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"Making a Killing in Iraq" comes to Santa Cruz - in more ways than one.
The San Francisco Mime Troup had an outstanding show, but the topic of questionable government contracting reaches all the way from Afghanistan to Santa Cruz, in the form of city contractor Camp Dresser Mckee.
Review of the San Francisco Mime Troup performance, "Making A Killing In Iraq".
The hilarious political theater of the San Francisco Mime Troupe made an appearance in Santa Cruz this weekend. The show, "Making A Killing in Iraq", took no prisoners, lampooning the US military and their private contractors, the Iraqi insurgency, the US corporate press, and the US public with equal flair.
The entire show was carried by seven actors and three musicians, who created a mixture of song-and-dance, storytelling and political commentary involving some twenty-eight different characters. It was an act in ten parts that had the audience laughing at times and sober and quiet at others.
The story jumped back and forth between Iraq and Washington D.C., and revolved around the construction of a children's hospital in Iraq. In Iraq, two secretly gay military reporters, their Iraqi translator, and their ambitious commanding officer are assigned to cover this feel-good story, but are beset by many troubles when they start asking questions about why children's cancer rates are so high in Iraq, and what exactly happened to all the money set aside for construction of the hospital.
Back in Washington D.C, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice are fighting over who gets credit for the hospital, who looks better in the press, and who gets to be the corporate partner of Exxon, Halliburton, and the other corporations who have made huge profits in Iraq.
One brilliant touch is the use of US television broadcasts as a kind of simpering and ridiculous Greek chorus, while the Iraqi translator, played by Lisa Hori-Garcia, serves as the real Greek chorus, berating the audience and questioning them, "So, if the Internet is so informative, why are Americans so stupid?" I won't give away the punchline, but it had the audience roaring with laughter.
Song-and-dance virtuosos Velina Brown and Ed Holmes gave hilarious portrayals of Condi Rice and Dick Cheney. Not all of the material could be described as suitable for children, but then the real Dick Cheney isn't suitable for children either. Brown and Holmes also played US combat soldiers in Iraq, one a gung-ho blood n' guts maniac, the other a soldier whose family back in the States is falling apart.
Kevin Rolston and Victor Toman played the conscience-stricken US military reporters who had to write happy fluff stories while surrounded by death and devastation, while Michael Gene Sullivan played their commanding officer, who remained behind in the Green Zone with his eyes on a distinctly different prize. Toman and Holmes also play a Texas-based US contractor and his Iraqi lackey in the Green Zone. One of the remarkable features of this kind of theater is that the actors are continually changing costumes and personas on the fly, which is a real challenge and also shows the skills of these actors and actresses.
Free live outdoor theater is a rare experience for Santa Cruz, but is one of the oldest forms of theater that exists. However, this performance was not just about entertainment. The fact is that much of what has been going on in Iraq and also in Afghanistan has indeed been deliberately hidden from the public.
In contrast, the Vietnam war was covered by a wide variety of media outlets who brought the war into the homes of American television viewers in all of its gory detail on a nightly basis during the 60s and 70s. One of the main efforts by the US government during the initial and later stages of the Iraq invasion and occupation was and is to control the media coverage. This was initially done by the use of embedded reporters, and was a deliberate strategy engineered by The Rendon Group and other PR consultants, as described by James Bamford in Rolling Stone.1
The story of cancer in Iraq is all too real, and is a result of the heavy use of so-called 'depleted uranium' (DU) weapons in Iraq during the first and second Gulf Wars. Depleted uranium is the leftover material of the uranium enrichment process needed for nuclear power generation and also for nuclear weapons manufacture. Uranium naturally consists of two isotopes, U-235 and U-238, and U-235 is the fissionable one. "Depleted uranium" simply has a low amount of the U-235 isotope, a portion of which has been extracted and concentrated for use in nuclear power reactors or nuclear weapons. The medical and carcinogenic effects of uranium contamination have been well-documented.2 The victims of the widespread use of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq include both US soldiers3 as well as Iraqis.4
The story of the contracting scandals in Iraq has been covered to some extent by the US press, and the real Condi Rice continues to stall on this issue, despite repeated requests for testimony by Henry Waxman5. However, all indications are that billions of dollars spent on Iraqi reconstruction contracts remains unaccounted for. All in all, massive fraud appears to have been committed in Iraq. Contractors have hired subcontractors, who hire other subcontractors, and at the end of the money chain is some Iraqi civilian with a shovel and a can of white paint, and not much else.
