Iraq...the convenient truth.

Written a while back, but thought I would post it on here for you guys...

With over 90,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since March 2003 the war in Iraq is still a very topical issue in the media, but it seems not all aspects are readily covered in the news..

With protests taking place globally, there continues to be extreme pressure put on governments to withdraw troops from Iraq. The major invading countries have pledged to withdraw from Iraq in the very near future, but many other players are speculative as to the actual reasons for invading.

This uncertainty comes as the British government debates whether a public inquiry in to the Iraq war would be “dangerous” to the British public.

While governments claim that the war was to find weapons of mass destruction, none have yet to be found to this day. However, despite the assurances made by both Bush and Blair, many people argue the war in Iraq was for oil as Iraq has the second largest known oil reserve in the world.

David Wilson is an activist from the Stop the War Coalition, a British based organisation which fights to end the war occupation in Iraq.

“The war occupation was morally unjustified. The war was there to serve the interest of US imperialism, regardless of the lives lost, in which many companies gained from contracts provided by the American government,” he says.

Many US companies are benefiting from the Iraq war under the pretence of helping rebuild the country out to American companies. One of these companies is Halliburton, an American oil company.

According to the Asia times, a former subsidiary of Halliburton known as KBR has made “$31 billion for a variety of services to the US military, notably in the field of logistics, and the money continues to flow in”, for the six plus years they have been in Iraq.

“It would appear that the war was an excuse the US government to make vast sums of money at the expense of American and Iraqi lives,” says Wilson.

Belatedly the US congress has started to investigate this profiteering with the aim of bringing some of these companies to justice. Talks are still ongoing, as it is a very sensitive issue.

Whether this is successful is debatable as, the Bush administration and Dick Cheney, the former vice-president of the United States of America, have personally blocked, or influenced much of the released information.

Coincidently, Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000.

Issues raised by bringing these companies to justice include possible fraud, malpractice and political unrest from the American people, who will begin lack confidence in the democratic system.

Shailyn Shah