by T. Christian Miller
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Product Description
It was supposed to be quick, easy, and cheap: the Bush administration promised American taxpayers that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for it all. But thousands of lives and billions of dollars later, the Iraqi reconstruction is an undeniable failure, overrun by staggering corruption, waste, and incompetence. In BLOOD MONEY, "top-flight
investigative reporter" (Mother Jones) T. Christian Miller reveals how the Bush administration failed to keep its promises and allowed a nation to tumble into chaos. Widely hailed as one of the most important books about the quagmire, BLOOD MONEY is essential reading for anyone who cares about the fate of Iraq, and about America's place in the world.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Informative and Entertaining, 2008-01-20
I recommend you read this book if you are interested in government contingency contracting or the issues impeding the Iraqi reconstruction. Mr. Miller shared insight about events and actions that is not gained from the course work on government contracting. His book also shared difficult it is to effect the Iraqi reconstruction. I think Mr. Miller writes this book from an apolitical space, neither left or right. Finally, the book is informative and entertaining. I can't wait for his next book on the subject.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Only Good Manners ......, 2007-12-07
.. prevent me from typing what I really want to say. That would be a string of obscenities that would get me kicked off Amazon.
This book offers the proof that this whole fiasco of a "war" was designed to rob the Treasury of the United States.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Corruption at its best, 2007-08-27
While the matters in this book have long been alluded to in congressional hearing and the media. this is the first book to gather it up in one volume. It shows an inept government unable to do what was done almost 60 years earlier. Admittedly, the culture and the circumstances were different but the resources were greater. The rampant graft and lack of aggressive action by those in charge, including contractors, is chilling. Have we as a nation state sunk so low?
It presents a thoughtful picture of the risk encountered daily by many employees of contractors. This is the first writing that describes the risk imposed on the professional truckers serving in Iraq. No other writer spells it out so vividly.
This book raises more questions than it supplies answers. Of course, that was the purpose of the book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
No blood money, 2007-05-10
This book is a devastating indictment of the US intervention in Iraq. For the author, the clearest signal of the failure of the reconstruction program is the unabated violence.
The second Iraq war created a paradise for cynical war profiteers, while the Iraqi population was left in the cold. The aid packages were in fact remarkable programs of US domestic handouts and corporate welfare, profiting nearly only to retired Republican operatives, US businessmen and dubious Iraqi exiles with a double agenda.
The profiteers organized an orgy of greed on profit guaranteed contracts. Control was inexistent, e.g., $ 9 billion out of the $ 20 billion of the Iraq Development Fund disappeared without a trace (mind-boggling!). Insurance companies sold mouth watering policies for labor protection. Foreign private security firms played a leading role in the daily violence in Iraq. The contractors hired slave laborers in order to maximize their profits.
The newly installed Iraqi government was not a shade better, e.g., its Defense Ministry misspent or `lost' $ 1.3 billion in its first year in office.
The author illustrates poignantly his terribly shocking exposé with concrete examples of personal tragedies, like the suicide of Col. Ted Westhusing, or the murder by his kidnappers of a 19 year old Nepalese, who paid a broker's fee of $ 3000 for a $ 200 per month job in Iraq.
Miller's book shows also the disastrous effect the UN sanctions had on the Iraqis under Saddam (one schoolbook for every six children).
Its final conclusion is that the Iraqi people didn't receive `blood money' - the payment of compensation by an attacker to the family members of dead or injured loved ones. Instead, they inherited a living standard below the `Saddam' level (no power, no water, no sewage treatment).
This book with its formidable title is a must read for all those interested in world current affairs.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
How the US snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, 2007-04-23
This books deserves a Pulitzer Prize for plugging the huge gap in our knowledge of why the spectacular military triumph was succeeded by the even more spectacular reconstruction fiasco that quickly alienated average Iraqis. The press has focused mostly on the daily casualty counts and on the political maneuvering among Iraqi religious and secular leaders. Left unreported has been the story of why the mainstream Iraqi population that was so hopeful after the US toppled Saddam has turned against us in despair. Miller's investigation and reporting skills are remarkable in detailing so much of what went wrong with virtually every aspect of the occupation. Much of the blame is attributable to the unprecedented reliance on profit-driven private sector firms to carry out public policy of rebuilding Iraq -- which was doomed to failure because normal marke forces don't exist to control behavior of corporations left to run amok. Absolute must reading for anyone trying to understand how any American military success can be rapidly and overwhelmingly squandered by failure to plan for all that must follow.
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