The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

by John Perkins

We were commissioned to make a complete survey of the country’s disorganized and outmoded electrical system and to design a new one that would meet standards equivalent to those in the United States.

Our agreement with Treasury further stipulated that all equipment had to be manufactured either in the United States or in Saudi Arabia. Because Saudi Arabia did not have factories for producing such items, everything had to be sent from the States.

The goats were replaced by two hundred bright yellow American trash compactor trucks, provided under a $200 million contract with Waste Management Inc.

As Thomas Lippman observed in 2004:

Americans have reshaped a vast, bleak landscape of nomads’ tents and farmers’ mud huts in their own image, right down to Starbucks on the corner and the wheelchair-accessible ramps in the newest public

buildings. Saudi Arabia today is a country of expressways, computers, air-conditioned malls filled with the same glossy shops found in prosperous American suburbs, elegant hotels, fast-food restaurants, satellite television, up-to-date hospitals, high...

The United States made no secret of its desire to have the House of Saud bankroll Osama bin Laden’s Afghan war against the Soviet Union during the 1980s, and Riyadh and

Washington together contributed an estimated $3.5 billion to the mujahideen.5 However, US and Saudi participation went far beyond this.

The evidence was indisputable: Saudi Arabia, America’s longtime ally and the world’s largest oil producer, had somehow become, as a senior Treasury Department official put it, “the epicenter” of terrorist financing.

Saudi Arabia’s quasi-official charities became the primary source of funds for the fast-growing jihad movement. In some 20 countries the money was used to run paramilitary training camps, purchase weapons, and recruit new members.

Saudi largess encouraged US officials to look the other way, some veteran intelligence officers say.

Electronic intercepts of conversations implicated members of the royal

family in backing not only Al Qaeda but also other terrorist groups.

The story that emerged about the relationship between the Bush family, the House of Saud, and the bin Laden family did not surprise me. I knew that those relationships went back at least to the time of the Saudi Arabian Money-Laundering Affair, which began in 1974, and to George H. W. Bush’s terms as US ambassador to the United Nations (from 1971 to 1973) and then as head of the CIA (from 1976 to 1977).

The Bush family and the House of Saud, the two most powerful dynasties in the world, have had close personal, business, and political ties for more than 20 years.

The model involved assigning subjective probabilities to predictions that certain specific sectors of an economy would grow. It seemed an ideal tool to justify the inflated rates of increase we liked to show in order to obtain large loans, and Bruno asked me to see what I could do with the concept.

Within six months he developed the Markov method for econometric modeling.

It was exactly what we wanted: a tool that scientifically “proved” we were doing countries a favor by helping them incur debts they would never be able to pay off.

In addition, only a highly skilled econometrician with lots of time and money could possibly comprehend the intricacies of Markov or question its conclusions.

the fact was that MAIN kept winning contracts from the Torrijos government. These contracts included a first: to provide innovative master plans that involved agriculture along with the more traditional infrastructure sectors. I also watched from the sidelines as Torrijos and Jimmy Carter set out to renegotiate the Canal treaty.

“Ford is a weak president who won’t be reelected,”

“That’s the reason I decided to accelerate this Canal issue. It’s a good time to launch an all-out political battle to win it back.”

The best way of assuring the continued and efficient operation of the Canal is to help Panamanians gain control over and responsibility for

Colonialism was in vogue at the turn of the century (early 1900s) as it had been in 1775. Perhaps ratification of such a treaty can be understood in the context of those times. Today it is without justification. Colonialism has no place in 1975.

Many of MAIN’s competitors had taken the wrong side and had been turned out of Panama, but our work had multiplied.

out that the general himself admitted to giving many of his staff special privileges, such as superior housing, because “if I don’t pay them, the CIA will.” The clear implication was that the US intelligence community was determined to undermine the wishes of President Carter and, if necessary, would bribe Panama’s military chiefs into sabotaging the treaty negotiations.4 I could not help but wonder if the jackals had begun to circle Torrijos.

At the time, I had

assumed that Torrijos knew the foreign aid game was there to make him rich while shackling his country with debt. I had been sure he knew that the process was based on the assumption that men in power are corruptible, and that his decision not to seek personal benefit — but rather to use foreign aid to truly help his people — would be seen as a threat that might eventually topple the entire system.

I had wondered how the corporatocracy would react if loans made to Panama helped the poor without contributing to impossible debts.

I had played his game instead of mine, accepting his insistence on honesty in

exchange for more contracts.

A system based on corrupting public figures does not take kindly to public figures who refuse to be corrupted.

Graham Greene,

“The important thing is to write about things that matter.

“It’s in you. But remember, make it about things that matter.”

Iran was oil rich, and like Saudi Arabia, it did not need to incur debt in order to finance its ambitious list of projects.

We launched an immense effort to show the world what a strong, democratic friend of US corporate and political interests could accomplish.

To all appearances, the shah was a progressive friend of the underprivileged. In 1962, he ordered large private landholdings broken up and turned over to peasant owners.

Once again, the focus of our work was to forecast regional development potentials and then to design electrical generating, transmission, and distribution systems that would provide the all-important energy required to fuel the military, industrial, and commercial growth that would realize these forecasts.

I knew that I stood out from other Americans because I was in fact infatuated with the places I visited.

Flowering Desert project.2 “The shah believes that our deserts were once fertile plains and lush forests. At least, that’s what he claims.

Now all we have to do, or so the shah says, is plant millions upon millions of trees. After that — presto! — the rains will return and the desert will bloom again. Of course, in the process we will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars.” He smiled condescendingly. “Companies like yours will reap huge profits.”

“The desert is a symbol. Turning it green is about much more than agriculture.”

What destroyed the cultures of your own native peoples, the Indians?”

“Yes. True. All of that. But more than anything else, did it not come down to a destruction of the environment?” He went on to explain how, once forests and animals such as the buffalo are destroyed, and once people are moved onto reservations, the very foundations of cultures collapse.

I told him that it was my understanding that the whole idea behind the project came from his people. He responded with a cynical laugh, saying that the idea was planted in the shah’s mind by my own US government and that the shah was just a puppet of that government.

He emphasized that many urbanized Iranians take their vacations in the desert. They set up tents large enough for the entire family and spend a week or more living in them.

The people the shah claims to rule with that iron hand of his are not just of the desert. We are the desert.”

was a close and trusted adviser to the shah.” There was a long pause. “The Shah of Shahs, King of Kings.” His tone of voice sounded, I thought, more sad than angry.

“I personally knew many of the world’s leaders. Eisenhower, Nixon, de Gaulle. They trusted me to help lead this country into the capitalist camp.