hile U.S. military personnel fight and die, and Iraqis die from injury or disease in their war-blighted communities, Washington insiders, including relatives of the president, continue to benefit financially from the war.

The total extent of war profiteering under this administration exceeds the scope of a newsletter or even of a full-length book. Halliburton, the giant oil-field-services corporation—headed by Vice President Cheney for five years—continues to receive Iraq contracts, even following public exposure of at least $170 million in overbilling. Halliburton recently announced that its first quarter profit for this year rose 34 percent, and the company told analysts in April that it is beginning a series of price increases "driven by strong demand." Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), associated with the most controversial Iraq contracts, intends to go public with a stock offering, expected to raise some $550 million. KBR was the biggest U.S. contractor in Iraq from 2002 through 2004, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

The major U.S. oil companies, including Chevron, where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a director, garner record profits from war-boosted crude oil prices while the White House opposes a windfall-profits tax. (The combined profits for just the first quarter of 2006 for ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips totaled some $16 billion.) Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice president, formerly sat on the board of top U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Condi Rice and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's now indicted former chief of staff, sat on the board of the Rand Corporation, another immense federal contractor. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq to visit Saddam Hussein, back in the dictator's palmy days, partly to put in a word on behalf of pipeline work for Bechtel, the giant construction company, which is now a major Iraq contractor.

ALL IN THE FAMILY—As the Washington Spectator previously reported, financial ties connecting the First Family to the "war on terror" have been numerous and pervasive. Former president George H.W. Bush served until fall 2003 on the board of defense giant the Carlyle Group, now broken up, which won billions of U.S. tax dollars in military and security contracts. A limited liability company in D.C. called New Bridge Strategies, established to generate business in Iraq, put Neil M. Bush, a younger brother of the president, under contract at $60,000 per year. An obscure, short-lived company named Nour USA, based in Virginia and connected to Marvin P. Bush, youngest brother of the president, received a controversial $327 million contract from the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. The broad-ranging contract for a raft of products from a new company raised so many questions that it was canceled. However, a new private company called Anham Joint Venture replaced Nour and comprises most of the same members. Members of joint ventures, unlike those of corporations, are not required under Virginia law to be listed in the public record. The revised company also has received Iraq contracts.

A TALE OF CONTRACTS AND CONNECTIONS—In St. Louis, Missouri, Engineered Support Systems (ESSI), where an uncle of the president, William H.T. Bush, joined the board of directors in election year 2000, illustrates the nexus between White House policy and companies that benefit from it. ESSI, now merged with another major contractor, advertises itself as offering "advanced sustainment solutions, including the design, manufacture and supply of integrated military electronics, support equipment and technical and logistics services for all branches of America's armed forces and certain foreign militaries, homeland security forces and selected government and intelligence agencies."

After experiencing a jump in sales from $365 million in 2001 to $1 billion in 2005 under the Bush administration, largely from government contracts, ESSI was sold in January 2006 to DRS Technologies of New Jersey. The Los Angeles Times reported that William Bush, the uncle, reaped $2.7 million from the sale. Bush, who told the Times that he never makes telephone calls to the "202 [Washington, D.C.] area code," received about $1.9 million in cash and $800,000 worth of stock in the merged company, which continues to acquire sizable military contracts.