On a recent visit to Santa Cruz6, Iraqi oil union general secretary Faleh Abood Umara and electrical union president Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein told an audience at the Veteran's Hall that the reconstruction program was a massive fraud, and that the World Bank and the IMF were using Iraqi debt (run up during the era of Saddam Hussein for arms purchase from Western countries to fight the Iran-Iraq war, including the US, Britain, France, and West Germany, to name a few) as leverage to force the Iraqi government to hand over control of oil to Western corporations, as well as to privatize the country's water and electricity systems. To commemorate the visit, Mayor Emily Reilly issued a proclamation to proclaim June 10 as "Solidarity with Iraqi Labor Unions Day" in the city of Santa Cruz.
The contractors aren't just operating in Iraq, however. A major contractor for the City of Santa Cruz is the global engineering firm Camp Dresser Mckee, who has been operating in Afghanistan as a subcontractor for the Louis Berger Group. They have also been the recipients of a $41.3 million contract from the USAID/Afghanistan "water system reconstruction program". A recent independent audit7 of their work by RIG/Manila, commissioned by USAID, concluded that while CDM had adhered to the letter of the contract, there were serious problems with the work done by Camp Dresser Mckee under contract with USAID.
One central problem was with reporting costs and administering the contract. As the report stated, "USAID/Afghanistan did not properly administer its contract with CDM in accordance with its acquisition policies and directives. USAID/Afghanistan did not require CDM to deliver certain performance reporting documents considered critical for evaluating the performance progress of the project... CDM did not provide the Mission with necessary financial reporting information because the contract lacked specificity as to what was to be reported."
Another major problem was that the water systems constructed are unlikely to remain operational for very long. Again, quoting from the report: "...during project implementation USAID/Afghanistan did not take appropriate measures to ensure financial and operational sustainability of the constructed water systems beyond the project completion date primarily because it believed that adequate provisions had been made. As a result, the constructed water distribution systems built under the AUWSP could have significant short and long-term financial and operational problems ultimately impacting the supply of water to the intended populations of Afghanistan.
Camp Dresser Mckee has also made the news recently regarding their involvement in equally troublesome post-Katrina rebuilding contracts in Louisiana and Mississippi.8 In this case, the controversy revolves around the relationship between the family of Republican Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, the Republican lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, and Camp Dresser Mckee. CDM has paid the Republican-connected lobbying firm well over half a million dollars9 over the past few years, and also paid Governor Barbour's nephew $15,000 in lobbying fees, and also bundled $7,000 in campaign donations to Barbour's reelection campaign at the end of 2006. The governor's reconstruction committee had recommended a $3 million water management study contract that was jointly awarded to CDM and another firm.
The firm Barbour, Griffith and Rogers is closely involved with the Bush Administration, and during the recent call for Iraq president Maliki's resignation, they set up a web site that promoted Dr. Iwad Allawi as a replacement for Maliki.
In Santa Cruz, Camp Dresser Mckee is the recipient of a $4 million city contract for the construction of the pilot desalination project9 being built in partnership with the University of Santa Cruz at the Long Marine Lab. The City Council has pushed this project through with minimal public input, with all votes taking place during the 3 pm consent agenda, and so far no Councilmember has agreed to place a discussion of CDM's practices in Afghanistan and New Orleans on their public agenda, despite numerous requests. The contract was awarded to CDM after four bids were presented, in a decision made by Bill Kocher and Linette Almond of the Santa Cruz Water Deparment and Laura Brown and Terry Tompkins of the Soquel Creek Water District, which was approved by City Manager Richard Wilson and ratified by a unanimous vote of the Santa Cruz City Council on Nov 8, 2005. In their official meeting minutes, the city claimed that Camp Dresser Mckee was a local company based in Walnut Creek.
In addition, the city is pushing the demolition and reconstruction of a major water reservoir within city limits, which will reduce the water storage capacity by half.10 A lack of water storage capacity in the event of a drought has been an argument used by the city to justify the construction of a full-scale desalination plant on the Westside, at a projected cost of up to $100 million. City councilmembers do not believe that such a plant should be put to a public vote.
