Halliburton's Army

Pratap Chatterjee
February 2009     ISBN: 1568583923

From Halliburton's vital mission as the logistical backbone of the U.S. occupation in Iraq—without it there could be no war or occupation—to its role in covering up gang-rape among its personnel in Baghdad, Halliburton's Army is a devastating exposé of corporate malfeasance and political cronyism. In shocking detail it shows how Halliburton and its former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) really do business in Iraq, and around the world.

Pratap Chatterjee—one of the world's leading authorities on corporate crime, fraud, and corruption—shows how Halliburton won and then lost its contracts in Iraq. He brings us inside the Pentagon meetings, where senior officials made the decision to send Halliburton to Iraq, and explains what favors Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did for the company. He travels to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Turkey, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates and Yugoslavia to describe firsthand the freewheeling ways of the company and its subcontractors: from bribes, graft, skimming, offshore subsidiaries and executives leading the high life with smuggled alcohol in Kuwait to racing yachts in Thailand. Finally, Chatterjee reveals the human costs of the privatization of U.S. military logistics, which is sustained almost entirely by low-paid unskilled Third World workers who work in incredibly dangerous conditions for a couple of dollars an hour.

Halliburton’s Army is a hair-raising exposé of one of the world’s most lethal corporations—essential reading for anyone concerned about the nexus of private companies, government and war.

"A sordid tale of politics and profiteering, courtesy of the Bush administration and a compliant military. Chatterjee documents the malfeasance down to the penny; the book is data-rich and heavily footnoted... Chatterjee tells intriguing stories alongside the compendia of numbers, dates, and names. He documents, without much commentary, some of the ironies that emerge in the Halliburton story, among then Cheney's machinations to keep Iran open for Halliburton business while loudly putting sanctions in place—and claiming that the Iran hanky-panky was legal because it was conducted 'by a foreign-owned subsidiary based in the Cayman Islands.' A report that deserves many readers, about matters that deserve many indictments."
—Kirkus Reviews

Pratap Chatterjee is an award-winning investigative journalist and producer, and the managing editor of CorpWatch. He is the author of Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation and The Earth Brokers. He hosted a weekly radio show on KPFA in Berkeley, California, was global environment editor for InterPress Service and has freelanced extensively for the Financial Times, the Guardian and The Independent of London. He has appeared as a commentator on numerous radio and television shows including BBC World Service, CNN International, Democracy Now!, Fox News and MSNBC. Chatterjee has won five Project Censored awards as well as a Silver Reel from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for his work in Afghanistan and the best business story award from the National Newspaper Association. The winner of a Lannan Cultural Freedom Award, Chatterjee lives in northern California and can be contacted via www.corpwatch.org.