The study surveys all publicly held U.S. corporations among the top
100 defence contractors that had at least 10 percent of revenues in
defence.

It found that the top 34 CEOs combined have earned almost a billion
dollars since the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

This would have been enough money to employ and support more than a
million Iraqis for a year to rebuild their country.

The defence executives' average compensation jumped from 3.6 million
during the pre-9/11 period of 1998-2001 to 7.2 million dollars during
the post-9/11 period of 2002-2005.

Among other startling facts revealed in the report is that in 2005
alone, defence industry CEOs garnered 44 times more pay than military
generals with 20 years experience, and 308 times more than Army
privates.

The report names United Technologies CEO George David as the winner of
the top spot in executive profits after the Iraq war with more than
200 million dollars in pay since 9/11, despite investigations into the
quality of the company's Black Hawk helicopters.

Health Net's CEO Jay Gellert secured the biggest personal pay raise
after 9/11, a gigantic 1,134 percent leap over the preceding four
years.

"The company owes its earnings growth to American taxpayers, who may
not realize they pick up a hefty share of cost overruns in the
privatized military health care system," said the report.

Halliburton CEO David Lesar made a modest 26.6 million dollars last
year, even though his company has been criticised for its links to
U.S. Vice President ***** Cheney.

"While Halliburton's future Iraq work is uncertain, Lesar will enjoy
the nearly 50 million dollars he has made since the 'War on Terror'
began," the report says.

Oil company chief executives are also making three times the pay of
CEOs in comparably sized businesses.

In 2005, the top 15 U.S. oil industry CEOs got a 50 percent raise over
2004.

They now average 32.7 million dollars, compared with11.6 million
dollars for all CEOs of large U.S. firms, the report finds.

The top three highest-paid U.S. oil chiefs in 2005 were William
Greehey of Valero Energy at 95.2 million dollars, followed by Ray R.
Irani of Occidental Petroleum at 84 million dollars and Lee Raymond,
the outgoing CEO of ExxonMobil, at 69.7 million dollars.

The lowest paid was Chad Deaton, CEO of Baker Hughes, at 6.6 million
dollars.

"The average construction worker at an energy company would have to
work 4,279 years to equal what Greehey collected last year," the
report noted.

Executive pay at U.S.-based oil companies also far outpaced pay at oil
companies based outside the United States, says the report.

International oil giants BP and Royal Dutch Shell, the second and the
third largest internationally, paid their top executives only
one-eighth what their U.S. counterparts received -- 5.6 and 4.1
million dollars in 2005, respectively.

Both companies operate in the same global marketplace as their
U.S.-based competitors.

Since 1990, the overall CEO-worker pay gap in the United States has
grown from 107-to-1 to last year's 411-to-1, said the report


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0831-01.htm

Published on Thursday, August 31, 2006 by the Inter Press Service

Executives Cash In on War and Oil Bonanza

by Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON -

Top oil and defence industry executives in the United States are
raking in record personal profits on the backs of the U.S. wars
following the terror attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 and sky-high oil prices,
two think-tanks said Wednesday.

"CEOs (chief executive officers) in the defense and oil industries
have been able to translate war and rising oil prices into personal
jackpots," says the new report "Executive Excess 2006," a 60-page
study by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the
Boston-based United for a Fair Economy.

The report's authors say U.S. taxpayers are funding much of this
bonanza and faulted U.S. political and congressional leaders for not
exercising better and more thorough oversight.

"Americans across the political spectrum should be outraged by the
sight of executives cashing in on war windfalls," says report
co-author Sarah Anderson.

____________________________________________________

2,641 American troops are dead, 19,773 have been wounded, tens of
thousands of innocent Iraqis are dead and wounded.


Harry