Halliburton, etc., Making Fortune from War & Death in Iraq

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Oct 30, 2003, 6:08:18 PM10/30/03

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Winning Contractors: U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls
of Post-war Reconstruction
The Center for Public Integrity

WASHINGTON, October 30, 2003 — More than 70 American companies and
individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar
Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by
the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to
the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush—a little over $500,000—than
to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.

Kellogg, Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton—which Vice President
Dick Cheney led prior to being chosen as Bush's running mate in August
2000—was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries,
with more than $2.3 billion awarded to the company. Bechtel Group, a
major government contractor with similarly high-ranking ties, was second
at around $1.03 billion.

However, dozens of lower-profile, but well-connected, companies shared in
the reconstruction bounty. Their tasks ranged from rebuilding Iraq's
government, police, military and media to providing translators for use
in interrogations and psychological operations. There are even
contractors to evaluate the contractors. (See company list.)

Nearly 60 percent of the companies had employees or board members who
either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican
and Democratic administrations, for members of Congress of both parties,
or at the highest levels of the military.

The results of the Center's six-month investigation provide the most
comprehensive list to date of American contractors in the two nations
that were attacked in Washington's war on terror. Based on the findings,
it did not appear that any one government agency knew the total number of
contractors or what they were doing. Congressional sources said they
hoped such a full picture would emerge from the General Accounting
Office, which has begun investigating the postwar contracting process
amid allegations of fraud and cronyism.

The Center's investigation focused on the three agencies that awarded
most of the Iraq and Afghanistan contracts in 2002 and 2003—the Pentagon,
the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
It found that nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for
Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former high-ranking
government officials or individuals with close ties to those agencies or
Congress.

In addition, those top 10 contractors were established political donors,
contributing nearly $11 million to national political parties, candidates
and political action committees since 1990, according to an analysis of
campaign finance records.

Indeed, most of the companies that won contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan
were political players. According to the Center's analysis, the
companies, their political action committees and their employees
contributed a total of nearly $49 million to national political campaigns
and parties since 1990. Donations to Republican Party committees—the
Republican National Committee, the Republican Senatorial Campaign
Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee—outpaced
those to Democratic committees, $12.7 million to $7.1 million. Among
individual candidates, President George Bush received more money from
these companies than any other, a little over $500,000.

The Center's investigation found that 14 of the contractors were awarded
U.S. government work in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Combined, those
companies gave nearly $23 million in political contributions since 1990,
and 13 employ former government officials or have close ties to various
agencies and departments.

Although Afghanistan was once ground zero in Washington's war on
terrorism, spending on Iraq was more than double that on Afghanistan.
According to the Center's investigation, which examined contracts awarded
in 2002 through September 2003, at least $5.7 billion in government
funding was slated for U.S. contractors in Iraq, compared to nearly $2.7
billion for Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, had been based in
Afghanistan, and prior to the March 2003 war on Iraq, U.S. officials had
said that a democratic Afghanistan was central to winning the war on
terror.

The Center's findings are based, in part, on 73 Freedom of Information
Act requests and appeals to USAID, the Pentagon and its various uniformed
services and the State Department, as well as an analysis of the General
Services Administration database of contracts from 1990 through fiscal
year 2002—more than 7 million federal contract actions, in all.

Response to the Center's FOIA requests was sporadic, at best, and on Oct.
29, the Center filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.,
against the State Department and the Army after both agencies failed to
respond fully to its request for information as outlined under FOIA law.

For example, media accounts have noted that the State Department has a
contract with DynCorp for work in Iraq worth at least $50 million, which
reportedly could grow in value to as much as $800 million under the
administration's new spending request for Iraq. The Department of State
did not respond to Center requests for information about this or any of
its other contracts in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract to the Halliburton
subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, potentially worth billions under an
omnibus military contract known as "indefinite quantity-indefinite
delivery," which is one of the largest of its kind in U.S. history.
Although the Pentagon released one KBR "task order," or work assignment,
to the Center, there are more than 30 such orders for Iraq. (See
Outsourcing Government sidebar.)

