New War Profiteer website launched on anniversary of Iraq invasion

One year after the United States launched the dawn invasion of Iraq, war profiteering by multinational companies is at an all-time high with military contractors dramatically boosting revenues by 19% over 2002.

CorpWatch, an Oakland, California, based non-profit has launched a brand new version of the popular War Profiteers website to track these military contractors on a regular basis. The website, which can be found at http://www.warprofiteers.com, is the one-stop shop for
communities, citizens, taxpayers, policy makers, media, students and activists to learn about the new merchants of global conflict.

"Profiting from killing is wrong. What makes it even more outrageous is that taxpayers have to foot the bill. We intend to investigate these abuses and inform the public about what these companies are doing. This new website will be the premier place for the public to find out what is happening behind the scenes of the so-called war on terrorism," said Pratap Chatterjee, program director at CorpWatch.

Today one in ten personnel in the 2003 invasion of Iraq come from private industry, a dramatic ten-fold increase over the previous Gulf War in 1991. Not only were most of these employees drawn from the biggest military contractors in the United States: the company that won the most new work was the company that the Vice-President Dick Cheney headed up before he took office:
Halliburton Corporation and its subsidiaries (e.g., Kellogg, Brown, and Root) have won over $8 billion in contracts. Their military revenue in 2003 of $3.9 billion was a staggering 700% higher than the previous year!