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Lesson Nine. 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 report1.Five years ago today, Britain stood on the brink of war. On 16 March 2003, United Nationsweapons inspec-tors were advised to leave Iraq within 48 hours, and the "shock and awe" bombing campaign began less than 100 hours later, on 20 March. The moment the neocons around President George Bush had worked so long for, aided by the moral fervour of Tony Blair, was about to arrive.2."I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk,"Kenneth Adelman, a leading neocon, had said a few weeks before, and so it proved. Within barely a month, Saddam's bronze statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square was scrap metal. But every other prediction by the Bush administration's hawks proved wrong.3.No weapons of mass destruction –Britain's key justification for war –have been found. ThePentagon acknowledged last week that a review of more than 600,000 captured Iraqi documents showed "no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida terrorist network".4.In 2008, there are still more American troops in Iraq than during the invasion, with no exit yet insight. Britain's Ministry of Defence has just admitted that it has been unable to withdraw as many British troops as it planned – there are 4,000 still based just outside Basra, instead of the projected 2,500. So far 3,987 American soldiers and 197 British troops have died in Iraq.5.So, five years on, who can be said to have won the war? Certainly not Iraqi civilians, at least90,000 of whom have died violently since 2003, at the most conservative estimate. Other studies have multiplied that figure by five or six. Two million Iraqis have fled the country, and at least as many again are internally displaced. Baghdad households suffered power cuts of up to eight hours a day in Saddam's time; now they can expect less than eight hours of electricity a day on average. The US troop "surge" has cut the number of murders, but there are still 26 a day in the capital. The list goes on.6.Nor have the eager promotors of the war, such as Mr Adelman, fared well. (By October 2006 hewas admitting: "We're losing in Iraq.") The most arrogant of them all, Donald Rumsfeld, the ex-secretary of defence, was reluctantly dropped by Mr Bush in his second term. His former deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, who famously said that WMD had been used as the excuse for war because it was the only topic Washington's bureaucracy could agree on, was forced to resign as president of the World Bank after arranging a pay rise for his girlfriend. The Senate refused to confirm John Boltonas US ambassador to the UN.7.George Bush is the most unpopular President since opinion polls began, mainly because of Iraq.Tony Blair, his partner in the reckless venture, has already gone; those in a position to know believe he would still be Prime Minister had it not been for the war. The standing of both Britain and the US has suffered immeasurably, and the international scepticism engendered by manipulation of the evidence on WMD has hampered efforts to deal with nuclear threats from the likes of North Korea.8.The main winners of the war are not the ones its instigators planned: Iran and al-Qa'ida. No onein Washington appeared to have calculated that to unseat Saddam, whom the US once supported asa bulwark against the Iranians, would empower the majority community in Iraq, the Shias, or thatmany of them would look to the world's only Shia nation, Iran. The US insists that Tehran retains nuclear ambitions, despite its own intelligence estimate that work on a weapon has stopped, but its occupation of Iraq has given Iran a hostage it could never have imagined having.9.As for al-Qa'ida, it never had a foothold in Iraq until the chaos created by the invasion gave itthe opportunity to establish one. And while the US is preoccupied in Iraq, the conflict it neglec ted, in Afghanistan, is getting worse. Al-Qa'ida has re-established itself in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, while its old host, the Taliban, regains ground on the other side of the Afghan border.10.In early 2003, Mr Rumsfeld mused on what might be the cost of the war to come: $50bn (£25bn)or $60bn, he and White House planners thought. Five years on, the bill is already 10 times that, while here the Commons Defence Committee has just warned of a "surprising" 52 per cent increase in the cost of operations in Iraq to nearly £1.45bn in the current financial year, despite the reductions in troop levels. An unprecedented amount has been funnelled to the private sector. The big winners have been the money men.11.Another army of private security guards escorts convoys, protects infrastructure projects andferries military equipment around Iraq. These have been followed by business consultants, building project planners and government advisers, many of whom have put their lives at risk in the pursuit of a reconstructed Iraq while their companies earn billions.12.An estimate last October put the number of private contractors working in Iraq at 160,000 fromup to 300 separate companies. About 50,000 were private security guards from companies such as Blackwater – whose killing of 17 Iraqi civilians last September in a gun battle shone a spotlight on the US military's reliance on poorly controlled private armies. Each Blackwater guard in Iraq, of whom there have been up to 900, costs the US government $445,000 per year.13.British firms have also been operating in Iraq. After courting controversy in the Nineties, TimSpicer –whose previous company, Sandline International, was accused of breaking a United Nations embargo by selling arms to Sierra Leone – has re-emerged as a powerful player with his