THE CRIMES OF NEO-LIBERAL RULE IN OCCUPIED IRAQ
Dave Whyte [FNa1]
British Journal of Criminology (Oxford University
Press)
March, 2007
47 Brit. J. Criminology 177
http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/47/2/177
Copyright =A9 2007 by The Centre for Crime & Justice
Studies (ISTD); Dave Whyte
The scale and intensity of the appropriation of Iraqi
oil revenue makes the 2003 invasion one of the most
audacious and spectacular crimes of theft in modern
history. The institutionalisation of corporate
corruption that followed the invasion can only be
understood within the context of the coalition forces'
contempt for universal principles of international law
enshrined in the Hague and Geneva treaties.
Neo-liberal shock therapy imposed on Iraq by the
Anglo-American government of occupation provided
momentum to an economic order which privileged the
primacy and autonomy of market actors over laws
intended to enshrine universal protections for
civilian populations in war and conflict. As the US
government-appointed auditor has subsequently
established, an unknown proportion of Iraqi oil
revenue has disappeared into the pockets of
contractors and fixers in the form of bribery,
over-charging, embezzlement, product substitution, bid
rigging and false claims. At least $12 billion of the
revenue appropriated by the coalition regime has not
been adequately accounted for. This neoliberal
strategy of economic colonization was facilitated by
major violations of the international laws of conflict
and by unilaterally granting immunity from prosecution
to US personnel. The suspension of the normal rule of
law by the occupying powers, in turn, encouraged
Coalition Provisional Authority tolerance of, and
participation in, the theft of public funds in Iraq.
State--corporate criminality in the case of occupied
Iraq must therefore be understood as part of a wider
strategy of political and economic domination.
Saddam Hussein and his regime plundered your nation's
wealth. While many of you live in poverty, they have
the lives of luxury .... The money from Iraqi oil will
be yours; to be used to guild prosperity for you and
your families. (Tony Blair, 10 April 2003 [FN1])
Bring a Bag! (Coalition Provisional Authority officer
instructs private security firm Custer Battles on the
method of collecting Iraqi oil revenue from the former
Presidential Palace in Baghdad, 31 July 2003 [FN2])
Introduction
In criminology and in law, there has been some
attention paid to debates on the legality of the 2003
invasion of Iraq and the definition of this war as a
crime of aggression. There has also been some
commentary on the war crimes that have been committed
in the course of this crime of aggression, such as the
torture of combatants, the targeting of civilians and
the various crimes perpetrated by private military
companies (e.g. Michalowski and Kramer 2005; Green and
Ward 2004; O'Reilly 2005). The legality of economic
rule--as opposed to military rule--in Iraq has
attracted very little comment. During 14 months in
office, the Anglo--American government of occupation,
the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA),
restructured the economy and spent over $20 billion in
Iraqi oil revenue, most of which was disbursed to US
corporations by the CPA directly or via Iraqi
ministries. Since the disbanding of the CPA, evidence
of widespread corruption in the reconstruction economy
has emerged. The economic governance of Iraq therefore
raises important questions surrounding the legality of
the occupation. In order to explore those issues, this
article presents an analysis of primary data from
fieldwork carried out at Iraq reconstruction
conferences and trade fairs and an analysis of
secondary data drawn from official sources. [FN3]
'Corruption' and Neo-Liberalism
Global strategies to tackle corruption are currently
gaining coherence and momentum in the form of an
emergent anti-corruption industry, supported by the
most powerful governments and trans-national
governmental institutions (Sampson 2005). Yet it is
important to recognize that some forms of corruption,
whilst generally condemned by trans-national
organizations and nation states, can, from a liberal
political economy perspective, be constructed as an
efficient means of allocating resources. Levi supplies
an example to illustrate this view:
In some corruption cases, it may be argued that there
is no damage at all, and even a possible benefit. Let
us consider the case of a building contractor who
bribes an official--in the public or private
sector--to let him know what the competition has bid
for a contract. He then bids below the lowest offer.
It is perfectly possible that the person or company
awarded the contract might have put in a higher tender
that the next lowest bid, and therefore the awarders
of the contract have ended up paying more less than
they otherwise would have done. (Levi 1987: 29;
emphasis in the original)
Some forms of corruption can therefore be constructed
both as rational economic activity and as a function
of 'hidden hand' market forces. The possibility that
bribery can be represented as a rational mechanism of
resource allocation brings to the surface a
contradictory tension between market efficiency, as it
is constructed in classical political economy terms,
and the rule of law. There is an ongoing conflict in
capitalist social orders between the maintenance of a
system of rules and the internal logic of capital
accumulation which encourages market actors to
self-maximize. It is a conflict that, put simply, pits
the rigidity of state-formulated rule systems against
the exigencies of the market. This tension is
intensified in advanced capitalist societies where it
creates specific crises for the maintenance of rule
systems (as witnessed most clearly in the series of
large-scale frauds at the turn of the millennium that
included WorldCom and Enron).
The ascendancy of neo-liberal market hegemony promotes
a value system that elevates entrepreneurialism and
the pursuit of self-interest above other social
values. Neo-liberal ideology promotes the moral
worthiness of profit-seeking in opposition to
socialized systems of economic organization (Tombs
2001). Campaigns to reduce 'burdens on business' and
to cut 'red tape', now ubiquitous in the United States
and Europe, are manifestations of this ideological war
of manoeuver. According to neo-liberal doctrine, the
behaviour of participants in markets is best regulated
by a 'hidden hand' as opposed to government rules. In
other words, the boundaries between 'corrupt' and
legitimate conduct should, wherever possible, be drawn
out by the market, rather than by artificially imposed
state regulations. There is therefore a tendency in
neo-liberal capitalism to produce and reproduce
relatively unregulated spaces for commercial activity.
Neo-liberalism creates a fertile environment for
'corrupt' market transactions to flourish, because it
seeks the creation of liminal space as a means of
promoting entrepreneurialism and the pursuit of
self-interest. For McLennan, 'the increased elevation
of corrosive corporate market values' (2005: 158) in
contemporary America has precipitated the
normalization and institutionalization of lawbreaking
and corruption in the US corporate sector.
In economies that move rapidly from an economic system
dominated by state enterprise to a private
enterprise-based economy, the process of transition
normally entails a rapid process of re-regulation (the
creation of new sets of rules), often known as 'shock
therapy'. Neo-liberal shock therapy tends to involve
the removal of regulatory controls upon individual
economic actors and the creation of new sets of rules
that encourage intense economic activity in particular
fractions of the economy (normally by attracting
inward investment on highly favourable terms). The
pursuit of neo-liberal policies encourages liminal
spaces to be developed at a pace faster than systems
of regulation can be established. It is this
combination of the creation of opportunities for
unconstrained market activity and systemic corroding
of regulatory controls that explains the tendency for
pandemics of corruption and fraud to result from
neo-liberal 'shock therapy' experiments in
'transitional' states (see Rawlinson 2002).
However, the relationship between the pursuit of
private wealth accumulation and the rule of law should
not be over-simplified. Although the preceding
discussion points to a process of 'deregulation',
economic systems cannot exist without reference to
systems of rules (for example, rules that establish
the infrastructural conditions for participation in
markets and regulate relationships between
competitors). This is well illustrated with reference
to the ascendancy of new forms of property rights
(such as intellectual property rights and the
patenting of biological material) which depend on the
creation of new bodies of law.