Because of inconsistent and scarce information, the total value of
contracts awarded for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan may be
greater than what is publicly known. The Center found that there was no
uniformity across the government in how contract values were reported.
For example, the amount listed for an individual contract either
represented only what had been paid to date on a multiyear contract, or a
minimum and maximum dollar range of the contract, or, in some instances,
a single figure, without any specification as to whether it represented a
first payment, a first-year total, or a multiyear total. In some
instances, the Center could determine nothing about what a particular
contract cost or entailed because neither the company nor the government
agency responsible for it would divulge that information.

Contractor confusion
The difficulty in obtaining contract amounts and the contradictory
information coming from within government departments raise questions
about management and oversight of the reconstruction effort. Although
USAID has said that "to ensure that U.S. tax dollars are utilized
efficiently and effectively, USAID is providing a transparent monitoring
and evaluation system to ensure that contractors are meeting their goals
and staying on schedule," the Center's investigation suggested otherwise.

For example, in a list of contracts initially provided to the Center
under FOIA, both USAID and the Pentagon omitted the largest contracts
they had awarded in Iraq—to Bechtel and to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary.
Also omitted from the Pentagon's list were major defense contractors such
as Fluor, Washington Group International and Perini Corporation, each of
which stands to earn up to $500 million for its Pentagon work in Iraq,
Afghanistan and other countries. Combined, the three companies and their
subsidiaries have won more than $11 billion dollars in U.S. government
contracts from 1990 through fiscal year 2002. (See contractor rankings.)

Contracts awarded by USAID to Chemonics International Inc., a private,
for-profit aid company based in Washington, D.C., provide a textbook
study in the apparent confusion surrounding the contracting process.

According to information provided by USAID under a Freedom of Information
request, Chemonics was contracted to work in Afghanistan for just over
$600 million. That total would rank Chemonics third among all U.S.
contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, behind only Halliburton and Bechtel.
However, the company disputed that total when contacted, at first
insisting it had three contracts with USAID worth just $133.9 million,
then changing its figures a day later to say that one multiyear contract
it had originally put at nearly $1.2 million actually had a potential
worth of $35 million for work in Afghanistan and several other countries.

Getting clarification of the numbers from USAID was difficult. "I don’t
know where the FOIA office got that information," said one USAID press
officer. Chemonics refused to release copies of its contracts, and a
Center FOIA request for the contracts is pending. After several queries,
the FOIA office told the Center that the contract it had listed as being
worth $600 million was actually worth between $599,000 and $1.2 million,
which was still inconsistent with the numbers Chemonics provided.

"We don’t dispute it," Chemonics spokesperson Denise Felix told the
Center when asked about the USAID number. "It is not accurate for us." In
general, contract amounts provided under FOIA varied widely; often the
value given by an agency was for the first year's work only, not the
designated total on a multiyear contract. When the Center obtained copies
of contracts, it became clear that at least some departments calculated
the total cost of a contract by tallying all its option years. (See FOIA
sidebar.)

In other instances, contract lists provided by the agencies did not
correspond with information on the agencies' Web sites or with public
announcements by companies receiving the contracts. Often, the agency was
at a loss to explain these discrepancies. In addition, when asked for
copies of contracts which USAID told the Center it had awarded, agency
officials responded that it would take an indeterminate amount of time to
produce some of them because they would have to be retrieved from global
field offices.

Even when FOIA requests were granted, key information about government
contracts often was redacted, or blacked out. For example, the Pentagon
provided the Center copies of seven contracts awarded to Science
Applications International Corporation for work in Iraq. The total
contract value was omitted, although some unit pricing—typically redacted
under a rule that gives companies a right to oppose FOIA requests about
their government contracts—was left in. That same rule was cited by one
Pentagon FOIA officer as justification why the department was not
releasing a Raytheon Aerospace contract worth more than $7 million.
Raytheon Aerospace, along with its affiliated companies, was the
11th–ranked government contractor among companies with contracts in Iraq
and Afghanistan, earning $2.7 billion since 1990, according to the
Center's analysis.

SAIC officials refused to discuss their contracts with the Center,
directing all calls to the Pentagon press office, which did not answer
Center queries. However, a congressional source, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told the Center that one SAIC media contract in Iraq likely
would be worth more than $50 million by the end of 2003. The total value
of SAIC's contracts could not be determined.