latest venture, Aegis Defence Services. Aegis won a $293m Pentagon contract in 2004, which hassince been extended, and employs more than 1,000 contractors in the country. Another British company, Global Strategies, which calls itself a "political and security risk-management company", employs cheaper Fijian contractors for its Iraq operations.14.At one point, ArmorGroup, chaired by the former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, wasgetting half its revenues from Iraq. It carried out convoy protection at rates estimated at between $8,000 and $12,000 a day, and helped to guard polling stations during the country's elections. By far the biggest winner of contracts in Iraq, though, is Halliburton, the oil and related services company run by Dick Cheney before he became US vice-president and a key architect of the war. The connections between the company and the Bush administration helped to generate $16bn in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the three years from the start of 2004 – nine times as much as any other company. Halliburton decided last year to spin off the division operating in Iraq. That business, KBR, has generated half its revenues there each year since the invasion, providing private security to the military and infrastructure projects and advising on the rebuilding of the country's oil industry.15.The Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, which tracks Iraqi contracts in itsinvestigation "Windfalls of War", says the total value of contracts tendered by the US government in Iraq rose 50 per cent each year from 2004 to 2006. That had been planned to slow in 2007, but KBR said recently that the US military "surge" meant more business than previously expected.After KBR, the US security contractor DynCorp secured the most work, worth $1.8bn over the three years to the end of 2006.16.Many of the biggest contract winners have extensive lobbying budgets and funds for targetingpolitical donations. Public records show that BearingPoint, the consulting firm appointed to advis e 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".st year, The IoS revealed that a BearingPoint employee based at the US embassy in Baghdadwas involved in drafting the controversial hydrocarbon law that was approved by Iraq's cabinet last March. The legislation opens up the country's oil reserves to foreign corporations for the first time since 1972.18.Western companies will be able to pocket up to three-quarters of profits from new drillingprojects in their early years. Supporters say it is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through"production-sharing agreements", which are highly unusual in the Middle East; the oil industries of Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, are state-controlled.19.So far, major companies such as Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have held back on investing directlyin the country while the violence continues – but the war has still contributed handsomely to their record-breaking profits because of sky-high oil prices. As the US prepared to march into Iraq, crude soared to what then seemed an impossibly high $37 a barrel. Last week it reached a record $110. 20.The Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the war has added between $5and $10 a barrel to the price of oil. The figure could be higher, if one believes that the rise also reflects a big additional premium for the threat of future supply disruptions that might be caused by geopolitical tensions or increased terrorist activity in oil-producing regions – any of which might be traced back to the passions inflamed by the war. (The Independent, March 16, 2008)Questions:1.On what pretext did the US and Britain launch the Iraq War?2.Why do you think the writer says ―the international skepticism engendered by manipulation ofthe evidence on WMD has hampered efforts to deal with nuclear threats from the likes of North Korea‖?3.Why does the writer say that Iraqi people are not the winner?4.Who really profits from the Iraq War? Can you just name a few?5.Why do you think oil price rose rapidly during the Iraq War and the US military occupation inIraq?6.What is the relationship between the biggest contract winners and the party in power?Lesson Ten.The Coming Conflict in the ArcticRussia and US to Square Off Over Arctic Energy Reserves by Vladimir Frolov1.Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush spent most of their time atthe ―lobster summit‖ at Kennebunkport, Maine, discussing how to prevent the growing tensionsbetween their two countries from getting out of hand. The media and international affairs experts have been portraying missile defense in Europe and the final status of Kosovo as the two most contentious issues between Russia and the United States, with mutual recriminations over ―democracy standards‖ providing the background for the much anticipated onset of a new Cold War.But while this may well be true for today, the stage has been quietly set for a much more serious confrontation in the non-too-distant future between Russia and the United States –along with Canada, Norway and Denmark.2.Russia has recently laid claim to a vast 1,191,000 sq km (460,800 sq miles) chunk of theice-covered Arctic seabed. The claim is not really about territory, but rather about the huge hydrocarbon reserves that are hidden on the seabed under the Arctic ice cap. These newly discovered energy reserves will play a crucial role in the global energy balance as the existing reserves of oil and gas are depleted over the next 20 years.3.Russia has the world‘s large st gas reserves and is the second largest exporter of oil after SaudiArabia, but its oil and gas production is slated to decline after 2010 as currently operational reserves dwindle. Russia‘s