In liberal democracies, systems of rules are
particularly important because economic policy must at
least be seen to treat citizens with fairness and
consistency. Whenever systems of economic governance
are seen to break with normal legal conventions, or
leave spheres of economic activity unchecked, they
become vulnerable to legitimacy crises. Under
conditions of neo-liberalism, formal equality and
consistency are likely to be more difficult to
guarantee because of the tendency of those conditions
to produce liminal, unregulated spaces. The existence
of such spaces--because they are, by definition, sites
of rule non-compliance and lawlessness--are likely to
produce market instability and, under some
circumstances, political crises. Neo-liberalism's
tendency to produce liminality exposes large sections
of the population to market exigencies (causing, in
the case of the WorldCom/Enron collapses, job losses
and loss of pension funds on a devastating scale).
This paradoxical feature of neo-liberalism therefore
provides momentum to popular demands for regulatory
intervention and political strategies aimed at
imposing tougher regulatory controls on market actors
(see, e.g. Alvesalo and Tombs 2001; Fooks 2003).
To sum up the argument so far, then, early
twenty-first-century capitalist social orders are
characterized by a contradiction between a practical
need to observe the laws that structure, and place
restrictions upon, economic activity on the one hand,
and, on the other, an ideological impulse which places
the values of 'free enterprise' above values of law
observance. In transitional economies--particularly
during neoliberal 'shock therapy' experiments--this
impulse is concretised in the creation of liminal and
relatively hidden spaces which provide fertile
locations for 'corruption' involving private
enterprise. It is in the creation of such spaces that
we find an irresolvable contradiction in (neo-liberal)
capitalism: the need to enforce a rule of law that
preserves the viability and legitimacy of the economic
system whilst reproducing an economic order that
preserves the primacy and autonomy of market actors.
Neo-Liberal Shock Therapy in Iraq
The analysis of the relationship between corruption
and the mode of economic governance set out in the
previous section contrasts sharply with neo-liberal
explanations of corruption that are currently popular
in Western state discourse. From a neo-liberal
perspective, corruption is defined as a violation of
the distinction between private and public interest;
corruption is normally precipitated by the
over-concentration of macro economic decision making
in the hands of public officials. This 'unnatural'
concentration of political power over markets should
be dealt with by encouraging the 'hidden hand' forces
of the market, expressed in the decisions of
competing, self-interested participants, and by
rolling back the frontiers of the state (Shore and
Haller 2005). Neo-liberal evangelising against public
sector corruption is generally based on the claim that
privatization and competition can purify corrupt
state-enterprise dominated economies. The link between
counter-corruption strategies and neo-liberal
constitutionalism can be found with a growing
frequency in the policies and public statements
disseminated by the International Financial
Institutions (IFIs) (Brown and Cloke 2004).
A key political justification for transforming the
Iraqi economy post-Saddam was the eradication of
endemic corruption in Iraq's public sector. Following
the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Anglo--American
regime of occupation sought to transform Iraq's
economic system from a state-enterprise-based to a
private-enterprise-based economy virtually overnight.
The creation of a neo-liberal market economy, it was
argued, would provide the most effective route to
eradicating Iraqi government corruption. At the
Rebuild Iraq conference, held in Amman, Jordan, in
April 2005, coalition government representatives were
united in their condemnation of Saddam's corruption
and 'hatred for economic freedom'. [FN4] A speaker
from the US State Department condemned the 'tyranny of
Saddam's planned economy', which bred 'lawlessness',
'economic corruption', an 'insecure business
environment' and 'decades of subsidies for Iraqi
industry'. [FN5] The problems facing the
reconstruction were blamed, wholesale, upon the
'cultural and social legacy from the command economy
system'. Thus, '[t]he transition from a command
economy to a modern economy doesn't just mean sorting
out the mess, it requires social and cultural change'.
This transition could only be secured peacefully by
'imparting an efficient system of commercial law'.
[FN6]
In 14 months in office, the CPA issued 100 legally
binding administrative orders by decree. Together, the
orders formed the foundations of Iraq's new economy,
criminal justice system and political structure. Those
orders erected the pillars of a neo-liberal economy:
the abolition of state production and commodity
subsidies; the eradication of import tariffs and trade
barriers (Order 12); the deregulation of wage
protections and the labour market (Order 30); tax
reform (Order 37); monetary reform and reforms in the
banking sector (Orders 18, 20, 40, 43, 74 and 94); the
establishment of international trade rules based on
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) model (Orders 54,
81 and 83); and the privatization of state enterprises
(Orders 39, 46 and 51). The regime was founded on the
principle of 'trickle down' economics: the idea that
wealth can be created and development stimulated by
creating favourable terms of investment for private
capital.
According to Chief CPA Administrator, Paul Bremer, the
priority for the CPA was to end the system of state
subsidies because of the market distortions they
caused. The economy was based upon the 'false premise'
of efficiency and low-cost commodities (Bremer 2006:
66). 'Destructive' and 'distorting' subsidies impeded
Iraqi competitiveness and prevented Iraq's full
participation in the global marketplace. Iraq's
membership of the World Trade Organisation was
envisaged by the CPA as a central plank of the reform
process (CPA 2004a). Price mechanism reforms, such as
Order 12, which suspended customs and duty charges on
goods entering the country, sought a de facto
imposition of WTO rules prior to application for
membership of the WTO. [FN7] Another key example here
is Order 81, which effectively outlawed the informal
sharing of farm seed supply system that has survived
in Iraqi farming for years. The order forced farmers
to use the protected varieties sold to them by their
'owners', the trans-national bio-firms, in line with
the WTO patent regime.
The clearest statement of intent for the future of the
Iraqi economy is contained in Order 39, which
permitted full foreign ownership of Iraqi state-owned
assets and decreed that over 200 state-owned
enterprises, including electricity, telecommunications
and the pharmaceuticals industry, could be dismantled.
Order 39 also permitted 100 per cent foreign ownership
of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these
firms to move their profits out of Iraq. It has been
argued already in the British courts that Order 39
constitutes an act of illegal occupation under the
terms of the Hague and Geneva treaties (Corporate
Pirates 2005a; 2005b). Article 55 of the Hague
regulations asserts that occupying powers are only
permitted to administer public assets. Article 55, by
invoking the rules of usufruct, expressly forbids
altering the structure of public resources: '... [t]he
occupying State shall be regarded only as
administrator and usufructuary of public buildings,
real estate, forests, and agricultural estates
belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the
occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of
these properties, and administer them in accordance
with the rules of usufruct.' The effect of Article 55
is to outlaw privatization of a country's assets
whilst it is under occupation by a hostile military
power.
Although Order 39 represented a clear breach of the
spirit of international law, in the end, the CPA did
not complete the sale of Iraqi state enterprises,
preferring to leave the implementation of their
privatization blueprint to future Iraqi governments.
It is likely that this decision was taken in the
knowledge that privatization would have breached
international law. The British government's obligation
to ensure that the economic governance of Iraq
complied with the international laws of conflict was
brought to the attention of the UK Prime Minister,
Tony Blair, by his Attorney General. Members of the
Iraqi Interim Government were also made aware that
economic restructuring of the economy was most
probably illegal (Klein 2003; 2004a). The CPA's
caution in privatizing Iraqi industries, however, does
not absolve the Anglo--American occupation from its
responsibilities under international law.