Since February 2003, SAIC—the country's largest employee-owned research
and engineering company—has been in charge of the Iraqi Reconstruction
and Development Council, a Pentagon-sanctioned group of Iraqis that is
effectively functioning as the country's temporary government. The senior
members of IRDC hold positions at each of 23 Iraqi ministries, where they
work closely with U.S. and British officials, including L. Paul Bremer,
head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. The Council's official task
is to rebuild the structures of a government that are expected eventually
to be handed over to the new Iraqi authority. Members of the IRDC are
officially employed by SAIC, according to the contracts.

SAIC has also been hired to rebuild Iraq's mass media, including
television stations, radio stations and newspapers. SAIC, which is not
generally known for its media expertise, runs the "Voice of the New
Iraq," the radio station established in April 2003 at Umm Qasr with U.S.
government funds. (For more information see SAIC Reconstruction Contracts
and company profile.)

Revolving doors
In many ways, SAIC is typical of the kinds of American contractors
working in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among companies with contracts in the
two countries, SAIC was the third-largest recipient of U.S. government
contracts over the last 12 years; the company, its employees and PAC
contributed $4.7 million to national political campaigns, the Center's
investigation found.

SAIC's largest customer is the U.S. government, which accounts for 69
percent of its business, and its company roster is a revolving door of
government-corporate influences.

David Kay, the former U.N. weapons inspector who was hired by the CIA to
track down weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is a former vice
president of SAIC. Kay left SAIC, where he oversaw homeland security and
counterterrorism work, in October 2002.

Christopher "Ryan" Henry left SAIC, where he was vice president for
strategic assessment and development, in February 2003 to become
principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. Henry now works
for the office overseeing his former employer, directly under Douglas J.
Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy who has been deeply
involved in postwar planning.

SAIC's Executive Vice President for Federal Business and Director Duane
P. Andrews served as assistant defense secretary from 1989 to 1993, when
he joined SAIC. Board member W.A. Downing served as deputy assistant
director for international counter-terrorism initiatives on the National
Security Council and joined SAIC after retiring as an Army general in
1996. Bobby Ray Inman, a board member until October 2003, is a retired
U.S. Navy admiral who once directed the National Security Agency and
served as deputy director of central intelligence. Inman is also a member
of the board of directors of Fluor, another contractor in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Chemonics International, which according to information provided by
USAID's FOIA office holds the third-richest contract of all American
companies in Iraq and Afghanistan, offers another interesting case-in-
point. Founded by a former State Department foreign service officer, the
company receives 90 percent of its business from USAID. Scott Spangler,
the company's principal owner with 52 percent of the company's stock, was
a senior USAID official during the first Bush administration. While at
USAID, Spangler served as assistant administrator for the Africa Bureau,
associate administrator for operations and acting administrator. Spangler
became principal owner of Chemonics in March 1999 and chaired the board
until April 2002. His wife, Jean Spangler, is also on Chemonics' board of
directors. Together, the Spanglers have contributed $98,460 to Republican
Party causes since 1990, according to the Center's campaign finance
records analysis.

Perini Corporation, working in Iraq and Afghanistan on contracts worth up
to $525 million, is owned by a group of investors that includes Richard
Blum, husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California who
serves on the Appropriations Committee and the Select Committee on
Intelligence.

Sullivan Haave Associates Inc.—identified by the Pentagon as a
contractor, though the company says it was a subcontractor to SAIC—was
founded by Carol A. Haave, currently the deputy assistant secretary of
defense for security and information operations. (See Small Company
sidebar.)

Another contractor with interesting ties is the Center for Afghanistan
Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, which was established in
1972 and claims to be the only institutional base in the United States
exclusively concerned with Afghan affairs. The center's director, Thomas
E. Gouttierre, is an old friend of Zalmay Khalilzad, President's Bush's
nominee as ambassador to Afghanistan and a former paid adviser to Unocal.
The oil company, which until 1998 was working on a plan to construct
trans-Afghan natural gas and oil pipelines, has funded the CAS' work in
Afghanistan and hosted members of the Taliban on visits to the United
States. The CAS also reportedly has longstanding ties to Washington
policymakers and, especially, the intelligence community.