Thus, the entire story of fraudulent government contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan reaches all the way back to local Santa Cruz City politics. While the San Francisco Mime Troup produced a fantastic production, I imagine they were also unaware that the city hosting their event was in bed with a major Afghanistan reconstruction contractor. So far, neither the Santa Cruz Sentinel nor the Santa Cruz Metro has shown much interest in covering this disturbing tale of questionable government contracting in Santa Cruz.
1. "The Man Who Sold the War", By James Bamford, Rolling Stone, Nov 17, 2005
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war
2. "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination with Uranium", Croatian Medical Journal, v40 n1, Mar 1999.
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Medical-Effects-Mar99.htm
3. "Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure", By Carla McClain Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona 08.26.2007.
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/198240.php
4. "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium" By Larry Johnson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Nov 12, 2002.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
5. "Chairman Waxman Reiterates Request for Information from State Department about Corruption in Iraq", Henry Waxman letter to Condi Rice, Sep 20, 2007.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/286
6. "Iraqi labor leaders speak out in Santa Cruz," By Soraya Gutierrez, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Jun 11, 2007.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/June/11/local/stories/05local.htm
7. Audit of USAID/Afghanistan’s Urban Water and Sanitation Program. (Audit Report No. 5-306-07-006-P), RIG/Manila, Jun 7, 2007
http://www.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/5-306-07-006-p.pdf
8. "Mississippi Governor's Associates Profit From Katrina Recovery", By Timothy J. Burger, Bloomberg, Aug 16, 2007.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aG1fHyzJA56A
9. "Windfalls of War - Camp Dresser & McKee Inc.", Center For Public Integrity, Mar 31, 2004.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=7
9. "Behind Allawi's Bid for Power - The former Iraqi prime minister speaks out on how he hired a well-connected Washington lobbying firm to help pave his attempt to oust the current government." By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, Aug 29, 2007.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20502632/site/newsweek/
9. "Desalination and War Profiteering in the City of Santa Cruz", By Ike Solem, Indybay Santa Cruz, Sep 27, 2006.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/27/18314697.php
10. "Guest editorial submitted to the Sentinel", John Golder, July 29, 2007
http://forums.santacruzsentinel.com/cgi-bin/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000577
© 2007 Ike Solem
The hilarious political theater of the San Francisco Mime Troupe made an appearance in Santa Cruz this weekend. The show, "Making A Killing in Iraq", took no prisoners, lampooning the US military and their private contractors, the Iraqi insurgency, the US corporate press, and the US public with equal flair.
The entire show was carried by seven actors and three musicians, who created a mixture of song-and-dance, storytelling and political commentary involving some twenty-eight different characters. It was an act in ten parts that had the audience laughing at times and sober and quiet at others.
The story jumped back and forth between Iraq and Washington D.C., and revolved around the construction of a children's hospital in Iraq. In Iraq, two secretly gay military reporters, their Iraqi translator, and their ambitious commanding officer are assigned to cover this feel-good story, but are beset by many troubles when they start asking questions about why children's cancer rates are so high in Iraq, and what exactly happened to all the money set aside for construction of the hospital.
Back in Washington D.C, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice are fighting over who gets credit for the hospital, who looks better in the press, and who gets to be the corporate partner of Exxon, Halliburton, and the other corporations who have made huge profits in Iraq.
One brilliant touch is the use of US television broadcasts as a kind of simpering and ridiculous Greek chorus, while the Iraqi translator, played by Lisa Hori-Garcia, serves as the real Greek chorus, berating the audience and questioning them, "So, if the Internet is so informative, why are Americans so stupid?" I won't give away the punchline, but it had the audience roaring with laughter.
Song-and-dance virtuosos Velina Brown and Ed Holmes gave hilarious portrayals of Condi Rice and Dick Cheney. Not all of the material could be described as suitable for children, but then the real Dick Cheney isn't suitable for children either. Brown and Holmes also played US combat soldiers in Iraq, one a gung-ho blood n' guts maniac, the other a soldier whose family back in the States is falling apart.