Economic Occupation and International Law
The Geneva and Hague rules make very clear the
circumstances under which an occupying power can
impose new laws upon a population without first
seeking its consent. Article 43 of the Hague
Regulations specifically states that an occupying
power 'shall take all the measures in his power to
restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order
and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely
prevented, the laws in force in the country'. In
addition, Article 64 of the Geneva Convention of 1949
permits the occupying power to 'subject the population
of the occupied territory to provisions which are
essential to enable the Occupying Power to fulfil its
obligations ... to maintain the orderly government of
the territory, and to ensure the security of the
Occupying Power'. The intention of Article 64 is
explicit: to permit the imposition of a new set of
laws by an unelected occupying power if those rules
are essential for orderly government and for security
purposes. CPA rules which erected a neo-liberal
economic system in Iraq can therefore be regarded as
falling beyond the limits of the powers of an
occupation government laid down by the Geneva
Convention, because the complex of economic rules
(e.g. abolition of commodity protections, or the
abolition of seed sharing) imposed upon Iraq were not
essential for maintaining orderly government and
security.
Although the CPA eventually retreated from enacting
the formal privatization of state-owned industries,
the laws introduced by the Authority had profound and
perhaps irreversible structural consequences for the
Iraqi economy. According to Asad al-Khudhairy, the
leader of the Iraqi Contractors' Federation, the
dumping of foreign commodities on Iraq 'killed' the
country's industries. Al-Khudhairy estimates that at
least 25,000 'businessmen' have been forced out of
business as a consequence. [FN8] Following the
implementation of CPA Order 12, the Iraqi economy
quickly became a target for the economic 'dumping' of
manufactured products, food and raw materials. Within
a few days of the order being passed, surplus chicken
legs from the United States were being shipped in to
Iraq by American company Tyson, forcing the market
price of chicken down to $1.25 a kilo--5 cents below
the cheapest price that Iraqi producers could sustain
(Colliers 2003). There is also evidence that
commercial decisions made by the CPA deliberately
sidelined Iraqi producers in favour of more expensive
foreign producers as part of a 'starve then sell
policy' (Klein 2004a). The CPA did nothing to reverse
the deterioration of Iraq's refinery capacity (which
intensified under the UN sanctions regime and then was
exacerbated by the military invasion). Because of
this, Iraq remains dependant upon import of refined
petroleum products (SIGIR 2005b: 18). [FN9] Some
business people close to the reconstruction process
argue that this was a deliberate strategy to ensure
Iraqi reliance on oil exports. [FN10] Elsewhere, this
process has been described as 'selling oil to the
Iraqis' (Tyler 2005).
Nowhere does permission for the restructuring of the
Iraqi economy, for introducing WTO compliant policies
or for passing laws that propel the economy into
reliance upon foreign capital feature in any of the UN
resolutions that gave legitimacy to the CPA. The role
of the CPA in those resolutions is clear: to meet the
'humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people', to meet the
costs of 'reconstruction and repair of Iraq's
infrastructure', to meet the costs of disarmament and
the civil administration of the country and other
purposes 'benefiting the people of Iraq'. The terms of
UNSCR 1483 are unequivocal in this regard. It was this
resolution that established the Development Fund for
Iraq (DFI). The DFI--physically held in an account at
the Federal Reserve Bank in New York--acts as a
repository for Iraqi oil revenue confiscated by the UN
Oil-for-Food Programme and subsequently for revenue
from post-invasion oil sales and exports.
The disbursal of Iraqi oil revenue by the CPA also has
had profound implications for the future structure of
the Iraqi economy. The estimated CPA spend, in excess
of $20 billion, was funded by both actual and
projected Iraqi oil income. Spending based upon
projected income had to be underwritten by the US
government loans. This meant that some DFI-funded
projects were first funded by the US treasury and then
repaid from the DFI. The US Export--Import Bank also
provided guarantees to US firms involved in the
reconstruction (Export-- Import Bank of the United
States 2003). The spending of Iraqi oil revenue has
effectively deepened the debt that was originally
accumulated during the period of UN-enforced sanctions
following the 1991 Gulf War (Alexander 2005). The
first IMF loan to Iraq was approved on 24 December
2005 and intensified Iraq's dependancy upon external
capital.
It is the anti-democratic and pre-emptive nature of
Anglo-American economic restructuring that most
clearly demonstrates that the CPA regime was in
violation of international law. The Hague and Geneva
rules were developed to establish a set of universal
principles to protect the democratic sovereignty of
populations under occupation. International law
establishes limits on the conduct of government during
the period before a system of legitimate democratic
rule can be established. The right to
self-determination and sovereign decision making over
economic, social and cultural development is in
international law a principle of jus cogens (Wheatley
2006). Yet, the CPA embarked upon its transformation
of the Iraqi economy before the point that its
policies could be ratified or rejected by a democratic
process. In this regard, the CPA clearly acted beyond
its remit in terms of both the spirit and the letter
of the international laws of conflict.
Similar violations arise from the CPA's governance of
Iraqi oil wealth. Article 49 of the Hague rules notes
that 'money contributions' levied in the occupied
territory 'shall only be for the needs of the army or
of the administration of the territory in question'.
The Hague rules appear to explicitly forbid the
accumulation of 'money contributions' for any other
purposes than basic security and administration. The
disbursal of oil revenue by the CPA, as the next
section of the article indicates, went far beyond
those purposes.
Suspending the Normal Rule of Law, Creating Liminal
Space for Capital
CPA administrators were, in the early days of the
occupation, frustrated by the bureaucratic time delay
that affected both US and UN sources of reconstruction
revenue (Bremer 2006: 139). Commenting on the
reconstruction funds set aside by the US Congress,
Bremer has noted that 'The bureaucracy in Washington
imposed what I saw as overly rigid interpretations of
the regulations on letting contracts, which already
required long lead-in times'. The alternative to the
'slowness of Washington' was to 'just find the money
somehow in the Iraqi budget' (Bremer 2006: 276). DFI
funds were used simply because they offered an
immediate source of funding that was subject to
negligible bureaucratic controls. Using revenue
allocated by the US Senate or other donor sources such
as the European Union would have been subject to a set
of prescribed accounting standards. In other words,
foreign donor funding was governed by cumbersome and
obstructive 'red tape'. [FN11] By the end of the CPA's
term in office, only a very small proportion of
non-Iraqi revenue was actually spent by the CPA (Catan
2004). Almost a year later, at the end of March 2005,
only 7.1 per cent of the $18.4 billion Iraq Relief and
Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) allocated by the US
government had been disbursed (SIGIR 2005a: 2).
DFI revenue, on the other hand, was available to the
CPA immediately, in the form of $100,000 bundles of
$100 bills, shrink-wrapped in $1.6 million 'cashpaks'.
Pallets of cashpaks were flown into Baghdad direct
from the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Some of
this cash was held by the CPA in the basement of its
premises in Baghdad Republican Palace. It has been
reported that Paul Bremer controlled a personal slush
fund of $600 million (Harriman 2005). One advantage of
the use of cash payments and transfers was that the
CPA transactions left no paper trail and therefore
they remained relatively invisible.