In January 2002, USAID awarded the Center for Afghanistan Studies $6.5
million to provide books and training for Afghanistan's interim
government to resume schooling. However, critics charged that the books,
written in the 1980s, contained Islamic material and verses from the
Koran in violation of the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and
state. That followed earlier criticism of the CAS' ties to members of the
Taliban leadership during its previous U.S. government contracts.

In January 2003, the CAS, which had been involved in Afghanistan
education projects since 1973, lost the USAID contract for Afghan
educational textbooks and teacher training to Creative Associates
International Inc., a private for-profit aid company based in Washington,
D.C. Though the CAS did not get a new contract, it received a no-cost
extension of its 2002 contract from USAID to continue training teachers
from its office in Afghanistan.

Raheem Yaseer, the CAS assistant director and a former Kabul University
professor, said efficiency and quality were secondary to politics in the
process of selecting companies and organizations to work in Afghanistan.

"It depends on who knows who in the administration, USAID and the State
Department," Yaseer said in an interview. "Universities try their best to
recruit professionals, but these Belt[way] bandits … just grab anybody
that comes in handy."

In addition to its USAID contract for educational reform in Afghanistan,
worth at least $60 million, Creative was awarded a USAID contract in
March 2003 for educational development work in Iraq. That contract, which
may be extended by two years, is meant to cover everything from desks and
blackboards to textbooks, curriculum reform, academic standards and
teacher training and is worth up to $157 million. Creative was the 11th
largest recipient of government-funded contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan,
according to the Center's analysis.

Four months before the Iraq contract was awarded, USAID hosted a
roundtable discussion of Iraq's educational system, which a Creative
representative attended. It was the only company later invited to bid on
the contract present at that meeting. Although Creative refused to answer
Center questions about the meeting, USAID identified its representative
as Frank Dall and said he was invited not on behalf of the company but
because he was "literally the only available education authority to have
worked directly with the Saddam regime." USAID noted Dall's previous work
in the Middle East with UNICEF and UNESCO, but did not mention that Dall
was a former USAID employee, having served as the agency's education
director for the Middle East.

USAID's comments came in response to an internal inspector general
report, commissioned after questions arose about possible impropriety
surrounding Creative's selection as a contractor in Iraq. The other
companies invited to bid were given only two weeks notice to submit their
bids.

"The documentation is clear that only one of the five contractors that
were subsequently invited by USAID to bid on the contract participated in
an initial roundtable discussion," a June 2003 USAID memorandum detailing
the IG's findings said. "In addition, we conclude that USAID Bureau
officials did not adhere to the guidance on practical steps to avoid
organizational conflicts of interest."

Another onetime senior USAID official is also on the Creative staff. In
July 2002, the agency's former chief of staff Richard L. McCall Jr. was
selected to direct Creative's Communities in Transition division. Before
joining USAID, McCall was a senior policy adviser to the deputy secretary
of state and spent many years working on Capitol Hill, including as a
staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate
Democratic Policy Committee.

Close ties
The Center's investigation also found that many contractors had close
working relationships with one another. For example:

Creative International subcontracted three of the four other companies
that were invited to bid on the USAID contract in Iraq, including
Research Triangle Institute and DevTech Systems Inc. Creative is also a
subcontractor to Research Triangle Institute on RTI's Iraq contract.
In addition to its Afghanistan contracts, Chemonics is a subcontractor in
Iraq to Research Triangle Institute and BearingPoint, which also has a
contract in Afghanistan.
Vinnell Corporation—which became the first American private military
company in 1975 with its contract to train the Saudi National Guard—is
using SAIC and Military Professional Resources Inc. to help train the New
Iraqi Army. SAIC and MPRI separately also have contracts in Iraq.

The Center did not examine subcontractors in any systematic way, and it
was not clear how much of the reconstruction business they held. USAID
Administrator Andrew Natsios has said that more than 50 percent of the
money that goes to contractors actually ends up with subcontractors.

