announced that Al Sadr government was not legal. As is his custom, our friend began his question by repeating the spokesperson’s statement. “You say that the Al Sadr government is not legal? Do you think that the governing council is legal?” he asked. “Who gave legality to the governing council? The Iraqi people didn’t vote for them!”

By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad

Dear Friends,

The day began with a rich reflection. Neville read parts from the introduction of Jonathan Schell’s book, the Unconquered World, and we went from there. Mr. Schell suggests that the U.S. had settled into a complacent type of triumphalism after the end of the Cold War “simply too pleased with the status quo to imagine that it could be upset.” But the spell was broken, he says, on September 11th, 2001. “The slumbering dragon of total violence had only twitched its tail, and yet with that one stroke the United States was brutally startled out of its sleep.” I could picture it so vividly. The dragon slumbers no more. Raised up on its hind legs, the ugly raging beast, spewing the fire of revenge from its mouth, igniting fires of terrorism around the world.”

Before our common reflection, I had been having my own quiet time in the upstairs room. I brought a beautiful calendar with pictures of Gandhi from the states hoping to use parts of it in our reflection times. One picture is of Gandhi as a young man. It shows him in a Western suit, his arms crossed over his chest. It was the penetrating eyes that caught my attention. It made me think of the piercing eyes of the Imams who visited us recently. Next to the picture is a statement by Gandhi “I have noticed that life persists in the midst of destruction, therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction.”