The political strategy underpinning the creation of
the reconstruction economy was characteristically
neo-liberal (evasion of 'red tape' and any obstacles
that might hinder or limit the the reallocation of
wealth to the growing armies of private enterprises
ready to enter the reconstruction economy). This
strategy was given momentum by the granting of formal
legal immunity to US personnel for activities related
to the reconstruction economy. On the same day that
the CPA was created by UNSCR 1483, George W. Bush
signed Executive Order 13303, which prohibited any
'attachment, judgement, decree, lien, execution,
garnishment, or other judicial process' with respect
to the DFI and all Iraqi petroleum, proceeds from the
sale of petroleum, or any interests in Iraqi petroleum
held by the US government or any national of the
United States. [FN12] The terms of the exemption
provide immunity from prosecution for the theft or
embezzlement of oil revenue, or incidentally, from any
safety or environmental violations that might be
committed in the course of producing Iraqi oil.
Executive Order 13303 is therefore a guarantee of
immunity from prosecution for white-collar and
corporate crimes that involve Iraqi oil. Two months
later, in June 2003, Paul Bremer issued CPA Order 17.
Bremer's decree guaranteed that members of the
coalition military forces, the CPA, foreign missions
and contractors--and their personnel--would remain
immune from the Iraqi legal process. This carte
blanche provision of immunity was extended again in
June 2004.
What we are beginning to trace out here is a US
government policy of suspending the normal rule of law
in the US and Iraq. The legality of Executive Order
13303 has subsequently been challenged by academic
lawyers (e.g. Kelly 2004). However, there was has been
little public debate surrounding either Bush's or
Bremer's guarantees of immunity and they have received
minimal attention in the mainstream press. In what
looks like a nod to Article 64 of the 1949 Geneva
Convention, Executive Order 13303 notes that judicial
interference or financial instruments are likely to
obstruct 'the orderly reconstruction of Iraq'. But
merely mentioning the law is not the same as complying
with the law. Executive Order 13303, on the contrary,
provides as clear an indication as is possible of the
Bush administration's intention to create a liminal
space for capital, unhindered by domestic and
international law.
The Bush administration's systems for monitoring and
controlling the disbursal of Iraqi oil revenue was
characterized by precisely the same policy of
eradicating accountability for reconstruction
contracts conjured up in Executive Order 13303 and CPA
Order 17. UNSCR 1483 stipulated that the DFI was 'to
be audited by independent public accountants approved
by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board of
the Development Fund for Iraq and looks forward to the
early meeting of that International Advisory and
Monitoring Board'. However, according to one
assessment, the International Advisory and Monitoring
Board (IMAB) was unnecessarily obstructed by Paul
Bremer and was successfully prevented from receiving
its mandate until a full five months into the CPA's
term of office (Iraq Revenue Watch 2003).
Subsequently, the CPA took 11 months to appoint its
internal auditor, the Special Inspector General for
Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). SIGIR had only a matter
of weeks before the CPA was dissolved to complete its
first report (Iraq Revenue Watch 2003: 16). Those
delays were crucial in hindering the ongoing audit of
CPA activities. SIGIR was given a limited monitoring
role after its investigative and enforcement powers
were denied IMAB following successful lobbying by US
government representatives (Lawson and Halford 2004:
7).
With a neutralised regulatory regime in place, the CPA
and the US government continued to block audits and
investigations throughout the Authority's term of
office. KPMG Bahrain--the auditors that were finally
appointed after US approval--noted that CPA officials
refused to cooperate with its investigations
(Financial Times, 22 June 2004). The UN Representative
to the IMAB accused the Bush administration of
refusing to hand over internal audits conducted by the
CPA (Washington Post, 16 July 2004). Subsequently,
KPMG concluded in their audits that there were no
adequate systems to monitor the inflows and outflows
from the DFI. The accountancy firm also concluded that
the CPA produced insufficient reasoning to justify
non-competitive contracts, a lack of evidence that
services had been provided and a lack of receipts for
goods supplied and discrepancies in the amounts
charged (KPMG Bahrain 2004; IMAB 2005b).
All available audits indicate that the disbursal of
DFI revenue was conducted with little or no adequate
system of monitoring or accounting. KPMG found 37
contracts totalling more than $185 million for which
no contracting files could be located, a case in which
an unauthorized advance of almost $3 million was paid
out by a CPA senior advisor, and a case in which
auditors found that instead of cheques being made out
to contractors, they were issued personally to the CPA
appointed head of the Ministry of Health, James
Haveman (KPMG Bahrain 2004). In the case of a $2.6
million payment authorized by the CPA's senior adviser
to the Ministry of Oil, IMAB auditors were unable to
find a contract, evidence of tender procedures or
evidence of any services rendered (Catan 2004). The
CPA kept no list of companies that it issued contracts
to. In addition to the discrepancies noted above, a
report by IMAB (2005a) found evidence of incomplete
DFI accounting records; untimely recording, reporting,
reconciliation and follow-up of spending by Iraqi
ministries; incomplete records maintained by US
agencies, including disbursements that were not
recorded in the Iraqi budget; lack of documented
justification for limited competition for contracts at
the Iraqi ministries; possible misappropriation of oil
revenues; and significant difficulties in ensuring
completeness and accuracy of Iraqi budgets and
controls over expenditures. It is estimated that
between $8.8 billion and $12 billion of DFI revenue
remains unaccounted for. [FN13]
All of this indicates a further breach of compliance
with international law on the part of the CPA. UNSCR
1483 stipulates the purposes that the DFI revenue must
be used for, and emphasizes that it must be used 'in a
transparent manner'. The lack of accounting systems
for large sums of spending during the CPA's period of
office ensured that the reconstruction contracts were
more likely to remain invisible rather than
'transparent'. The US government-appointed auditor
SIGIR has concluded that 'there was no assurance that
the funds were used for the purposes mandated by
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483'
(SIGIR 2005a: 16-17; on this position, see also
Christian Aid 2003: 13). IMAB (2005a) noted that the
lack of accounting for CPA spending constituted a
breach of the Authority's obligations under UNSCR
1483.
UNSCR 1483 had also stipulated that 'all export sales
of petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas from
Iraq following the date of the adoption of this
resolution shall be made consistent with prevailing
international market best practices, to be audited by
independent public accountants reporting to the
International Advisory and Monitoring Board'. Yet, a
meeting of the CPA's funding oversight committee, the
Program Review Board, noted in April 2004, almost a
year after the CPA had taken power, that 'Metering for
crude oil extraction and sales is presently
nonexistent in Iraq' (CPA 2004b: 10). KPMG also found
critical deficiencies in the State Oil Marketing
Organization records of oil revenues (Iraq Revenue
Watch 2004c). In one example, cash advances for oil
sales 'amounting to over $20 million, were deposited
into an Iraqi Bank account of the State Oil Marketing
Organization, instead of going to the DFI' (Iraq
Revenue Watch 2004d: 2).
In sum, the Anglo-American occupation, by a
combination of suspension of the normal rule of law,
and the eradication of normal mechanisms of scrutiny,
created a liminal market space for capital that was
designed to facilitate the transformation of the Iraqi
economy. As the previous section's discussion of the
CPA's neo-liberal constitutionalism indicates, the
over-riding principle of occupation was the creation
of a new rule of law--a regulatory infrastructure
designed to stimulate the new markets opened up by the
CPA. National and international laws were thus
subordinated to neo-liberal principles of economic
organization.