In addition to contracts awarded by the three departments that were a
focus of the Center for Public Integrity's investigation, a handful of
other major American companies won contracts for work in Iraq, including
ChevronTexaco, JPMorgan and MCI/WorldCom. (See ChevronTexaco and JPMorgan
sidebar.)

ChevronTexaco, a major U.S. government contractor and political party
donor, joined five other international oil companies selected by the
Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization to market Iraqi oil. The expected
revenue of $300 million from the sale of oil will be controlled by the
U.S. government for use in rebuilding Iraq. Including Chevron, there were
only two contracts for oil-related work among the dozens reviewed by the
Center.

JPMorgan, the nation's second-largest bank, which was implicated in the
Enron scandal, has been contracted by the Coalition Provisional Authority
to run a consortium of 13 banks from 13 countries that will constitute
the Trade Bank of Iraq. Bank consortium members are not expected to earn
much revenue initially, but banking publications report the real
windfalls will come once Iraq's oil production resumes full capacity and
anticipated billions of dollars flow through the Trade Bank for financing
large development projects.

MCI, formerly WorldCom, was hired by the Pentagon to build a wireless
phone network for officials and aid workers in the Baghdad area. MCI's
reconstruction activities in Iraq were not disclosed in documents the
Defense Department provided to the Center under a Freedom of Information
Act request. However, an MCI spokesperson said the Pentagon-led Coalition
Provisional Authority awarded the contract to MCI in late May 2003. The
contract was part of a short-term communications plan costing the
Pentagon approximately $45 million. The MCI spokesperson would say only
that the company's contract amounted to less than $20 million. When it
was still named WorldCom, the company paid a $500 million fine to the
Securities and Exchange Commission for overstating its cash flow by
nearly $4 billion, and it was temporarily banned from receiving federal
contracts.

Seeking oversight
In April 2003, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, announced it would launch a broad investigation into methods
used to award contracts to rebuild Iraq. The awarding of no-bid or
closed-bid contracts in Iraq to Halliburton and Bechtel prompted the
calls for investigation, although, as the Center investigation found, a
majority of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan have significant
government ties.

"There is growing evidence that favored contractors like Halliburton and
Bechtel are getting sweetheart deals that are costing the taxpayer a
bundle but delivering scant results," said Rep. Henry Waxman, a
California Democrat and the administration's most vocal critic on the
contracting process.

Vice President Dick Cheney is a former defense secretary and former CEO
of Halliburton and still receives deferred compensation from the company.
Bechtel's ranks of executives and board members include former Secretary
of State George Shultz, former State Department official Charles Redman
and former Marine four-star Gen. Jack Sheehan, who served as NATO's
Supreme Allied Commander for the Atlantic before his retirement in 1997
and now sits on the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon-appointed body that
advises on defense issues.

GAO sources told the Center that the agency is conducting two separate
probes of contracts awarded for work in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first
covers all civilian contracts for Iraq reconstruction involving
appropriated funds and stemmed from requests by two Democratic
congressmen, who complained of cronyism in the contracting process. That
report is expected to be completed in late 2003 or early 2004. A second
probe involves a handful of multibillion-dollar, multiyear military
contracts that cover work in both countries. The primary focus of that
probe will be the Army's LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program)
contract held by Kellogg, Brown & Root and one held by Johnson Controls
Co., which created Readiness Management Support LC to manage AFCAP, the
Air Force Contract Augmentation Program. GAO officials estimate the
second probe will take about a year to complete.

Many of the companies initially selected for work in Iraq and Afghanistan
were awarded contracts because they had the necessary security clearance
or established contracting reputations with the government departments
and agencies assigning the work, officials have said. But U.S. lawmakers
have been pressing for a more transparent process in the next round of
reconstruction contract awards.

Waxman, in an Oct. 15 statement, said "the root cause of these problems
is the administration's insistence on virtually absolute secrecy about
how it is spending the taxpayer's money."

Acknowledging a lack of general oversight in the previous contracting
process, the government has announced that it will consolidate all future
contracts under a new Baghdad-based office as of November. The office is
to be set up under the Coalition Provisional Authority and headed by a
retired U.S. Navy admiral, David Nash, reporting directly to CPA head L.
Paul Bremer.

