Les 12.646% d’Halliburton

Il faut lire l’intéressant rapport “Soldiers versus Contractors: Emerging Budgetary Reality?”, de William D. Hartung du World Policy Institute (depuis le 17 février 2006 sur le site du Center of Defense Information (CDI). Hartung examine le budget du Pentagone pour l’année fiscale 2007 à la lumière de la QDR 2005.

L’approche est originale. On y lira notamment ces réalités sur les rapports de la guerre moderne, le “guerre de la quatrième génération”, qui ne rapporte plus guère (c’est-à-dire un peu moins) aux grands contractants du complexe militaro-industriel (CMI). Ceux qui sont gâtés, ce sont les entrepreneurs et loueurs de services. Parmi eux, le fabuleux Halliburton, dont Cheney fut le PDG et où il conserve des intérêts puissants. Halliburton a vu une augmentation de 12.646% de ses contrats avec le Pentagone depuis 2001. Ce chiffre si complètement tambourinant qu’il rend grâce autant au vice-président Cheney qu’au président directeur général Cheney.

Un passage de rapport d’Hartung :

« Soldiers Versus Contractors: Conflict on the Horizon?

» A series of unique circumstances may conspire to pit the financial interests of Pentagon mega-contractors against the need to sustain appropriate levels of well-trained, well-equipped troops during wartime. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will combine with the factors above to put a strain on the Pentagon’s budget for non-war related items.

» Contrary to popular wisdom, not all wars are good for weapons contractors. Wars of counterinsurgency are far more likely to require basic equipment than the multi-billion programs for fighter planes, submarines, missile defense and nuclear weapons that are the bread-and-butter of the Lockheed Martins and Northrop Grummans of the world. In the emerging budgetary environment, there are limits to how long this administration – or any other – can pay for two wars and purchase a series of big ticket systems that have little relevance to current military needs.

» A little-noticed element of Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s call for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was a concern that the ongoing costs of the war would drain money from modernization of U.S. weaponry. He said that he had started telling contractors that they might have to think in terms of making their living by upgrading and repairing existing systems. He was also concerned about the tradeoffs between the needs of military personnel and veterans versus weapons programs. He sees these tradeoffs being driven by the costs of the Iraq war, which are running at $1.5 billion per week. He expressed his concerns on this point as follows: “Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We cannot allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of health care, to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away.”

» Even if procurement and research and development budgets stay on the upward path they have been on since this administration took office in 2001 – as they are proposed to do in the FY 2007 budget – there is no guarantee that the big contractors won’t still have to bring their lobbying muscle to bear to maintain funding for some of their big ticket programs. That’s because the fastest growing contractors are involved in providing goods and services in Iraq, not big ticket weapons systems for future use.

» Companies with major profiles in Iraq — like Halliburton (12,646%), Dyncorp International (200%), Bechtel (139%), Parsons (104%), and Washington Group International (126%) have seen their Pentagon prime contracts double, triple, or – in Halliburton’s case – increase by more than tenfold between 2001 and 2005. By contrast, the top two defense contractors – Lockheed Martin (32%) and Northrop Grumman (38%) – have had healthy but much smaller gains of about one-third each over the same time. »

Mis en ligne le 20 février 2006 à 06H45