Corruption for the Benefit of American Corporations
Throughout the CPA's term of office, the rapid
delivery of reconstruction projects to Western--mainly
US--contractors was the over-riding principle
dictating the distribution of DFI funds. US firms
Kellog Brown and Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton),
Parsons Delaware, Fluor Corporation, Washington Group,
Bechtel Group, Contrack International, Louis Berger
and Perrini were recruited early on in the occupation
with responsibility to act as 'prime contractors',
coordinating the reconstruction of key sectors of the
economy and engaging sub-contractors to do the work.
[FN14] It was reported in July 2004 that 150 US firms
had collectively landed reconstruction contracts in
Iraq and Afghanistan worth $48.7 billion. One analysis
of Iraqi reconstruction contracts concludes that US
and UK companies received 85 per cent of the value of
contracts worth over $5 million tendered by the CPA
whilst Iraqi firms received just 2 per cent of the
value of those contracts (Iraq Revenue Watch 2004b).
Most went to US firms. In one period examined between
2003 and 2004, more than 80% of prime contracts were
given to US companies, with the remainder of the
revenue split between UK, Australian, Italian,
Israeli, Jordanian and Iraqi companies (Herring and
Ragwala, 2005).
If a rudimentary strategy of redistributing Iraqi oil
revenue to US contractors was not clear at the outset,
events in the closing days of the CPA left no doubt
about the Authority's intention. Shortly before it
disbanded, the CPA's Program Review Board distributed
a sum that has been estimated to be between $2 billion
and $5 billion in contracts en masse for projects that
were, in the main, conceived shortly before the
handover of power (CPA 2004c; Iraq Revenue Watch
2004a; Giraldi 2005). Many of those transactions were
unrecorded; some were based on paperwork submitted
just hours before the CPA's period of office ended;
and some invoices were submitted by individuals
shortly before they left the country (Iraq Revenue
Watch 2004a).
Commercial advantages for Western contractors were
consolidated by applying two contracting mechanisms.
First, the CPA tendered a very high proportion of bids
non-competitively--a strategy that allowed the
Authority to handpick contractors. In one estimate, 73
per cent of all contracts worth more than $5 million
were tendered non-competitively (Iraq Revenue Watch
2004d: 2). This includes Kellogg Brown and Root's
contract of $1.4 billion to repair and rebuild the oil
infrastructure. Contractors reported receiving
contract by telephone contact without any formal
bidding process. (Tyler and Bonner 2003; see also
Phinney 2005). Second, where bids were competitively
tendered, they incorporated very short periods of
notice (Christian Aid 2003). Short tendering is
generally considered to encourage corruption because
it creates unassailable competitive advantages for
contractors that are given advance warning of the
contract window. Delegates at Iraq reconstruction
conferences complained frequently about the use of
short-tendering in this way. One delegate described
how a contract for supplying government employees with
water was issued two days before the deadline.
Specifications of the contract had been already been
disclosed to a favoured firm weeks in advance of the
announcement of the tender. This firm subsequently won
the contract. [FN15]
The high profitability of reconstruction contracts was
guaranteed via a system of 'cost-plus' contracts.
Under US government accounting practice, 'cost-plus'
contracts allow for additional merit-based payments to
be made from an 'award-fee pool' if the performance
exceeds contractual requirements. Middle managers
operating in Iraq report that such payments were often
made with little scrutiny by the bid holder. [FN16] A
US government audit of 18 IRRF contracts worth $6.75
billion issued by the Department of Defence found that
an additional 50-74 per cent of the award-fee pool was
being awarded for average performance in nine
contracts and, in seven contracts, the award-fee plans
had permitted awards of an additional 60-70 per cent
for performance that was deemed to be above standard
in several aspects of while still allowing several
weaknesses in performance to remain (SIGIR 2005b: 36).
Where there are inadequate checks on performance,
cash-plus contracts enable unscrupulous firms to
inflate the value of the contract.
Over-charging was routine in reconstruction contracts
(US Senate Democratic Policy Committee 2003). A US
Defence Contract Audit Agency audit of Kellog Brown
and Root's contract to restore Iraqi oil fields found
$108 million in 'unresolved costs' (in other words,
spending that had not been properly accounted for;
DCAA 2005). In one incident uncovered by the auditors,
Kellog Brown and Root (KBR) charged the Army more than
$27 million for transporting $82,000 worth of fuel
from Kuwait to Iraq (DCAA 2005). This was merely one
in a long line of audits that uncovered millions of
dollars' worth of discrepancies in KBR contracts.
Sales of faulty or non-existent supplies were
common-place in CPA contracts, including a fleet of
un-flyable military planes (Giraldi 2005; Los Angeles
Times, 30 July 2004). Ghost armies of employees are
commonplace in Iraq and payrolls inflated as a matter
of routine (Mekay 2004). In one case, payment for
74,000 guards could not be accounted for, and, in
another case, 8,206 were listed on a payroll, but only
603 employees had actually been paid. [FN17]
The lack of basic record keeping and monitoring and
the culture of bribery that cascaded out from within
the CPA created a fertile environment for corporate
corruption. A wealth of evidence points to a
routinized system of bribery in the CPA. One British
advisor to the Iraqi Governing Council told the BBC
that officials in the CPA were demanding bribes of up
to =A3300,000 to secure contracts (Harriman 2005). Iraqi
business people report that they had to pay 'middle
men' substantial bribes even to be allowed to bid for
CPA contracts. [FN18] Western and Iraqi business
representatives use the term 'Ali Babas' to describe a
new layer of entrepreneurs that exist as 'fixers',
moving between government and business players and
making a healthy income solely from bribes. [FN19] The
first case of an American contractor to be charged
with corruption in Iraq provides us with a brief
insight into this system of 'kickbacks'. Philip H.
Bloom, who controlled three companies involved in the
reconstruction, is alleged to have paid a total of $2
million in bribes and gifts to CPA officials. Bloom
admitted that between December 2003 and December 2005,
he and Robert Stein, a CPA Regional Comptroller,
conspired to rig bids on CPA contracts to a value of
$8.5 million. Bloom and Stein were convicted of fraud
offences by the US Federal courts (SIGIR 2006).
In summary, then, a CPA strategy of concentrating
Iraqi oil wealth in the hands of US corporations was
facilitated by appointing US prime contractors as
gatekeepers in the reconstruction process and by using
contracting mechanisms which guaranteed that US firms
would dominate the reconstruction market. A high-value
cost-plus system of contracts minimized any commercial
risks and most likely encouraged a culture of
over-charging. The liminal spaces created by the
suspension of the normal rule of law encouraged the
normalisation of corruption in the CPA and the
companies involved in the reconstruction effort. In
other words, corruption became a routine activity,
embedded in the key institutional apparatuses of the
economy.
The institutionalization of corruption in the Iraqi
reconstruction economy is comparable to the era of the
robber barons in the United States and the epidemic of
fraud and embezzlement in the United Kingdom in the
late nineteenth century/early twentieth century (Robb
1992). This was a period in which the monopolization
of capital in industrialized economies facilitated and
encouraged routine lawbreaking amongst business
elites. Moral authority during this period was derived
from popular appeals to the laissez-faire liberal
ideal. In the modern era, corporate raids on foreign
markets are made with the reference to a developed
system of neo-liberal rules that cover a growing
proportion of the world's markets (Whitfield 2001;
Tombs and Whyte 2003). Despite huge differences across
economies, institutions such as the IFIs and the WTO
allow marauding capital to lay claim to a global set
of norms that may, as in the case study set out here,
challenge directly basic principles of national and
international law. As we have seen in relation to the
attempt to impose a WTO model of trade rules on
occupied Iraq, the rise to prominence of transnational
neo-liberal institutions provides capital with a means
to claim a global moral authority that could not be so
easily invoked in previous stages of capitalist
development.
