Corporate Profiteering in the Wake of 9/11/01

Many of us already know that the quarterly earnings of the biggest oil-and-gas corporations surged after the U.S./U.K. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Business Week of 2/23/04 reported that 2003 U.S. corporate profits were the largest in 31 years, led by ‘Big Oil’: ‘ The group's earnings more than doubled, to $45.2 billion. Exxon Mobil Corp. accounted for the bulk of the industry's gain and ranked No. 1 in total profits: Earnings rose 90%, to $21.5 billion, on a 22% increase in sales, to $222.9 billion. ’ We also know that profits by sub-contractors to the largest oil-and-gas corporations, such as Halliburton and Schlumberger, have surged. All these corporations share in the flow of oil and gas from war-torn Iraq. ChevronTexaco showed a record quarterly profit in the first three months of 2004, $2.56 billion, as the price of gas in the U.S. rose despite the output of oil from Iraq also rising toward its pre-invasion level of 2.4 million barrels a day. ¹  

In 1972, long before the enormous corporate mergers of the past decade, the then Chase Manhattan Bank held 5.2% of the voting stock of Mobil Oil and 4.5% of Atlantic Richfield (now Arco). Through ownership of shares or membership on Boards of Directors, the Rothschild, Rockefeller, and Morgan families also controlled the largest U.S. insurance, pharmaceutical and food corporations in 1972. ²  

Many of us also know that profits have surged since 9/11/01 for corporations which manufacture weapons. Department of Defense awards for the top five weapons contractors grew from $43.5 billion in 2001 to $66.4 billion in 2003. ³   During the first 24 hours of the 2003 war on Iraq the U.S. fired 500 of Raytheon's Tomahawk missiles at a cost of $600,000 per missile. ⁴