Winning at War?

Iraq: Who won the war?

Not the 90,000 Iraqi civilians or the 4,200 US and UK troops killed since 2003. The big winners are the money men who have made billions. Raymond Whitaker and Stephen Foley report

Many of the biggest contract winners have extensive lobbying budgets and funds for targeting political donations. Public records show that BearingPoint, the consulting firm appointed to advise on the economic reconstruction of Iraq, has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican Party coffers, including $117,000 to the two Bush presidential campaigns. The company is being paid $240m for its work in Iraq, winning an initial contract from the US Agency for International Development (USAid) within weeks of the fall of Saddam. It was charged with supporting the then Coalition Provisional Authority to introduce policies "which are designed to create a competitive private sector".

Western companies will be able to pocket up to three-quarters of profits from new drilling projects in their early years.

The others then list a number of winners and losers. But they left out at least one other loser : the American public. We have lost our nation, government, standing in the world, economy....