Kevin Rolston and Victor Toman played the conscience-stricken US military reporters who had to write happy fluff stories while surrounded by death and devastation, while Michael Gene Sullivan played their commanding officer, who remained behind in the Green Zone with his eyes on a distinctly different prize. Toman and Holmes also play a Texas-based US contractor and his Iraqi lackey in the Green Zone. One of the remarkable features of this kind of theater is that the actors are continually changing costumes and personas on the fly, which is a real challenge and also shows the skills of these actors and actresses.
Free live outdoor theater is a rare experience for Santa Cruz, but is one of the oldest forms of theater that exists. However, this performance was not just about entertainment. The fact is that much of what has been going on in Iraq and also in Afghanistan has indeed been deliberately hidden from the public.
In contrast, the Vietnam war was covered by a wide variety of media outlets who brought the war into the homes of American television viewers in all of its gory detail on a nightly basis during the 60s and 70s. One of the main efforts by the US government during the initial and later stages of the Iraq invasion and occupation was and is to control the media coverage. This was initially done by the use of embedded reporters, and was a deliberate strategy engineered by The Rendon Group and other PR consultants, as described by James Bamford in Rolling Stone.1
The story of cancer in Iraq is all too real, and is a result of the heavy use of so-called 'depleted uranium' (DU) weapons in Iraq during the first and second Gulf Wars. Depleted uranium is the leftover material of the uranium enrichment process needed for nuclear power generation and also for nuclear weapons manufacture. Uranium naturally consists of two isotopes, U-235 and U-238, and U-235 is the fissionable one. "Depleted uranium" simply has a low amount of the U-235 isotope, a portion of which has been extracted and concentrated for use in nuclear power reactors or nuclear weapons. The medical and carcinogenic effects of uranium contamination have been well-documented.2 The victims of the widespread use of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq include both US soldiers3 as well as Iraqis.4
The story of the contracting scandals in Iraq has been covered to some extent by the US press, and the real Condi Rice continues to stall on this issue, despite repeated requests for testimony by Henry Waxman5. However, all indications are that billions of dollars spent on Iraqi reconstruction contracts remains unaccounted for. All in all, massive fraud appears to have been committed in Iraq. Contractors have hired subcontractors, who hire other subcontractors, and at the end of the money chain is some Iraqi civilian with a shovel and a can of white paint, and not much else.
On a recent visit to Santa Cruz6, Iraqi oil union general secretary Faleh Abood Umara and electrical union president Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein told an audience at the Veteran's Hall that the reconstruction program was a massive fraud, and that the World Bank and the IMF were using Iraqi debt (run up during the era of Saddam Hussein for arms purchase from Western countries to fight the Iran-Iraq war, including the US, Britain, France, and West Germany, to name a few) as leverage to force the Iraqi government to hand over control of oil to Western corporations, as well as to privatize the country's water and electricity systems. To commemorate the visit, Mayor Emily Reilly issued a proclamation to proclaim June 10 as "Solidarity with Iraqi Labor Unions Day" in the city of Santa Cruz.
The contractors aren't just operating in Iraq, however. A major contractor for the City of Santa Cruz is the global engineering firm Camp Dresser Mckee, who has been operating in Afghanistan as a subcontractor for the Louis Berger Group. They have also been the recipients of a $41.3 million contract from the USAID/Afghanistan "water system reconstruction program". A recent independent audit7 of their work by RIG/Manila, commissioned by USAID, concluded that while CDM had adhered to the letter of the contract, there were serious problems with the work done by Camp Dresser Mckee under contract with USAID.
One central problem was with reporting costs and administering the contract. As the report stated, "USAID/Afghanistan did not properly administer its contract with CDM in accordance with its acquisition policies and directives. USAID/Afghanistan did not require CDM to deliver certain performance reporting documents considered critical for evaluating the performance progress of the project... CDM did not provide the Mission with necessary financial reporting information because the contract lacked specificity as to what was to be reported."
Another major problem was that the water systems constructed are unlikely to remain operational for very long. Again, quoting from the report: "...during project implementation USAID/Afghanistan did not take appropriate measures to ensure financial and operational sustainability of the constructed water systems beyond the project completion date primarily because it believed that adequate provisions had been made. As a result, the constructed water distribution systems built under the AUWSP could have significant short and long-term financial and operational problems ultimately impacting the supply of water to the intended populations of Afghanistan.