Natural Resources Ministry estimates that the country‘s existin g oil reserves will be depleted by 2030.4.The 2005 BP World Energy Survey projects that U.S. oil reserves will last another 10 years ifthe Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not opened for oil exploration, Norway‘s reserves are good for about seven years and British North Sea reserves will last no more than five years – which is why the Arctic reserves, which are still largely unexplored, will be of such crucial importance to the world‘s energy future. Scientists estimate that the territory contains more than 10 billion tons of gas and oil deposits. The shelf is about 200 meters (650 feet) deep and the challenges of extracting oil and gas there appear to be surmountable, particularly if the oil prices stay where they are now – over $70 a barrel.5.The Kremlin wants to secure Russia‘s long-term dominance over global energy markets. Toensure this, Russia needs to find new sources of fuel and the Arctic seems like the only place left to go. But there is a problem: International law does not recognize Russia‘s rig ht to the entire Arctic seabed north of the Russian coastline.6.The 1982 International Convention on the Law of the Sea establishes a 12 mile zone forterritorial waters and a larger 200 mile economic zone in which a country has exclusive drilling rights for hydrocarbon and other resources.7.Russia claims that the entire swath of Arctic seabed in the triangle that ends at the North Polebelongs to Russia, but the United Nations Committee that administers the Law of the Sea Convention has so far refused to rec ognize Russia‘s claim to the entire Arctic seabed.8.In order to legally claim that Russia‘s economic zone in the Arctic extends far beyond the 200mile zone, it is necessary to present viable scientific evidence showing that the Arctic Ocean‘s sea shelf to the north of Russian shores is a continuation of the Siberian continental platform. In 2001, Russia submitted documents to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf seeking to push Russia‘s maritime borders beyond the 200 mile zone. It was r ejected.9.Now Russian scientists assert there is new evidence that Russia‘s northern Arctic region isdirectly linked to the North Pole via an underwater shelf. Last week a group of Russian geologists returned from a six-week voyage to the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater shelf in Russia‘s remote eastern Arctic Ocean. They claimed the ridge was linked to Russian Federation territory, boosting Russia‘s claim over the oil- and gas-rich triangle.10.The latest findings are likely to prompt Russia to lodge another bid at the UN to secure its rightsover the Arctic sea shelf. If no other power challenges Russia‘s claim, it will likely go through unchallenged.11.But Washington seems to have a different view and is seeking to block the anticipated Russianbid. On May 16, 2007, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made a statement encouraging the Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention, as the Bush Administration wants. The Reagan administration negotiated the Convention, but the Senate refused to ratify it for fear that it would unduly limit the U.S. freedom of action on the high seas.12.The United States has been jealous of Russia‘s attempts to project its dominance in the energysector and has sought to limit opportunities for Russia to control export routes and energy deposits outside Russia‘s territory. But the Arctic shelf is something that Russia has traditionally regarded as its own. For decades, international powers have pressed no claims to Russia‘s Arctic sector for obvious reasons of remoteness and inhospitability, but no longer.13.Now, as the world‘s major economic powers brace for the battle for the last barrel of oil, it is notsurprising that the United States would seek to intrude on Russia‘s ho me turf. It is obvious that Moscow would try to resist this U.S. intrusion and would view any U.S. efforts to block Russia‘s claim to its Arctic sector as unfriendly and overtly provocative. Furthermore, such a policy would actually help the Kremlin justif y its hardline position. It would certainly prove right Moscow‘s assertion that U.S. policy towards Russia is really driven by the desire to get guaranteed and privileged access to Russia‘s energy resources.14.It promises to be a tough fight. (from Global Research, July 17, 2007)Questions:1.What issues would the two heads of states discuss at the Lobster Summit at Kennebunkport?2.What‘s the real purpose of Russia‘s claim to the vast area of the ice-covered Arctic seabed?3.Why are the Arctic reserves so attractive to Arctic-rim countries?4.Why doesn‘t International law recognize Russia‘s right to the entire Arctic seabed north of theRussian coastline?5.What is the viable scientific evidence supporting Russia‘s claim? What has boosted Russia‘s claimover the oil-and-gas-rich triangle?6.What is the US government‘s attitude to the Russian claim? Why did President Bush urge theSenate to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention?7.Why did the author say that it promises to be a tough fight?Lesson ElevenA Witness From Australia's 'Stolen Generation'By Michael Richardson, Published: Saturday, New York Times, September 16, 20001.In 1942, when John Kundereri Moriarty was 4 years old and living happily in anAboriginal tribal community in northern Australia, he was taken from his family. It happened like a kidnapping, he recalled in an interview. "My mum went to pick me up from school andI wasn't there,"he said. "We had been loaded on the backs of army lorries. Then we weretransported south through Alice Springs."2.Moriarty, now a designer, is a part of the so-called stolen generation of Aborigines,Australia's indigenous