Miller, T. Christian 1970(?)- (Tee Miller)

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Miller, T. Christian 1970(?)- (Tee Miller)

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1970; married; children: two. Education: University of California at Berkeley, graduated.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, investigative reporter, and foreign correspondent. Los Angeles Times, investigative reporter. Worked as a foreign correspondent in Bogota, Colombia. Guest on television networks, including MSNBC, and on radio programs, including All Things Considered, National Public Radio.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Livingston Award for international reporting.

WRITINGS:

Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

T. Christian Miller is a multiple award-winning journalist and investigative reporter who works for the Los Angeles Times. In his career, he has covered "four wars, a presidential campaign, and reported from more than two dozen countries," noted a biographer on Miller's Amazon.com Web log. As part of his duties, Miller has extensively covered the reconstruction effort in Iraq. His work uncovered deep-seated corruption, malfeasance, and misconduct that helped lead to the initiation of several investigations, the cancellation of a flawed arms contract, and the ouster of at least one senior Pentagon official, the biographer stated.

A further result of his in-depth research is his first book, Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq. With this work, Miller offers a "searing account of how the Bush administration has mismanaged the Iraq war and reconstruction," commented Vanessa Bush in Booklist. He "presents compelling evidence to support the by-now familiar claim that civilian leaders, military commanders, and planners from the top down gave little thought to the post-combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom," observed James E. Verner in the Military Review. Miller exposes the "officially sponsored looting, absence of accountability, and shameless profiteering—all ongoing" that has plagued the Iraq effort since the run-up to the war, noted a Kirkus Reviews critic. He reports on how American businesses have exploited the nearly endless stream of money flowing from the U.S. government to Iraq, and how companies such as security firm Custer Battles, Bechtel, and Halliburton were enriched through often secret noncompetitive-bid contracts. Though Miller introduces a multitude of villains in his indictment of the Iraq fiasco, he also "uncovers the heroes of the reconstruction, the mid-level bureaucrats and contractors who stood up to Pentagon and Iraqi corruption, risking their careers and lives," commented Michael Scherer in Mother Jones. In the end, "Miller makes a compelling point that reconstruction is destined to fail in a country whose environment is as unstable as Iraq's," Verner noted, especially in an environment where the war "has turned into a corporate affair, where companies battle for contracts and life-and-death decisions are based on the bottom line."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review of Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq, p. 4.

Book World, September 3, 2006, Michael Hirsh, "The Spoils of War: A Reporter Accuses the Bush Administration of Turning Nation-Building into a Pork Buffet," review of Blood Money, p. 6.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2006, review of Blood Money, p. 561; December 15, 2006, Jerome Kramer, "Kirkus Reviews Best Books of '06: Thirty Outstanding Titles That Deserve Your Attention," review of Blood Money, p. 1.

Military Review, November 1, 2006, James E. Varner, review of Blood Money, p. 104.

Mother Jones, September-October, 2006, Michael Scherer, review of Blood Money, p. 100.

Washington Lawyer, January 1, 2007, Ronald Goldfarb, review of Blood Money, p. 42.