How Bigotry Caused the Second Iraq War

Bigotry and violence are a part of our nation’s legacy. Still, we have our moments and sometimes it is to our detriment how we handle it or don’t handle it.  Right now our Department of Defense procurement apparatus, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) is having a major “hissy fit” trying to keep a major example of governmental bigotry from being exposed.  Please sit down as you read the following.

It was the 1980’s and the Military Industrial Complex came up with a brilliant idea for making money through war.  The quick little skirmishes we were having like Grenada, Panama, etc. weren’t doing the real economical trick.  They decided that we needed a long sustained war like the days of Vietnam. They lobbied for the Industrial Preparedness Program (IPP).

From a security standpoint the IPP made a lot of sense.  You would select specific companies to be on standby at all times to massively produce goods and services that could immediately meet the demand of war.  Since it was a security matter there was reason to select these major players without regard to full and open competition.  You would anoint the winners. Companies like Halliburton, Brown & Root, Blackwater, Boeing, Lockheed, etc. were good to go.  Whenever or wherever the “stink” would happen they would make billions of dollars.  If you are positioned in this manner then you are politically lobbying for war or a get tough policy.  Rogue nations, terrorists, etc., create the atmosphere for great business at the expense of the taxpayers and individual citizens.

There was one big memo that didn’t get out:  NO BLACK COMPANIES NEED APPLY.  As the pattern was being set the late and great Parren J. Mitchell was asked to come in and integrate this process.  Congressman Mitchell began identifying areas that Black businesses could vie for in the IPP.  Food service was a slam dunk.  Napoleon once said: “An army moves by its stomach”.  Fighting troops must eat steady and hearty.  Old soldiers like me remember the reliable C rations.  We carried these meals and would whip them out and have a good meal whenever and wherever.  Today, troops use Meals Ready to Eat or MREs.

Enter Black Entrepreneur 1.  This CEO was the mastermind of the Nation of Islam’s whiting fish program.  Remember how every mosque in the nation would deliver to Black households every Friday or Saturday imported whiting fish direct from the shores off Peru.  It was the perfect model for the MRE program and Parren got him the audience with the DLA.  His proposal and proof were superior then anything they had.  With the Congressional Black Caucus looking on, they were forced to take Black Entrepreneur 1 into the IPP program.  They took him in but it certainly didn’t mean they were going to keep him.  Immediately they went to break him.  They put him through hoops and caused him to stretch his financing while delaying him reimbursement for long periods.  In the end, they bankrupted him and reverted back to “Whites Only”.

Enter Black Entrepreneur 2.  This brother was a mastermind at delivering breakfasts and lunches to school systems on a timely manner.  He, too, was the right stuff and he went and got equity investors.  This meant he had little debt load for the DLA to mess with.  So, when they came after him with their shenanigans he endured through it.  Finally, they just threw him out and decided to play legal games in court when he would sue.  These games have lasted more than twenty years and they still are going on.  After kicking him out of the program, the DLA rushed in a new white owned business to claim he had been sufficiently replaced.  The big problem was, and would be later officially proven this guy couldn’t meet the demand.  The IPP could not produce sufficient food for our troops in the middle of combat.

To everyone’s surprise, Saddam Hussein of Iraq decided to invade and annex Kuwait.  The free world wasn’t having it and it was up to the United States to lead a coalition of Armies to invade Iraq, dispose of Hussein and liberate Kuwait.  General Colin Powell put together a dynamic War Plan.  They would take over the capital city of Baghdad and bring down and prosecute Hussein.  As the plan was implemented it became apparent that the United States Military was deficient in delivering MREs to all those armies.  No food, no Baghdad and Hussein was going to get a pass.  Our military had to change plans and shorten the job.  Hussein would live and it would be another eleven years before we would have to go back in.  Thus, bigotry basically caused the need for a second Iraq War.   We are all still paying this price.

Mr. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO, of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Inc.  Website:  www.nationalbcc.org.  Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .