War profiteering

One favorite rallying cry from F9/11 and echoed throughout the Democratic party is that the Iraq war was more about good business than good foreign policy. But in order to prove war profiteering, there has to be profit.

Wall Street Journal today (A3) reports Halliburton, the boogy-man company to the American left, took a $815 million hit in the second quarter of this year. Part of that was difficulty with an offshore drilling rig in Brazil. Another was unexpected costs from Halliburton's asbestos-litigation fund it inherited when it bought out Dresser Industries a couple years ago. But another factor is the most interesting.

According to the WSJ, Halliburton isn't making money in Iraq. That's right. All that talk about war profiteering? Must be bunk. There's no profit. It seems the marketplace, though, has come to Iraq. The Army has switched several contracts with Halliburton over to cheaper local companies from around the Middle East. And now Halliburton might lose its biggest deal: being the military's mess tent. Dining hall contracts may soon be bid out to cheaper Iraqi companies.

If dems can't attack Halliburton in Iraq, can they bag on the military for outsourcing?