Former high-ranking Bush officials enjoy war profits (adapted from Shorrock's book)

[struggle4progress]

May 29, 2008
By Tim Shorrock

... nce contractor that was caught -- before the Veritas acquisition -- bribing former Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

In 2007, Armitage, along with several Veritas executives, moved over to DC Capital Partners, an intelligence-oriented buyout firm with some $200 million in assets. One of its first acquisitions after Armitage came on board was Omen Inc., a Maryland company that provides information technology and consulting services to the NSA. The fund has since combined Omen with two other intelligence contractors to form a new company called National Interests Security Company LLC, which has 850 employees, more than half of them holding top secret or higher security clearances.

Through his own eponymous consulting firm, Armitage has lobbied on behalf of L-3 Communications Inc., one of the nation's largest intelligence contractors, to help it sell anti-submarine surveillance systems to Taiwan. L-3, like ManTech, is also heavily involved in Iraq. (Further topping off Armitage's investment interests in the war: He sits on the board of directors of ConocoPhillips, which is aiming to become a major player in Iraq's energy industry through a joint venture with Russia's Lukoil.)

In these jobs, former high-level officials like Armitage continue to fight terrorist threats and protect the "homeland," as they once did while working in government. But by fusing their political careers with business, these former officials have brought money-making into the highest reaches of national security. They have created a new class of capitalist policy-makers that is bridging the gap between public policy and private business in ways that are unprecedented in American history ...

http://www.salon.com/news/excerpt/2008/05/29/spies_for_hire/

The blackops-industrial complex ...