minority. From 1910 until the 1970's, about 100,000 Aborigine children — many, like Moriarty, of mixed Aboriginal and European parentage — were taken from their parents under state and federal laws based on the premise that Aborigines were a doomed race and that saving the children by putting them into foster homes and providing them with Western education was the humane alternative.3.Aborigines don't see it that way. "It was an insidious, arrogant policy that amounted tocultural genocide," Moriarty wrote in an autobiography, "Saltwater Fella," published this year by Viking Penguin. "It was the stuff Hitler was made of, the things he espoused that are seen as abhorrent today."4.A national inquiry found in 1997 that many stolen-generation children were abused andsuffered long-term psychological effects stemming from loss of family and cultural connections. It concluded that almost all of the 386,000 Aborigines alive today had been affected in some negative way by the separations.5.The government has refused to make an official apology for past wrongs againstAborigines, including the forced removal of children from their families. Prime Minister John Howard, for one, argues that it is unfair to expect the current generation of Australians to apologize for abuses they had nothing to do with, and that it is more important to look forward than backward.6.That stand has angered many Aborigines. Some militant leaders have said they willorganize protests throughout the summer Olympic games, which opened Friday, to draw attention to their cause.7.Nearly 10 years passed before Moriarty was able to re-establish contact with his motherby letter. Meanwhile, his Irish father had left her and had died. Mother and son finally met again in Alice Springs, in central Australia, when he was 15 and had been cared for and schooled as a ward of the state by several Christian institutions and government schools near Sydney and in Adelaide.8."That meeting with my mother began to complete the jigsaw puzzle," he wrote. "It wasthe piece I needed to make myself feel whole as an individual and move onward. I realized much later in life that lack of identity was what a lot of the Aboriginal kids that I was brought up with suffered from. They didn't know who their real family was and what their tribal relationships were and what they should've been.9."Some have become alcoholics and some have died premature deaths. Maybe it is a littlesimplistic, but part of me wonders whether they got into difficulties because they couldn't find the inner serenity that would enable them to take pride in their Aboriginal heritage." 10.Moving onward for Moriarty meant, in part, finding a path to social acceptance in thispredominantly white society through paid employment, and achieving distinction first in sport and then education. In a sports-mad country, "I found that once you become known a little, you are more accepted in all sorts of areas, including with girlfriends," he wrote. He worked as a mechanic at an Adelaide power station, played soccer for the state of South Australia, was selected to play in the national team and became the first Aborigine to graduate from a university.11.With other Aborigines and their non-Aboriginal supporters, Moriarty also campaignedfor an end to racial discrimination here and the establishment of affirmative-action programs to improve the welfare of indigenous Australians and bring more Aborigines into the work force through better education and training.12.He confesses to being somewhat disappointed with the results, despite all the money andeffort expended. "I think that a lot of the goodwill on both sides is turning sour in some ways," he said. "A lot of taxpayers' money has been spent on programs managed by Aborigines to help Aboriginal people. But there has been much wastage, and a good deal of animosity is directed at that." Comprising about 2.1 percent of Australia's 19 million population, Aborigines remain the most disadvantaged group in Australian society in terms of health, life expectancy, education, housing and job prospects.13.Moriarty said that one of the reasons he wrote "Saltwater Fella," now in its fourthprinting, was in the hope that it would be read by Australians and people overseas. "Australia is a great country with a promising future," he said. "But it does not have a good history of race relations. We should acknowledge that as a basis for working together in future to makea better multi-cultural society."14.Moriarty —who this year was awarded the Order of Australia, the country's highestcivil medal of honor — said he hoped that the book would also show young Aborigines from disadvantaged backgrounds that it is possible, through hard work and determination, to be successful while keeping a hold on their identity and culture.15.Moriarty heads the National Aboriginal Sports Corporation of Australia and isvice-chairman of an organization that provides venture capital to Aboriginal enterprises. He said he wanted to see more Aborigines take leadership roles in business, the professions, education and politics. For example, only one Aborigine is a member of Parliament.16.Cathy Freeman, who is strongly favored to win the gold medal in the women's 400meters at the Sydney games, said that Moriarty is "one of the people I turn to when I want to find out more about the pathway Aboriginal people have followed to this point of our history in Australia."17.In 1983 Moriarty established the Balarinji Design Studio in Adelaide with his whiteAustralian wife, Ros, to promote Aboriginal heritage through contemporary design.18.One of its best known designs is painted on a Boeing 747 of Qantas airline that fliesregularly to the United States and Europe. It is called the Wunala Dreaming plane. "Wunala"is the generic word for kangaroo in the Y anyuwa tribal language.19.The design depicts the movement of the Kangaroo Spirit people across the Australianlandscape when it was being formed, eons ago in the Aboriginal Dreamtime. It shows the pattern of movement over the country — bestowing the rich colors of the landscape, from the orange sunsets to the green grass and the red earth.20."Not many people can truly understand the spirituality of Aboriginal culture, how itrelates through design to people and to the formation of the land," Moriarty said. "But I liketo think that people are coming to understand it little by little through our art."