Perpetual Reconstruction

Many of us went into a state of shock when we learned that our President had appointed Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. This was the guy who so ineptly designed the Iraqi project, i.e. the war and the reconstruction. He obviously was unfit to head up the World Bank. But was he? There were those who felt that Iraq had actually prepared him for his new job. As many of us know Wolfowitz was doing in Iraq what the World Bank had been doing in every country in the world torn by war or natural disaster, e.g. tsunami).Formerly the UN would step in after a conflict ended to provide emergency aid and re-build housing. But since Iraq and prior it was discovered that reconstruction was a lucrative business and that it was a profit making venture to attempt to ameliorate poverty through reconstruction. But why is reconstruction so inept? It is a fact that after the tsunami in Aceh 3 months later nothing had been done to re-build. It is also true that the water plants in Iraq that Bechtel had re-built at huge profit are breaking down. Foreign contractors in Afghanistan are corrupt and are wasting aid money that was provided. Unfortunately re-building is not its principle purpose. What the World Bank wants is to re-construct the society or in effect to reengineer the economy by privatizing state industry. The tsunami is a good example of the use of catastrophe to “re-shape” the society. In Sri Lanka corporate globalization is taking control of the sea coast and giving it over to foreign corporations with the help of the U.S. Marines. Condoleezza Rice back in January considered the tsunami as “a wonderful opportunity” that “has paid great dividends for us”. Using tragedy for political advantage was for some people appalling.

Linked to Wolfowitz and the World Bank is an organization created by the White House called the Office of the Coordination for Reconstruction and Stabilization and run by the former Ambassador to the Ukraine, Carlos Pascual. The purpose of this organization is to make plans for reconstruction prior to conflict. After the conflict it would be possible to handle “three full scale reconstruction operations” simultaneously for 5 to 7 years. No longer would it be necessary to wait for the conflict to end to make plans. There are 25 countries on the list for monitoring that are not yet in conflict. Pascual’s organization has teams ready to mobilize reconstruction after the conflict ends. Private companies and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) will have prior contracts to re-build the country at a huge profit. The idea is to change the economy of the nation from a state run economy to a market-oriented one, i.e. privatization. According to Pascual re-building could mean “tearing apart the old”. One East Indian observer commented that we formerly had “vulgar colonialism” but now it is a more “sophisticated colonialism” and we call it “reconstruction”. There are more and more regions world wide now under reconstruction through the efforts of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) but the actual re-building is done by private consulting firms, engineering companies, NGO’s and other financial organizations. In 1998 16% of the World Bank loans were provided for reconstruction in “post-conflict” countries. Now this year it is up to 20-25%, an 800% increase since 1980.One company that has a so-called “public service division” reports that its profits in 2002 increased by $342 million, a 35% margin.

There are several advantages to the World Bank when dealing in post-conflict or post-catastrophe areas. The situation is usually so bad that the country will agree to any thing to improve its plight. So they do whatever the World Bank demands. They will agree to huge debt and major changes in policy. The population is without housing or food and therefore cannot effectively prevent privatization. The country is considered too unstable to manage money and therefore the World Bank puts the aid money in a trust fund to be managed by the bank. The bank allows the government a certain amount of money periodically as long as they are acting responsibly. Thus public service jobs are gradually eliminated and aid money is given to the “private foreign consultants” that government is required to hire. These people earn many times more than any public service employee, if there are any left.

Linked to this plan of reconstruction is the President and his national security advisers’ plan to control intelligence analysis and covert operations. The program will first be directed toward the control of Iran. The CIA will have less independent responsibility and will only carry out policies as dictated by Bush and Cheney. The Bush administration does not consider the Iraq operation a failure and intends to continue its attempt to “democratize”, i.e. privatize the Middle East. The re-election of Bush indicates support for his position by the American people. The neoconservatives’ agenda has been justified. Rumsfeld told his Jt. Chiefs of Staff that the American people support the Pentagon’s program and that America will remain in Iraq.

