War profits taint the greedy hands of more than 25 % of members of the US House and Senate!

by Rev. Richard Skaff

Global Research, May 7, 2008
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What do war, Congressmen, Senators, and the defense/offense industry have in common? The answer, if you haven’t already guessed is “profits.”

Conflict makes money for the military industrial complex, and the cronies they place in Congress, the Senate, and the White House.

An investigation by Ralph Forbes from American Free press reported on May 05, 2008 that more than a quarter of US senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq [1].

The report also edifies that 151 members of congress invested close to a quarter-billion dollars in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. These companies got more than 275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to Fedspending.org [2]. In 2004, the first full year after the current Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers-both hawks and doves invested between $74.9 million and 161.3 million in companies under contract with the DoD [1]. No wonder the Democratic congress kept approving the enormous spending bills on the war, since a significant portion of it happens to end up in their deep pockets.

The report elucidates further that investments in these contractors yielded Congress members between $15.8 million and $62 million in personal income from 2004 to 2006, through dividends, capital gains, royalties, and interest [1]. Certainly, as the war went on and escalated, so did the increase in profits.

Interestingly, the report also mentioned that members of the senate foreign relations and armed services committees which oversee the Iraq war had between $32 million and $44 million invested in companies with DoD contracts. Per example, war hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the defense-related Senate Homeland security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had at least $51,000 invested in these companies in 2006. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who voted for Bush’s war, had stock in defense companies such as Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon, but sold them in May 2007. [1].

Continued . . .