Token Enforcement
It is difficult to reconcile the strategy of the
occupiers with the authority vested in the CPA by the
UN Security Council. UNSCR 1483 states that 'the
Development Fund for Iraq shall be used ... to meet
the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for the
economic reconstruction and repair of Iraq's
infrastructure, for the continued disarmament of Iraq,
and for the costs of Iraqi civilian administration,
and for other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq'.
Whilst the spending of Iraqi revenue was, strictly
speaking, permitted by the agreement of the UN
Security Council, a spending spree at such a pace with
such a clear bias towards American firms that involved
such a profligate and criminal waste of Iraqi
resources could hardly be regarded as 'benefiting the
Iraqi people'. Yet, it is not very likely that the UK
or the US government will be investigated or
challenged for its breaches of UNSCR 1483 or for its
economic war crimes.
Instead, we are likely to see a few token cases
against corporate and CPA officials. It is instructive
in this respect that corruption cases involving CPA
officials have surfaced in the courts in two cases
initiated by whistleblowers. The Bloom case, noted
above, is one of them. In a second prosecution in
March 2006--a civil case initiated by two
whistleblowers--the court found the private military
company Custer Battles guilty of 37 separate
fraudulent acts under the US False Claims Act--a civil
law procedure that carries the penalty of punitive
damages in cases of fraud. The company had overcharged
the CPA for leasing equipment and had charged for
services that had not been provided (Washington Post,
15 February 2005; USA Today, 10 March 2006). The key
fraud charges in this case involved the procurement of
payments made in $100,000 cash bundles derived from
DFI funds. In evidence to the Senate Democratic Policy
Committee, a CPA official, Franklin Willis, reported
that he had phoned Mike Battles and instructed him to
'bring a bag' to collect a payment of $2 million for
security services. Those services, the court heard,
were never actually provided (Willis 2005).
The point of law that the Custer Battles case turned
on was significant in so far as it represented the
first legal challenge to the US government's
suspension of the normal rule of law. The False Claims
Act allows whistleblowers to file a suit against a
company for defrauding the United States. In such
cases, the Act provides for the US Justice Department
to opt to join the suit with the plaintiffs. In
October 2005, the Justice Department declined to join
the Custer Battles case without giving any reason for
its decision. The most likely reason is that the US
government had no wish to involve itself in debates
about the status of DFI revenue. The False Claims Act
only applies to US government revenue and the defence
in the Custer Battles case argued that the Act did not
apply since the allegation related to Iraqi rather
than US funds. The District Judge ruled that since one
of the advances received by Custer Battles for $3
million was identified as originating from a US
Treasury check, the jury had to restrict its decision
to this sum. [FN20] This ruling therefore implies that
cases initiated under the False Claims Act would not
apply to Iraqi oil revenue. It also means that the
efficacy and legal integrity of the blanket
protections afforded to US nationals by Bush's
Executive Order 13303 remains untested in the US
courts. It is worth noting that the Bloom case did not
test the voracity of the 13303 either, since the
prosecution related exclusively to contracts paid by
US federal funds (SIGIR 2006). The trickle of post-hoc
cases (there have been 72 cases investigated by SIGIR
since January 2006, and only one of those cases
actually led to an arrest; SIGIR 2006) suggests that
the principle of immunity for government and corporate
occupiers has largely been kept intact.
This is not to say that the removal of accountability
sought by the US government could ever have been
complete. As the opening section of this article
argues, in order to preserve legitimacy, dominant
state institutions in capitalist social orders must at
least appear to uphold values of consistency and
equality in law. However, as yet, there has been no
legitimacy crisis in the United States on the question
of the economic occupation. Neither has there been in
the United Kingdom, despite the efforts of groups such
as Corporate Pirates and Corporate Watch
(Christadoulou 2006). This may, of course, change. US
policy in Iraq is particularly vulnerable to criticism
at the moment, especially from within the ranks of the
so-called neo-cons (The Independent, 9 March 2006;
Fukuyama 2006). But it is in Iraq, where awareness of
the expropriation of Iraqi oil revenue is
intensifying, that the opposition to neo-liberal rule
will continue to cause problems for the occupation.
Conclusion
A key effect of neo-liberal hegemony building is the
subjugation of the norms of international law to the
norms and values of the 'free' market. The economic
transformation of Iraq was made possible only because
the Anglo--American occupation was prepared to ignore
international law (specifically the jus cogens
sovereign right of a people to determine their own
social, economic and cultural future) in the rush to
establish a WTO-compatible economy. The neo-liberal
regime imposed upon the Iraqi people by the CPA
facilitated the transferral of Iraqi oil revenue into
the hands of Western corporations with no mandate from
the Iraqi people. The economic occupation is therefore
clearly definable as a war crime under the terms of
the Hague and Geneva treaties.
This raises a point of international law that is yet
to be debated: future Iraqi governments may have a
legitimate claim in the United Nations Compensation
Commission for reparations and compensation accrued by
the illegal policies embarked upon by the CPA. This is
the process that previously enabled US corporations
such as Toys R Us, Halliburton, Bechtel, Mobil, Shell,
Nestl=E9, Pepsi, Philip Morris and Kentucky Fried
Chicken used to claim compensation from the Iraqi
people for Saddam's breaches of international law
(Klein 2004b). Because the country remains governed by
a political and economic system imposed illegally
under conditions of occupation (see also Wheatley
2006), the planned privatization of oil in the form of
production-sharing agreements can also be clearly
defined as a war crime.
The presence of British and Australian government
representatives as members with full voting rights on
the CPA's Program Review Board (the committee given
responsibility for immediate oversight of the CPA
spend) implicates the governments of Australia and
Britain, as well as the US government, for breaches of
the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and of UNSCR 1483.
[FN21] Lack of debate in the UN Security Council and
the absence of cases before International Court of
Justice or the International Criminal Court do not
preclude us from describing the CPA's breaches of
international law unambiguously as state crime (Green
and Ward 2004). The illegal economic occupation--and
the expropriation of Iraq's oil wealth that
followed--can be defined unambiguously as
state-initiated crime (Kramer et al. 2002).
There is a deeply embedded aspect of the relationship
between 'crime' and capitalist institutions that is
revealed here. Wherever regulatory systems set the
threshold of legality, the principle of
self-maximization encourages market actors to find the
most effective way of circumnavigating, subverting and
breaching the legal threshold. The creation of liminal
space under conditions of neo-liberal
constitutionalism merely intensifies this tendency. In
so far as the US government sought to suspend the rule
of law (most clearly exemplified by Executive Order
13303 and CPA Order 17) and deliberately obstructed
the normal mechanisms of scrutiny and audit, the viral
corruption that infected the Anglo--American regime of
occupation can also be categorized as
state-facilitated crime (ibid. 2002).
In Iraq, war crimes and offences against Iraqi oil
wealth powerfully combined to establish a neo-liberal
colonial order. Just as the violation of basic
principles of international law was a necessary
pre-condition for the capture of the economy, the
endemic corruption that we have witnessed in Iraq was
a key element of the regime of occupation. In some
ways, the form of capitalist development under
discussion in this article displays the tendencies of
Tilly's (1985), Blok's (1974) and Gallant's (1999)
analyses of early modern processes of state formation.
