Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006)

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers is a documentary film which premiered in 2006. Here is some basic information about it:

** Producer and director: Robert Greenwald
** Studio: Brave New Films
** Run time: 75 minutes

Many persons are interviewed in this film. I will not mention all names, because the complete list is too long. Here are some of the names (in alphabetical order):

** Keith Ashdown – Taxpayers for Common Sense
** Mark Benjamin – an investigative reporter
** Pratap Chatterjee - CorpWatch
** Jim Donahue – Halliburton Watch

** Charlie Gray – Center for Corporate Policy

** Chris Farrell – Judicial Watch
** Charles Lewis – Fund for Independence in Journalism
** Messie Ritsch – Center for Responsive Politics

This film focuses on four private companies which have contracts with the US Government (the Pentagon) to deliver certain goods to or provide certain services for the US Army in Iraq:

** Blackwater
** CACI
** KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton)
** Titan

What do reviewers say about this film? Here are the results of three review aggregators:

*** 68 per cent = Meta
*** 77 per cent = IMDb
*** 85 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
** 100 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)

On the US version of Amazon there are at the moment more than one hundred reviews of this product. The average rating is 4.5 stars.

According to a review in the New York Times, this film is “a horrifying catalog of greed, corruption, and incompetence among private contractors in Iraq.”

As you can see, the ratings are quite good. When you look at Rotten Tomatoes, you can see that there is a clear difference between the general audience and the professional critics. The professional critics like this film more than the general audience, although both groups are very positive.

In this case, I have to side with the critics. I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars.

PS. For more information on this topic, see the following items:

** Control Room (2004)

** Why We Fight (2005)

** The Ground Truth (2006)

** No End in Sight (2007)

** The Unknown Known (2013)

** We Are Many (2014)

** Imminent Threat (2015)

** Official Secrets (2019)

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