"Now the whole contracting procedure is confusing," John Shaw, deputy
undersecretary of defense for international security, told a London
conference in mid-October, where he announced the new office. "There's
been many complaints. This new procedure we hope is going to bring
greater accountability and transparency."

Kevin Baron, Maud Beelman, Neil Gordon, Laura Peterson, Aron Pilhofer,
Daniel Politi, André Verlöy, Bob Williams and Brooke Williams contributed
to this report, which was written by Ms. Beelman.

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gr...@internet.charitydays.co.uk

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Oct 30, 2003, 6:15:03 PM10/30/03

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Halliburton needs Iraq more than Iraq needs Halliburton
___________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.rockcitynews.com/photos3c/antibushwar2posters/pages/leaflet-iraq-halliburton.htm

___________________________________________________________________________________

scott

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Oct 30, 2003, 7:55:58 PM10/30/03

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Is that a problem?

<gr...@internet.charitydays.co.uk> wrote in message
news:nq63qv46hak2lu8sj...@4ax.com...

--= Ц§вmв Янс Kлс0Ян =--

unread,

Oct 31, 2003, 1:16:34 AM10/31/03

to

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,
gr...@internet.charitydays.co.uk wrote:

> Halliburton needs Iraq more than Iraq needs Halliburton

I've said before, war is Bu$h's economic policy.

> _______________________________________________________________________
> ____________
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.rockcitynews.com/photos3c/antibushwar2posters/pages/leaflet-
> iraq-halliburton.htm
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> ____________
>
>

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--= Ц§вmв Янс Kлс0Ян =--

unread,

Oct 31, 2003, 1:21:17 AM10/31/03

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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, "scott" <ezg...@intertex.net>
wrote:

> Is that a problem?

Only if you think Imperialism should have died with the 20th century.

See, what happens is, you invade other countries, you piss alot of people
off, you create instability, and eventually it all blows up back in your
face.

A problem? If are worth less than a couple million, yes, it will be. You'll
be stuck with the debt. Not to mention Ebola, a nuke or two, and who knows
what else.

> <gr...@internet.charitydays.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:nq63qv46hak2lu8sj...@4ax.com...
>> Halliburton needs Iraq more than Iraq needs Halliburton
>>

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Conquistador

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Oct 31, 2003, 9:01:21 PM10/31/03

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Well that is all this Jew War is all about, certainly not about "freeing
Iraqis". Just like we freed Vietnamese and Haitians! we supplied the
torture tools to Papa Doc Duvalier!!

"--= Ö§âmâ ßíñ Këñ0ßí =--" <ab...@anarchy.gov> wrote in message
news:OBK9424B885...@r2-dv8.anarchy.gov...

> Winning Contractors: U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls
> of Post-war Reconstruction
> The Center for Public Integrity
>

> WASHINGTON, October 30, 2003 - More than 70 American companies and

> individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar
> Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by
> the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to

> the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush-a little over $500,000-than

> to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.
>

> Kellogg, Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton-which Vice President

> Dick Cheney led prior to being chosen as Bush's running mate in August

> 2000-was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries,

> with more than $2.3 billion awarded to the company. Bechtel Group, a
> major government contractor with similarly high-ranking ties, was second
> at around $1.03 billion.
>
> However, dozens of lower-profile, but well-connected, companies shared in
> the reconstruction bounty. Their tasks ranged from rebuilding Iraq's
> government, police, military and media to providing translators for use
> in interrogations and psychological operations. There are even
> contractors to evaluate the contractors. (See company list.)
>
> Nearly 60 percent of the companies had employees or board members who
> either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican
> and Democratic administrations, for members of Congress of both parties,
> or at the highest levels of the military.
>
> The results of the Center's six-month investigation provide the most
> comprehensive list to date of American contractors in the two nations
> that were attacked in Washington's war on terror. Based on the findings,
> it did not appear that any one government agency knew the total number of
> contractors or what they were doing. Congressional sources said they
> hoped such a full picture would emerge from the General Accounting
> Office, which has begun investigating the postwar contracting process
> amid allegations of fraud and cronyism.
>
> The Center's investigation focused on the three agencies that awarded