Each of those authors has noted, from different
perspectives, the centrality of violence and criminal
economic activity to the emergence of the nation state
system. Corruption under CPA rule extended the
structural advantages necessary for Western firms to
penetrate- and transform-the economy. The corruption
of the reconstruction economy was therefore a
by-product of, and a means of providing momentum to,
the transformation of the economic order. The crimes
of economic occupation documented in this article
have, quite simply, been used as a means of achieving
neo-colonial dominance in occupied Iraq.
Note on Methodology
The data used in this article were derived from
semi-structured interviews and participant observation
conducted during three fieldwork trips to corporate
events that were organized to facilitate the
reconstruction of Iraq. Two of the events were held in
Amman, Jordan ('Rebuild Iraq 2005', 4-7 April and
'Iraq Procurement 2005', 28-30 June) and one in London
('Iraq Telecommunications Conference', 21-22 July
2005). A total of 32 interviews were conducted.
Twenty-two interviews were conducted with middle-level
managers of businesses operating in Iraq, five with
representatives of chambers of commerce and trade
associations from the United States, the United
Kingdom and Iraq, and five UK and US government and
military officials involved at various stages of the
procurement process. Qualitative interviews at those
events were supplemented with participant observation.
These data included recordings of casual conversations
between the author and delegates and recordings of the
contributions made by, and debates between, senior
government and military officials at the conferences.
Reference codes for interviews and fieldwork notes are
used throughout the article. In those codes, the
prefix 'I' indicates that the reference is to an
interview with a participant/delegate. The prefix 'C'
indicates that the reference is to fieldwork notes and
taped material from one of the conferences. In order
to test the validity of the fieldwork data, this
article also drew upon analysis of a range of official
documentation available in the public domain: US
government senate inquiries; the documentation
published by the Coalition Provisional Authority
(including minutes of the Program Review Board
meetings); and audit reports published by the UN
Auditor the International Advisory and Monitoring
Board and the US government appointed Special
Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. In order to
verify as far as possible the findings of official
inquiries and audits, and complete a process of
triangulation, the analysis here also draws upon
reports produced by monitoring agencies and
non-governmental organizations, including detailed
qualitative assessments of fraud and waste produced by
Iraq Revenue Watch and Christian Aid.
Acknowledgements
The research presented in this paper was co-funded by
the Carnegie Trust and the University of Stirling. I
am grateful to Steven Wheatley and to the anonymous
reviewers of this article for their useful comments.
The argument was first presented at the European Group
for the Study of Deviance and Social Control Annual
Conference in Belfast (August 2005), and at seminars
at the University of Central Lancashire and the
University of Strathclyde (both in November 2005).
Thanks go to the participants at those meetings for
their feedback on earlier versions of the article. All
errors are, of course, mine alone.
References
Alexander, J. (2005) 'Saddam's Debt, the IMF and the
Privatisation of Iraq's Economy', paper presented to
the General Union of Oil Employees Conference on
Privatisation, Basrah, Iraq, 26 May 2005.
Alvesalo, A. and Tombs, S. (2001) 'The Emergence of a
"War" on Economic Crime: The Case of Finland',
Business and Politics, 3: 239-67.
Blok, A. (1974) The Mafia of a Sicilian Village,
1860-1960. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Bremer, L. P. (2006) My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to
Build a Future of Hope. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Brown, E. and Cloke, J. (2004) 'Neoliberal Reform,
Governance and Corruption in the South: Assessing the
International Anti-Corruption Crusade', Antipode,
272-94.
Catan, T. (2004) 'Big Spender: What Happened to $20bn
of Iraqi Funds?', Financial Times, 9 December.
Christadoulou, L. (2006) Corporate Carve-Up: The Role
of UK Companies in Iraq since 2003. Oxford: Corporate
Watch.
Christian Aid (2003) Iraq: The Missing
Billions--Transition and Transparency in Post-War Iraq
, Briefing Paper for the Madrid Conference on Iraq,
23-24 October 2003. London: Christian Aid.
Colliers, R. (2003) 'Imports Inundate Iraq under New
U=2ES. Policy', San Francisco Chronicle, 10 July.
Corporate Pirates (2005a) 'Economic Occupation of Iraq
Back on Trial', press statement, Tuesday 16 August
2005.
---- (2005b) 'R v. Quinton and Jasiewicz', legal
briefing attached to 'Economic Occupation of Iraq Back
on Trial', press statement, Tuesday 16 August 2005.
CPA (2004a) 'Iraq Achieves Observer Status at the
WTO', Press Release, Baghdad, 12 February.
---- (2004b) Program Review Board (PRB) Minutes of the
Meeting 28th April. Baghdad: CPA.
---- (2004c) Program Review Board (PRB) Minutes of the
Meeting 15th May. Baghdad: CPA.
DCAA (2005) 'Report of Audit on Proposal for Restore
Iraqi Oil Task Order No. 5', unpublished document.
Export--Import Bank of the United States (2003) 'Ex-Im
Bank Signs Agreement to Support Trade Bank of Iraq:
Program Will Cover U.S. Exports to Assist Iraqi
Reconstruction', News Release, 5 December.
Fooks, G. (2003) 'Contrasts in Tolerance: The Curious
Politics of Financial Regulation', Journal of
Contemporary Politics, 9: 127-42.
Fukuyama, F. (2006) After the Neo-Cons: America at the
Crossroads. London: Profile.
Gallant, T. (1999) 'Brigandage, Piracy, Capitalism and
State-Formation: Transnational Crime from a Historical
World Systems Perspective', in J. McC. Heyman, ed.,
States and Illegal Practices. Oxford: Berg.
Giraldi, P. (2005) 'Money for Nothing: Billions of
Dollars Have Disappeared, Gone to Bribe Iraqis and
Line Contractors' Pockets', The American Conservative,
24 October.
Green, P. and Ward, T. (2004) State Crime:
Governments, Violence and Corruption. London: Pluto.
Harriman, E. (2005) 'So, Mr Bremer, Where Did All the
Money Go?', The Guardian, 7 July.
---- (2006) 'Cronyism and Kickbacks', The London
Review of Books, 26 January.
Herring, E. and Ragwalla, G. (2005) 'Iraq, Imperialism
and Global Governance', Third World Quarterly, 26.
IMAB (2005a) 'Statement by the International Advisory
and Monitoring Board on the Development Fund for
Iraq', 23 May.
---- (2005b) 'Statement by the International Advisory
and Monitoring Board on the Development Fund for
Iraq', 4 November.
Iraq Revenue Watch (2003) Iraq Keeping Secrets:
America and Iraq's Public Finances, Iraq Revenue
Watch, Report No. 3. New York: Open Society Institute.
---- (2004a) Iraq Fire Sale: CPA Rushes to Give Away
Billions in Iraqi Oil Revenues, Iraq Revenue Watch,
Briefing No. 7. New York: Open Society Institute.
---- (2004b) Disorder, Negligence and Mismanagement:
How the CPA Handled Iraq Reconstruction Funds, Iraq
Revenue Watch, Report No. 7. New York: Open Society
Institute.
---- (2004c) Auditors Find Poor Practices in
Management of Iraqi Oil Revenues, Iraq Revenue Watch,
Briefing No. 8. New York: Open Society Institute.