(from International Herald Tribune, Sep. 16-17, 2000)Questions:1.How was John Moriarty ―stolen‖ from his parents?2.What was the reason that many Aborigine children were taken away from their parents?3.Why did the then Australian authorities adopt such a policy?4.What is John Howard‘s stand on the past?5.Why did some of the stolen Aborigines become alcoholics or die premature death?6.What do you think of Mr. Moriarty and the Aborigines‘ future?Lesson TwelveAhead-of-the-Curve CareersBy Marty Nemko1.Cutting-edge careers are often exciting, and they offer a strong job market. Alas, the cuttingedge too often turns out to be the bleeding edge, so here are some careers that, while relatively new, are already viable and promise further growth. They emerge from six megatrends:2.Growing healthcare demand. The already overtaxed U.S. healthcare system will be forcedto take on more patients because of the many aging baby boomers, the influx of immigrants, andthe millions of now uninsured Americans who would becovered under a national healthcare plan likely to be enacted inthe next president's administration. Jobs should become moreavailable in nearly all specialties, from nursing to coding,imaging to hospice. These healthcare careers are likely to beparticularly rewarding. Health informatics specialists will, for example, develop expert systems to help doctors and nurses make evidence-based diagnoses and treatments. Hospitals, insurers, and patient families will hire patient advocates to navigate the labyrinthine and ever more parsimonious healthcare system. On the preventive side, people will move beyond personal trainers to wellness coaches, realizing that doing another 100 pushups won't help if they're smoking, boozing, and enduring more stress than a rat in an experiment.3.The increasingly digitized world. Americans are doing more of their shopping on the Net.We obtain more of our entertainment digitally: Computer games are no longer just for teenage boys; billions are spent by people of all ages and both sexes. Increasingly, we get our information from online publications (just look where you're reading this), increasingly viewed on iPhones and BlackBerrys. An under-the-radar career that is core to the digital enterprise is data miner. Online customers provide enterprises with high-quality data on what to sell and for individualized marketing. Another star of the digitized world is simulation developer. The growing ubiquity of broadband connectivity is helping entertainment, education, and training to incorporate simulations of exciting, often dangerous experiences. For example, virtual patients allow medical students to diagnose and treat without risking a real patient's life. A new computer game, Spore, allows you to simulate creating a new planet, starting with the first microorganism.4.Globalization, especially Asia's ascendancy. This should create great demand for businessdevelopment specialists, helping U.S. companies create joint ventures with Chinese firms. Once those deals are made, offshoring managers are needed to oversee those collaborations as well as the growing number of offshored jobs. Quietly, companies are offshoring even work previously deemed too dependent on American culture to send elsewhere: innovation and market research, for example. Conversely, large numbers of people from impoverished countries are immigrating to the United States. So, immigration specialists of all types, from marketing to education to criminal justice, will be needed to attempt to accommodate the unprecedented in-migration.5.The dawn of clinical genomics. Decades of basic research are finally starting to yieldclinical implications. Just months ago, it cost $1 million to fully decode a person's genome. Now it's $300,000 and just $1,000 for a partial decoding, which, in itself, indicates whether a person is at increased risk of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and 15 other conditions. Within a decade, we will probably understand which genes predispose humans to everything from depression to violence, early death to centenarian longevity, retardation to genius. Such discoveries will most likely give rise to ways to prevent or cure our dreaded predispositions and encourage those in which we'd delight. That, in turn, will bring about the reinvention of psychology, education, and, of course, medicine. In the meantime, the unsung heroes who will bring this true revolution to pass will include computational biologists and behavioral geneticists.6.Environmentalism. Growing alarm about global warming is making environmentalism thisgeneration's dominant initiative. The most influential panel on the topic, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the most visible advocate of curbing carbon emissions, former Vice President Al Gore, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for insisting that vigorous action is needed.The environmental wave is creating jobs in everything from sales to accounting in companies making green products, regulatory positions in government, and grant writing, fundraising, and litigation work in nonprofits. Among the more interesting green careers, thousands of engineers。