Thursday, July 07, 2005

who wants to know? who wants you not to know?

The news that Halliburton quietly got another 5 billion dollar contract was "underplayed" to say the least. This story was linked "above the fold" on Al Jazerra.net's English edition. It was nowhere to be found on NYTimes or WashingtonPost. From the article:

Halliburton bags another Iraq contract


The US military has signed on Halliburton to do nearly $5 billion in new work in Iraq under a giant logistics contract that has so far earned the Texas-based firm $9.1 billion.

Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for US Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Illinois, said on Wednesday that the military signed the work order with Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root in May.

The new deal, worth $4.97 billion over the next year, was not made public when it was signed because the Army did not consider such an announcement necessary, she said.

"We did not announce this task order as this is really not something we ever really thought about doing," said Theis.

Maybe 2:00 P.M. GMT is late for the NYTimes but it was not in their Reuters or AP feeds either and the deal was actually signed yesterday. I guess these news outlets agree with the Army's hush hush stance: "nothing to see here, move along now!"

1 comment:

BwcaBrownie said...

and General Electric made a fortune out of the American War in Indo-China (frequently refrred to as The Vietnam War).
War has always been about money. see 'pillaging' and 'looting'.
Every person who dies in a war, has been given birth to; so it amazes me that the type of rightwing godbotherers who support invasions which result in deaths, go ballistic at the thought of terminating a foetus when it is a blob of jelly, and would go mega ballistic if a newborn infant was strangled immediately in order to save the mother making school lunches for years while waiting for the country to send her child to be killed later. Wars are Very Bad and always have the same result: deaths and money.