BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

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

—Kirkus Reviews

“Chatterjee keeps the pace of the narrative at a quick clip and nimbly marshals his extensive evidence to reveal—without sanctimony or stridency—Halliburton’s record of corruption, political manipulation and human rights abuses.”

–Publishers Weekly

From Nation Books:

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

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

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

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BUZZFLASH REVIEWS