---- (2004d) Audit Finds More Irregularities and
Mismanagement of Iraq's Revenues, Iraq Revenue Watch,
Briefing No. 9. New York: Open Society Institute.
Kelly, C. (2004) 'The War on Jurisdiction: Troubling
Questions about Executive Order 13303', Arizona Law
Review, 46.
Klein, N. (2003) 'Iraq Is Not America's to Sell:
International Law Is Unequivocal', The Guardian, 7
November.
---- (2004a) 'Baghdad Year Zero', in N. Klein et al.,
eds, No War: America's Real Business in Iraq . London:
Gibson Square.
---- (2004b) 'Why Is War-Torn Iraq Giving $190,000 to
Toys R Us?', The Guardian, 16 October.
KPMG Bahrain (2004) Development Fund for Iraq: Report
of Factual Findings in Connection with Disbursements
for the Period from 1 January 2004 to 28 June 2004.
Baghdad: International Advisory and Monitoring Board
of the Development Fund for Iraq and the Project and
Contracting Office.
Kramer, R., Michalowski, R. and Kauzerlich, D. (2002)
'The Origins and Development of the Concept and Theory
of State-Corporate Crime', Crime and Delinquency, 48:
263-82.
Lawson, A. and Halford, S. (2004) Fuelling Suspicion:
The Coalition and Iraq's Oil Billions. London:
Christian Aid.
Levi, M. (1987) Regulating Fraud: White Collar Crime
and the Criminal Process. London: Tavistock.
McLennan, C. (2005) 'Corruption in Corporate America:
Enron--Before and After', in C. Shore and D. Haller,
eds, Corruption: Anthropological Perspectives. London:
Pluto.
Mekay, E. (2004) "'Staggering Amount" of Cash Missing
in Iraq', Inter Press Service, 21 August.
Michalowski, R. and Kramer, R. (2005) 'War, Aggression
and State Crime', British Journal of Criminology, 45.
Office of the Press Secretary (2003) 'Executive Order:
Executive Order Protecting the Development Fund for
Iraq and Certain Other Property in Which Iraq has an
Interest', White House Press Release, 22 May 2003.
O'Reilly, C. (2005) 'Security Consultants in Iraq:
Private Security in a Transitional State', paper
presented to the European Group for the Study of
Deviance and Social Control, Annual Conference, 1-4
September 2005, Belfast.
Phinney, D. (2005) 'Contract Quagmire in Iraq',
CorpWatch, 27 April, available online at
www.corpwatch.org/print_article.php?&id=3D12158.
Rawlinson, P. (2002) 'Capitalists, Criminals and
Oligarchs: Sutherland and the New "Robber Barons',
Crime Law and Social Change, 37: 293-307.
Robb, G. (1992) White-Collar Crime in Modern England:
Financial Fraud and Business Morality, 1845-1929.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sampson, S. (2005) 'Integrity Warriors: Global
Morality and the Anti-Corruption Movement in the
Balkans', in D. Haller and P. Shore, eds, Corruption:
Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto.
Shore, P. and Haller, D. (2005) 'Sharp Practice:
Anthropology and the Study of Corruption', in D.
Haller and P. Shore, eds, Corruption: Anthropological
Perspectives. London: Pluto.
SIGIR (2005a) Report to Congress, 30 January.
---- (2005b) Report to Congress, 30 October.
---- (2006) Report to Congress, 30 April.
Tilly, C. (1985) 'War Making and State Making as
Organised Crime', in P. Evans, D. Rueschmeyer and T.
Skocpol, eds, Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tombs, S. (2001) 'Thinking about "White Collar"
Crime', in S. A. Lingren, ed., White Collar Crime
Research: Old View and Future Potentials. Stockholm:
National Council for Crime Prevention, Sweden.
Tombs, S. and Whyte, D. (2003) 'Corporations Beyond
the Law? Regulation, Risk and Corporate Crime in a
Globalised Era', Risk Management, 5.
Tyler, J. (2005) 'Selling Oil to the Iraqis', Red
Pepper, May.
Tyler, P. and Bonner, R. (2003) 'Questions are Raised
on Awarding of Contracts in Iraq', New York Times, 4
October.
US Senate Democratic Policy Committee (2003)
Contracting Abuses in Iraq , Hearing Report, 3
November.
Wheatley, S. (2006) 'The Security Council, Democratic
Legitimacy and Regime Change in Iraq', The European
Journal of International Law, 17.
Whitfield, D. (2001) Public Services or Corporate
Welfare: Rethinking the Nation State in the Global
Economy. London: Pluto.
Willis, F. (2005) 'Evidence to Senate Democratic
Policy Committee Hearing, "An Oversight Hearing on
Waste, Fraud and Abuse in U.S. Government Contracting
in Iraq"', 14 February.
[FNa1]. Department of Applied Social Science,
University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK;
dave.whyte@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Prime Minister's Message to the Iraqi People,
available at http://
www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page3469.asp.
[FN2]. Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing, 'An
Oversight Hearing on Waste, Fraud and Abuse in U.S.
Government Contracting in Iraq', Transcript of
Hearing, February 14 2005: 26.
[FN3]. A detailed methodological note is included at
the end of this article.
[FN4]. Fieldwork reference C1/5.
[FN5]. Fieldwork reference C1/6.
[FN6]. ibid.
[FN7]. Fieldwork references C1/3 and C1/5.
[FN8]. Fieldwork reference C1/3
[FN9]. Fieldwork reference I21
[FN10]. Fieldwork reference I9
[FN11]. Fieldwork references C1/5, C1/7 and C2/4.
[FN12]. The full text of this Executive Order 13303
can be found in Office of the Press Secretary (2003).
[FN13]. The lower and upper limits of those figures
are derived from SIGIR audits analyses by
investigative journalists. See for example, Reuters
report 'Audit Shows $8.8billion in Iraqi funds
missing', 19th August 2004, available at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5763483/print/1/displaymode/1098
and Harriman (2006).
[FN14]. Most of the prime contractors are US firms. In
one exception to this rule, US company Fluor created a
joint venture with British firm AMEC. For the duration
of Bremer's term of office, a CPA executive order
prevented the disbursal of reconstruction funds to
non-coalition partners. For analyses of the
distribution of reconstruction funds to the prime
contracts see http://
www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=3Dtype&type=3D176; for
a comprehensive analysis of the distribution of CPA
funds, see the Centre for Media and Democracy diagram
at
http://www.govexec.com/features/0704-01/WebOfReconstruction.pdf.
[FN15]. Fieldwork reference C2/6.
[FN16]. Fieldwork reference C2/5
[FN17]. Figures were reported in a leaked SIGIR audit.
[FN18]. Fieldwork references I9 and C2/6.
[FN19]. Fieldwork references I4 and I 31.
[FN20]. United States ex rel. DRC Inc. et al. v.
Custer Battles LLC et al., No. 04-CV-199, verdict
returned (E.D. Va. March 9th 2006).
[FN21]. Britain's joint responsibility for political
leadership of the CPA is also supported by the fact
that for a week in December 2003, in the absence of
Paul Bremer and his deputy, the UK representative was
acting head of the CPA (as recorded in Hansard, 9th
March 2005, available at http://
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/cm050309/text/50309w28.=
htm)
47 Brit. J. Criminology 177
47 BRITJC 177
|
