December 16, 2003OP-ED COLUMNIST
Patriots and ProfitsBy PAUL
KRUGMAN

ast week there were major news stories about possible
profiteering by Halliburton and other American contractors in Iraq. These
stories have, inevitably and appropriately, been pushed temporarily into
the background by the news of Saddam’s capture. But the questions remain.
In fact, the more you look into this issue, the more you worry that we
have entered a new era of excess for the military-industrial complex.

The story about Halliburton’s strangely expensive gasoline imports into
Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. High-priced gasoline was purchased from
a supplier whose name is unfamiliar to industry experts, but that appears
to be run by a prominent Kuwaiti family (no doubt still grateful for the
1991 liberation). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documents seen by The Wall
Street Journal refer to “political pressures” from Kuwait’s government and
the U.S. embassy in Kuwait to deal only with that firm. I wonder where
that trail leads.

Meanwhile, NBC News has obtained Pentagon inspection reports of
unsanitary conditions at mess halls run by Halliburton in Iraq: “Blood all
over the floors of refrigerators, dirty pans, dirty grills, dirty salad
bars, rotting meat and vegetables.” An October report complains that
Halliburton had promised to fix the problem but didn’t.

And more detail has been emerging about Bechtel’s much-touted school
repairs. Again, a Pentagon report found “horrible” work: dangerous debris
left in playground areas, sloppy paint jobs and broken toilets.

Are these isolated bad examples, or part of a pattern? It’s impossible
to be sure without a broad, scrupulously independent investigation. Yet
such an inquiry is hard to imagine in the current political environment —
which is precisely why one can’t help suspecting the worst.

Let’s be clear: worries about profiteering aren’t a left-right issue.
Conservatives have long warned that regulatory agencies tend to be
“captured” by the industries they regulate; the same must be true of
agencies that hand out contracts. Halliburton, Bechtel and other major
contractors in Iraq have invested heavily in political influence, not just
through campaign contributions, but by enriching people they believe might
be helpful. Dick Cheney is part of a long if not exactly proud tradition:
Brown & Root, which later became the Halliburton subsidiary doing
those dubious deals in Iraq, profited handsomely from its early support of
a young politician named Lyndon Johnson.

So is there any reason to think that things are worse now? Yes.

The biggest curb on profiteering in government contracts is the threat
of exposure: sunshine is the best disinfectant. Yet it’s hard to think of
a time when U.S. government dealings have been less subject to
scrutiny.

First of all, we have one-party rule — and it’s a highly disciplined,
follow-your-orders party. There are members of Congress eager and willing
to take on the profiteers, but they don’t have the power to issue
subpoenas.

And getting information without subpoena power has become much harder
because, as a new report in U.S. News & World Report puts it, the Bush
administration has “dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical
operations of the federal government.” Since 9/11, the administration has
invoked national security to justify this secrecy, but it actually began
the day President Bush took office.

To top it all off, after 9/11 the U.S. media — which eagerly played up
the merest hint of scandal during the Clinton years — became highly
protective of the majesty of the office. As the stories I’ve cited
indicate, they have become more searching lately. But even now, compare
British and U.S. coverage of the Neil Bush saga.

The point is that we’ve had an environment in which officials inclined
to do favors for their business friends, and contractors inclined to pad
their bills or do shoddy work, didn’t have to worry much about being
exposed. Human nature being what it is, then, the odds are that the
troubling stories that have come to light aren’t isolated examples.

Some Americans still seem to feel that even suggesting the possibility
of profiteering is somehow unpatriotic. They should learn the story of
Harry Truman, a congressman who rose to prominence during World War II by
leading a campaign against profiteering. Truman believed, correctly, that
he was serving his country.

On the strength of that record, Franklin Roosevelt chose Truman as his
vice president. George Bush, of course, chose Dick
Cheney.