Iraq is not the only campaign. The future looks toward many more like campaigns and the next one will be Iran. Rumsfeld will be responsible for any future operations. He will expand the war on terrorism and the Pentagon will run the program. The President has authorized covert operations in the Middle East and Asian countries using secret commando groups and Special Forces. Giving Rumsfeld control over these operations also allows him to run them “off the books”. This means there will be no “legal restrictions” as there had been when the CIA was in control. CIA covert operations formerly required reporting all such activities to Congress. Now under Rumsfeld there is no necessity to report to Congress. It will be called “black reconnaissance” instead of “covert ops”. Not even the upper level military commanders will be told.

Already the administration since last summer has conducted secret reconnaissance missions in Iran. They are collecting intelligence on “nuclear, chemical and missile sites”. The purpose is to identify at least 3 dozen sites that we might destroy by bombing strikes or commando raids. The neocon civilians in the Pentagon would like to destroy as much of Iran’s military installations as possible by actually invading the country. The civilians do not believe that diplomatic negotiations will prove effective and that Iran will only respond to the threat of military action. Haven’t we heard this before? However in the event that we attacked we would not know when or how a counter-attack might occur. They do have long-range missiles. Also once having been attacked they would certainly repudiate the Non-Proliferation Treaty and future inspections would halt. Thus the treaty would become a dead issue world-wide.

On the one hand, the President as usual is dissembling by talking diplomacy as the road to nuclear disarmament in Iran, while the Pentagon insists that negotiations will not achieve that goal. They want to attack Iran in some limited way in the hope that the religious leadership will fall. Within Iran there is a conflict between the secular leaders and the religious fundamentalists, i.e. the mullahs. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believe that if the mullahs are severely weakened the regime will topple. This is slightly reminiscent of their prediction that Iraq would fall after two weeks of fighting. On the other hand there are those who maintain that attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities will not produce a “popular uprising” because these sites are extremely popular with both the secular and religious population. It is essential to their desire to be a modern technological nation. One observer believes that such an attack will produce a “backlash” against America and strengthen the present rulers.

Rumsfeld has worked 2 years to convince the President that military commandos be used for covert operations. The President finally conceded that the Pentagon should have control over the CIA’s para-military units that have been operating covertly around the world for many years. Furthermore, two former CIA covert officers announced recently that the Pentagon had been finally permitted to act in certain countries where there was a terrorist threat. One former CIA operative does not believe that the military can handle this type of assignment. To be successful requires “finesse and sensibility’, which the military lacks. The CIA was much better equipped for this role. Even the special operations officers aren’t sure about its success. Furthermore, Congress isn’t being told much about these plans, and there are serious legal questions regarding not informing Congress about covert operations. Congress has always been concerned about the military getting us into trouble politically when they were not informed beforehand.

Under the new Rumsfeld rules the Special Forces will go into action in certain countries looking for terrorist organizations. It is mindful of the “right wing execution squads” of El Salvador. We organized and financed them. They were roving gangs that murdered and tortured members of anti-American populist groups. We want to repeat this kind of operation but we are not going to tell Congress. The point of this kind of activity is to eliminate so-called terrorist groups and once having done so seize control of the government by putting down any possibility of a populist uprising. We are doing it to some degree in Afghanistan, we are doing it more successfully in Haiti and we are still trying to do it in Iraq, but not so successfully.

It is Rumsfeld’s intention to maintain the efficiency of Pentagon intelligence and devitalize the CIA on the basis that the CIA did not provide useful intelligence in the Middle East. Human intelligence on the ground was severely lacking in the CIA, at least so the Pentagon claimed. In addition the White House put pressure on certain CIA analysts to support the political position of the Administration. A political purge of the Directorate of Intelligence (CIA) took place after Tenet left. A number of senior analysts quietly resigned who were at loggerheads with the Administration. Rumsfeld under a new reform bill passed by Congress will be able to end-run around the CIA and will not have to refer anything through government intelligence. He does not have to tell anyone what he is doing.


References:


Hersh, Seymour. The Coming Wars. New Yorker. Jan. 19, 2005.
Klein, Naomi. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The Nation. April 19, 2005