Camp Dresser Mckee has also made the news recently regarding their involvement in equally troublesome post-Katrina rebuilding contracts in Louisiana and Mississippi.8 In this case, the controversy revolves around the relationship between the family of Republican Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, the Republican lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, and Camp Dresser Mckee. CDM has paid the Republican-connected lobbying firm well over half a million dollars9 over the past few years, and also paid Governor Barbour's nephew $15,000 in lobbying fees, and also bundled $7,000 in campaign donations to Barbour's reelection campaign at the end of 2006. The governor's reconstruction committee had recommended a $3 million water management study contract that was jointly awarded to CDM and another firm.
The firm Barbour, Griffith and Rogers is closely involved with the Bush Administration, and during the recent call for Iraq president Maliki's resignation, they set up a web site that promoted Dr. Iwad Allawi as a replacement for Maliki.
In Santa Cruz, Camp Dresser Mckee is the recipient of a $4 million city contract for the construction of the pilot desalination project9 being built in partnership with the University of Santa Cruz at the Long Marine Lab. The City Council has pushed this project through with minimal public input, with all votes taking place during the 3 pm consent agenda, and so far no Councilmember has agreed to place a discussion of CDM's practices in Afghanistan and New Orleans on their public agenda, despite numerous requests. The contract was awarded to CDM after four bids were presented, in a decision made by Bill Kocher and Linette Almond of the Santa Cruz Water Deparment and Laura Brown and Terry Tompkins of the Soquel Creek Water District, which was approved by City Manager Richard Wilson and ratified by a unanimous vote of the Santa Cruz City Council on Nov 8, 2005. In their official meeting minutes, the city claimed that Camp Dresser Mckee was a local company based in Walnut Creek.
In addition, the city is pushing the demolition and reconstruction of a major water reservoir within city limits, which will reduce the water storage capacity by half.10 A lack of water storage capacity in the event of a drought has been an argument used by the city to justify the construction of a full-scale desalination plant on the Westside, at a projected cost of up to $100 million. City councilmembers do not believe that such a plant should be put to a public vote.
Thus, the entire story of fraudulent government contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan reaches all the way back to local Santa Cruz City politics. While the San Francisco Mime Troup produced a fantastic production, I imagine they were also unaware that the city hosting their event was in bed with a major Afghanistan reconstruction contractor. So far, neither the Santa Cruz Sentinel nor the Santa Cruz Metro has shown much interest in covering this disturbing tale of questionable government contracting in Santa Cruz.
1. "The Man Who Sold the War", By James Bamford, Rolling Stone, Nov 17, 2005
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war
2. "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination with Uranium", Croatian Medical Journal, v40 n1, Mar 1999.
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Medical-Effects-Mar99.htm
3. "Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure", By Carla McClain Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona 08.26.2007.
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/198240.php
4. "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium" By Larry Johnson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Nov 12, 2002.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
5. "Chairman Waxman Reiterates Request for Information from State Department about Corruption in Iraq", Henry Waxman letter to Condi Rice, Sep 20, 2007.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/286
6. "Iraqi labor leaders speak out in Santa Cruz," By Soraya Gutierrez, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Jun 11, 2007.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/June/11/local/stories/05local.htm
7. Audit of USAID/Afghanistan’s Urban Water and Sanitation Program. (Audit Report No. 5-306-07-006-P), RIG/Manila, Jun 7, 2007
http://www.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/5-306-07-006-p.pdf
8. "Mississippi Governor's Associates Profit From Katrina Recovery", By Timothy J. Burger, Bloomberg, Aug 16, 2007.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aG1fHyzJA56A
9. "Windfalls of War - Camp Dresser & McKee Inc.", Center For Public Integrity, Mar 31, 2004.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=7
9. "Behind Allawi's Bid for Power - The former Iraqi prime minister speaks out on how he hired a well-connected Washington lobbying firm to help pave his attempt to oust the current government." By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, Aug 29, 2007.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20502632/site/newsweek/
9. "Desalination and War Profiteering in the City of Santa Cruz", By Ike Solem, Indybay Santa Cruz, Sep 27, 2006.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/27/18314697.php
10. "Guest editorial submitted to the Sentinel", John Golder, July 29, 2007
http://forums.santacruzsentinel.com/cgi-bin/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000577
© 2007 Ike Solem
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