According to multiple reports, beginning in the Washington Post, the Pentagon has made an informal and flexible request for $200 billion for the Iran war, on which it reportedly has spent $12 billion in the first two-and-one-half weeks. Moreover, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at a press briefing March 18, said that request “could move” (i.e., upward). Why so much for a claimed “four-six week” war? Either the White House knows that the war will not be short and that it cannot simply withdraw when Trump wishes to; or, the Pentagon is planning to pad the war costs with bonus spending for “new capabilities,” like the $1.5 trillion planned for the defense budget as a whole; or both.
Hegseth’s remarks were typically nasty, brutish, and short. “It takes money to kill bad guys,” he said. “It will be at the president’s choosing, ultimately, where we say, ‘Hey, we’ve achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security.’ So no time set on that, but we’re very much on track.”
Semafor added clues on March 18. “The US’ military-industrial complex is quickly morphing into a military-industrial-financial complex, in which risk capital is flowing toward increasingly specialized defense bets. The Pentagon is hunting for investment bankers to strike more defense deals.”
Investment bankers? Hjalmar Schacht, perhaps? This brings up a March 15 ZeroHedge article so bizarre, it appeared at first to be fake news, as it asserted that the White House has found a path to defining “hero warfighters” as bankers who make super-profits for themselves on defense contracts, funded by $200-250 billion in free (taxpayers’) money.
An internet influencer named “High-Yield Harry” supposedly led ZH to the discovery of a deck of slides used by Heidrick and Struggles. (The latter describe themselves as “the premier provider of executive search, corporate culture and leadership consulting services.”) The slide deck is pitching, to “Goldman, JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley investment bankers” (only), the opportunity to “serve their country” by making money on “war unicorn” companies. Some $200 billion or more in free taxpayers’ money awaits the selected investment bankers who will place it with the up-and-coming “war unicorn” companies. The capital group within the Pentagon to run this slush fund will be headed by two former executives of Cerberus, the large hedge fund which 20 years ago acquired Chrysler Corp. and bankrupted it before the Treasury came to the rescue.
The slide deck, chock full of offers and inducements for endless riches and partnerships to the selected investment bankers, is included in the ZH article, and has to be scanned to be believed.
Hegseth is reportedly fashioning a merger, whereby his Department of “War” is to become his “Department of (Heidrick &) Struggles.”
