■"Is Halliburton's KBR a Hot Deal? Parent Says Plenty of Companies Want to Acquire Distressed Unit; A Partial Spinoff Is One Option," by Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal, 29 September 2004, p. C1.

"Iraqis Look With Hope to School Openings Twice Delayed by Violence," by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 30 September 2004, p. A8.

Why is Halliburton getting rid of Kellogg Brown & Root, the infamous military contractor? Frankly, that side of the business has gotten so complex and hard that Halliburton wants to lose the distraction, as this article points out.

Many of the current defense contractors specializing in on-the-ground security and other Sys Admin-like roles for the U.S. military naturally rose out of the ranks of the oilfield services industry. Why? That was an industry that needed a lot of Sys Admin-like security and admin work performed in rugged, dangerous locations around the worldói.e., where most of the oil is found.

But now that the Sys Admin role is getting so big and so complex and so political with the Iraq occupation, Halliburton wants out.

Why anyone buy KBR? Lotsa suitors say yes. Why? It's a big and growing field, so there's a lot of opportunity for someone to really give it a go. It just can't be a sideline business for large corporations anymore. It's just too hard to manage in that way.

When we do Sys Admin work, we won't just be doing facilities and VIP bodyguarding anymore, we'll be doing things like reconstituting entire national education systems that have suffered years of devastating repression and deprivation, like in Iraq. That's not something you can just hire some tough guys to do, but it's the sort of thing we'll be doing a whole lot more of in the future.

Calling the Sys Admin concept just "peacekeeping" misses the mark by a ways. It's a lot more complex and inter-agency than that. That's why the military's role in the Sys Admin force will be primarily one of bodyguarding and peace-enforcement, leaving the complex "humanitarian" and reconstruction stuff to civilians and international organizations. So when some in the Army say, "I don't want to be turned into your Sys Admin force and have to do all those things," my reply is, "Don't worry, you won't. You'll only make up a small share of the total force package!"

Of course, that reply scares them even more, because they correctly guess that it means their budget won't be going up, nor will their troop numbers, and that's the real lesson the Army wants to pull out of the Iraq occupation: How to save our force structure!