War & Disaster Profiteering

When U.S. troops or embassy officials want to investigate Iraqis - such as interrogating prisoners, the principal intermediary is a Manhattan based-company named L-3. CorpWatch is pleased to release this updated version of the report, with recommendations from Amnesty International Read More

Sixteen Indiana national guardsmen filed a lawsuit yesterday against military contractor KBR. The complaint alleges that several reservists contracted respiratory system tumors and skin rashes after guarding reconstruction work at the Qarmat Ali treatment plant, strewn with the toxin chromium dichromate. Read More

The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles. Read More

In the history of the Iraq War, one name is perhaps synonymous with the collapse of the Bush administration's hopes for a post-Saddam world: Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner, who served as the first post-war administrator. This year, he and a small group of former US military leaders, officials, and lobbyists have quietly used their Kurdistan connections to help Canadian companies access some of the region's richest oil fields. Read More

Seven years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, the country faces an increasingly uncertain future. Award-winning investigative journalists Pratap Chatterjee and Nobu Sakamoto, reported from Afghanistan immediately following the invasion, and now return to the country as part of a CorpWatch/KPFA Radio collaboration to take stock. Read More

The Bush administration's wiretapping program has come under new scrutiny. Two influential congressional committees have opened probes into allegations US intelligence spied on the phone calls of U.S. military personnel, journalists and aid workers in Iraq. James Bamford discusses the NSA's domestic sprying, the agency's failings pre-9/11 and the ties between NSA and the nation's telecommunications companies. Read More

Now come the second thoughts on globalization, as never before have world markets been so integrated. The current financial crisis could mark the start of an effort to overhaul the global financial system conceived at the 1944 summit in Bretton Woods, N.H., which set the rules of international commerce for industrial countries. Read More

The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government. Read More

The Defense Department said this week that it wants to sell as many as 75 fighter jets to Israel in a $15.2 billion deal for the aircraft expected to be the mainstay of air power in the United States and several other nations for decades. Read More

After six years of battling, the plaintiffs must prove whether certain multinationals enabled the apartheid government to commit acts of gross human rights violations. Among the 21 defendants are oil, vehicle and financial companies which continue to operate in South Africa -- the likes of BP, Shell, Chevron Texaco, Barclays, Daimler Chrysler and Rio Tinto. They stand accused of supporting the former regime with arms and ammunition, financing, fuel, transportation and military technology. Read More