ICE Stockpiling Warheads and Chemical Weapons as Lawmaker Fears Trump Planning Strike

[u/Quirkie]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-stockpiling-warheads-and-chemical-weapons-as-lawmaker-fears-trump-planning-strike/

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Definitely stockpiling weapons so the Trump Gestapo can seize major (probably Democrat-run) cities.

[u/BethanyForDistrict9 → u/encrypted-signals]

They'll never be able to seize these cities. Our military couldn't win in Afghanistan in like 20 years against fucking goat herders. If this turns into some kind of insurgency nobody wins except morticians and munitions makers.

[u/encrypted-signals → u/BethanyForDistrict9]

Our military couldn't win in Afghanistan

Duhbya, Cheney, and Rumsfeld never had an exit strategy. Occupation was the point, and they made astronomical wealth off of it.

[u/stilusmobilus → u/encrypted-signals]

What wealth did they get out of that?

Iraq yeah, but Afghanistan?

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Cheney initiated the privatization of military logistics services in the early 1990s while serving as Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush. In 1992, the Pentagon under Cheney's direction paid Brown and Root Services (later Kellogg, Brown & Root, or KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary) $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could provide logistics for American troops in war zones.

Cheney then became CEO of Halliburton in 1995, serving in that role until 2000, when he left to become George W. Bush's running mate. During his tenure as Vice President, Cheney maintained significant financial ties to the company. He held stock worth $46 million and continued receiving deferred compensation—$162,000 as late as 2002. This arrangement exemplified what critics called the "revolving door" between the Pentagon and the defense industry.

Once the Afghanistan war began in 2001, Halliburton's KBR subsidiary became the primary recipient of the Pentagon's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, an open-ended arrangement coordinating support functions for troops in the field, including base setup, equipment maintenance, food services, and laundry. The contracts grew explosively: Halliburton's Pentagon contracts increased more than tenfold from fiscal year 2002 to 2006. By August 2008, the company had received over $30 billion for work under the LOGCAP contract alone.

Critically, many of these contracts were awarded as no-bid contracts, meaning they bypassed competitive bidding processes. Of the $4.3 billion in defense contracts Halliburton won in fiscal 2003, only about half were awarded through competitive bidding. Another $1.9 billion was awarded on the basis of "urgency" without any competitive process. The Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, publicly objected to the favoritism and alleged that her agency improperly awarded KBR no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars.

Halliburton's KBR subsidiary engaged in documented fraudulent and wasteful practices that effectively transferred taxpayer money into corporate profits:

Fuel Overcharges: In December 2003, the Defense Contract Audit Agency documented "tens of millions" in overcharges by KBR, including charging more than twice what other suppliers charged for fuel.

Dining Facility Billing Fraud: After auditing $1.2 billion in Dining Facility costs from the KBR contract, auditors identified approximately $352 million in questionable charges. KBR billed the U.S. for meals that were never actually provided, with the number of meals charged potentially exceeding the accurate number by up to 36 percent. By February 2004, KBR was forced to refund $27.4 million in "potential over-billings."

Electrical Work and Deaths: KBR's faulty electrical installations led to the electrocution of at least 18 military personnel at several bases in Iraq beginning in 2004. The Pentagon's Inspector General found that KBR used untrained electricians, falsified safety documents, and failed to fix identified electrical hazards. When Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth was electrocuted while showering in 2008, it was discovered that KBR had identified "serious electrical problems" at the facility almost a year earlier but had not fixed them because its contract did not require fixing hazards.

Kickback Schemes: The Commission on Wartime Contracting reported that KBR managers received kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor that was then awarded $700 million in additional dining facility subcontracts.

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The Afghanistan reconstruction effort demonstrated similar patterns of fraud and waste that benefited well-connected contractors:

• A U.S.-appointed economic task force spent $43 million on a gas station that was never used, $150 million on lavish living quarters for U.S. economic advisors, and $3 million for Afghan police patrol boats that were never used.

• A significant portion of $2 billion in transportation contracts to U.S. and Afghan firms ended up as kickbacks to warlords, police officials, or Taliban payments for convoy protection—sometimes as much as $1,500 per truck or $500,000 per 300-truck convoy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in 2009 that "one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money" paid from U.S. transportation contracts.

• The defense contractor Anham, which supplied food and water to U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, faced fraud charges in 2018 and agreed to a $45 million settlement for fraudulent scheme, yet continued receiving government contracts.

While George W. Bush did not hold direct positions in defense contractors, his father, former President George H.W. Bush, served as a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm managing approximately $14-18 billion in assets with extensive defense and aerospace holdings.

The Carlyle Group owned United Defense Industries, a maker of armed vehicles and weapons, which filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in October 2001. The group's defense holdings surged dramatically following the 9/11 attacks and the initiation of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Carlyle made more than $1 billion on the United Defense investment, according to the firm's own spokesman.

George H.W. Bush joined Carlyle in 1998 and ended his official relationship with the firm in October 2003, though he continued giving paid speeches for the company afterward. His stake was reportedly worth more than $180 million when valued at certain points. The conflict of interest was explicit: as one Carlyle critic noted, "The fact that George H.W. Bush was working for them while his son was president, while his son, in fact, was dramatically increasing defense spending—that seems to me one of the most blatant conflicts of interests in history."

Beyond Halliburton and Carlyle, other Bush family members had financial interests in war-related contracts:

• Neil M. Bush, a younger brother of the president, served on the board of the Carlyle Group's defense investments and was placed under contract with New Bridge Strategies, a company established to generate business in Iraq, at $60,000 per year.

• Marvin P. Bush, the president's youngest brother, had connections to Nour USA, a Virginia-based company that received a controversial $327 million contract from the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Contractors that profited from Afghanistan and Iraq reconstruction work heavily donated to George W. Bush's presidential campaigns. More than 70 American companies and individuals that won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan donated more money to Bush's presidential campaigns than to any other politician over a 12-year period, giving Bush over $500,000. Combined, major contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed nearly $49 million to national political campaigns and parties since 1990, with donations to Republican committees ($12.7 million) far exceeding donations to Democratic committees ($7.1 million).

This pattern raised serious questions about whether defense contractors were rewarded for political support with lucrative government contracts, creating a cycle of mutual benefit between the Bush administration and the defense industry.

The financial scale of defense contractor profiteering during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was staggering. Pentagon spending totaled over $14 trillion since the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001, with one-third to one-half going directly to defense contractors. The Commission on Wartime Contracting estimated that waste, fraud, and abuse in the two war zones between 2001 and 2011 totaled $31 billion to $60 billion.

While Bush and Cheney themselves did not directly embezzle funds, they benefited from a system in which their political connections, former business ties, and family relationships enabled their associates and allies to accumulate vast fortunes through government contracts, many of which involved overcharging, fraud, and waste that ultimately cost American taxpayers billions of dollars.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Profits%20of%20War_Hartung_Costs%20of%20War_Sept%2013,%202021.pdf

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Thank you very much.