> most of the Iraq and Afghanistan contracts in 2002 and 2003-the Pentagon,

> the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
> It found that nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for
> Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former high-ranking
> government officials or individuals with close ties to those agencies or
> Congress.
>
> In addition, those top 10 contractors were established political donors,
> contributing nearly $11 million to national political parties, candidates
> and political action committees since 1990, according to an analysis of
> campaign finance records.
>
> Indeed, most of the companies that won contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan
> were political players. According to the Center's analysis, the
> companies, their political action committees and their employees
> contributed a total of nearly $49 million to national political campaigns

> and parties since 1990. Donations to Republican Party committees-the

> Republican National Committee, the Republican Senatorial Campaign

> Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee-outpaced

> those to Democratic committees, $12.7 million to $7.1 million. Among
> individual candidates, President George Bush received more money from
> these companies than any other, a little over $500,000.
>
> The Center's investigation found that 14 of the contractors were awarded
> U.S. government work in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Combined, those
> companies gave nearly $23 million in political contributions since 1990,
> and 13 employ former government officials or have close ties to various
> agencies and departments.
>
> Although Afghanistan was once ground zero in Washington's war on
> terrorism, spending on Iraq was more than double that on Afghanistan.
> According to the Center's investigation, which examined contracts awarded
> in 2002 through September 2003, at least $5.7 billion in government
> funding was slated for U.S. contractors in Iraq, compared to nearly $2.7
> billion for Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for
> the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, had been based in
> Afghanistan, and prior to the March 2003 war on Iraq, U.S. officials had
> said that a democratic Afghanistan was central to winning the war on
> terror.
>
> The Center's findings are based, in part, on 73 Freedom of Information
> Act requests and appeals to USAID, the Pentagon and its various uniformed
> services and the State Department, as well as an analysis of the General
> Services Administration database of contracts from 1990 through fiscal

> year 2002-more than 7 million federal contract actions, in all.

> they had awarded in Iraq-to Bechtel and to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary.

> contract value was omitted, although some unit pricing-typically redacted

> under a rule that gives companies a right to oppose FOIA requests about

> their government contracts-was left in. That same rule was cited by one

> Pentagon FOIA officer as justification why the department was not
> releasing a Raytheon Aerospace contract worth more than $7 million.
> Raytheon Aerospace, along with its affiliated companies, was the

> 11th-ranked government contractor among companies with contracts in Iraq

> and Afghanistan, earning $2.7 billion since 1990, according to the
> Center's analysis.
>
> SAIC officials refused to discuss their contracts with the Center,
> directing all calls to the Pentagon press office, which did not answer
> Center queries. However, a congressional source, speaking on condition of
> anonymity, told the Center that one SAIC media contract in Iraq likely
> would be worth more than $50 million by the end of 2003. The total value
> of SAIC's contracts could not be determined.
>

> Since February 2003, SAIC-the country's largest employee-owned research
> and engineering company-has been in charge of the Iraqi Reconstruction

> Sullivan Haave Associates Inc.-identified by the Pentagon as a
> contractor, though the company says it was a subcontractor to SAIC-was

> recruit professionals, but these Belt[way] bandits . just grab anybody

> Vinnell Corporation-which became the first American private military
> company in 1975 with its contract to train the Saudi National Guard-is

Conquistador

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Oct 31, 2003, 9:02:35 PM10/31/03

to

"scott" <ezg...@intertex.net> wrote in message
news:pOadna3UvN2...@intertex.net...
> Is that a problem?

Not unless you have a kid over there who is coming back without legs, or
blind!

Acharya

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Nov 1, 2003, 1:00:34 AM11/1/03

to

Emma, you forget that Saddam could have avoided war but he chose not to.

U.S. aid to pay for U.S. companies all going for the rebuilding of Iraq.
What's wrong with that? The article doesn't even mention all the Iraqi
subcontractors.

Look outside your box.

"--= Ö§āmā ßķń Kėń0ßķ =--" <ab...@anarchy.gov> wrote in message
news:OBK9424B885...@r2-dv8.anarchy.gov...