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$800 million no-bid contracts - can I have one too?
What Is it Good For?
by Bob Herbert
Somewhere George Shultz is smiling.
Mr. Shultz, whose photo could appropriately appear next to any definition of the military-industrial complex, was secretary of state under Ronald Reagan and has been a perennial heavyweight with the powerful Bechtel Group of San Francisco, where he previously reigned as president and is now a board member and senior counselor.
Unlike the antiwar soul singer Edwin Starr — who, in an ironic bit of timing, went to his eternal reward early this month just as American ground forces were sweeping toward Baghdad — Mr. Shultz knows what war is good for.
And he wanted this war with Iraq. Oh, how he wanted this war. Mr. Shultz was chairman of the fiercely prowar Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was committed to moving beyond the mere political liberation of the oil-rich country to the all-important and conveniently profitable "reconstruction of its economy."
Under the headline "Act Now; The Danger Is Immediate," Mr. Shultz, in an op-ed article in The Washington Post last September, wrote: "A strong foundation exists for immediate military action against Hussein and for a multilateral effort to rebuild Iraq after he is gone."
Gee, I wonder which company he thought might lead that effort.
Last week Mr. Shultz's Bechtel Group was able to demonstrate exactly what wars are good for. The Bush administration gave it the first big Iraqi reconstruction contract, a prized $680 million deal over 18 months that puts Bechtel in the driver's seat for the long-term reconstruction of the country, which could cost $100 billion or more.
Bechtel essentially was given a license to make money. And that license was granted in a closed-door process that was restricted to a handful of politically connected American companies.
When the George Bushes and the George Shultzes were banging the drums for war with Iraq, we didn't hear one word from them about the benefits that would be accruing to corporate behemoths like Bechtel. And we didn't pay much attention to the grotesque conflict of interest engaged in by corporate titans and their government cronies who were pushing young American men and women into the flames of a war that ultimately would pour billions of dollars into a very select group of corporate coffers.
Now the corporations (not just Bechtel by any means) have a lock on Iraq, and U.S. taxpayers are obliged to pay the bill.
Among those in Congress who are beginning to challenge this loathsome process is Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is one of the lead sponsors of a bipartisan bill that would require a public explanation of any decision to award Iraqi reconstruction contracts without a "fully open, competitive bidding process."
In an interview, he said, "You look at this process, which is secret, limited or closed bidding, and you have to ask yourself: `Why are these companies being picked? How's this process taking place, and is this the best use of scarce taxpayer money at a time when seniors can't afford medicine, kids are having trouble getting access to a quality education and local communities are just getting pounded? The administration has been keeping the taxpayers in the dark with respect to how this money is being used, and that information ought to be shared."
The blatant war-mongering followed immediately by profiteering inevitably raise questions about the real reasons American men and women have been fighting and dying in Iraq. President Bush told us the war was about weapons of mass destruction and the need to get rid of the degenerate Saddam. There was also talk about democracy taking root in Iraq and spreading like spring flowers throughout the Arab world.
The two things that were never openly discussed, that never became part of the national conversation, were oil and money. Those crucial topics were left to the major behind-the-scenes operators, many of whom are now cashing in.
The favoritism, the secretive method by which the contracts are being awarded and the arrogant and unconscionable exclusion of the United Nations and even close U.S. allies from significant roles in the administration and reconstruction of Iraq all contribute to the most cynical interpretation of American motives.
The men and women who fought bravely in Iraq, for reasons they felt were noble and unassailable, deserve better.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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Awarding the first major contract for reconstruction in Iraq to a politically connected American company under restricted bidding procedures sends a deplorable message to a skeptical world. Critics of the invasion often say it was launched for the control of oil and other venal motives, not for the benefit of the Iraqi people or to rid the world of a growing menace. The Bush administration should work hard to dispel that mistaken notion and should bend over backward to avoid reinforcing it. Yet the award of a contract worth up to $680 million to the Bechtel Group of San Francisco in a competition limited to a handful of American companies can only add to the impression that the United States seeks to profit from the war it waged.
Officials cite the need for a speedy start on rebuilding as the chief justification for limiting the initial contracts in Iraq to the small number of American companies that were invited to submit bids. Officials invited companies that they were confident could perform the job and that had personnel with security clearances allowing them to work with classified information. Those are important considerations, but it is hard to believe that the administration could not cast its net wider and solicit bids from a broader array of American companies or from highly capable foreign companies based, say, in Britain or Australia, two staunch allies in the invading force. It is not enough to say that there will be wide-open bidding for subcontracting work and that Iraqis are expected to get many of the jobs. In the battle for world opinion, the top contracts carry the most weight.
Bechtel's contract calls for repairing and rehabilitating things like power plants, electrical grids, water and sewage systems, airports and a seaport. Bechtel is undeniably one of the world's most experienced construction companies and has a long history of doing business in the Middle East. But like virtually all of the big American companies involved in global construction, it has deep and longstanding ties with the power centers in Washington. Bechtel's chief executive serves on the President's Export Council, and a Bechtel director, George Shultz, was secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan. Such ties make it all too easy to criticize the contract as a payoff to politically favored businessmen. The reconstruction of Iraq needs to be an open, competitive, transparent process.
Nice to see the liberal playbook has changed not a wit. Nice to see that no good deed goes unpunished and that all consuming hatred for Bush knows no bounds. Sheesh.
The FIRST post was also an editorial.
I find it interesting to note that both the Bectel and Halliburton contracts were awarded because they were the BEST COMPANIES FOR THE JOB!! Also omitted was that the next best company for such undertakings was a french company.
So, DBackJon, you would rather have either substandard work done or loads more money going to the French than to an American company that is the best at what it does that just so happens to have people connected to the Republican party???
Oh, besides, your outrage rings hollow due to your hypocrisy. Do you denounce this as vehemently???
Army contract goes to firm co-owned by Feinstein's husband
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -A planning and engineering firm co-owned by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband has been awarded a five-year Pentagon contract that could be worth up to $600 million.
San Francisco-based URS Corp. announced Monday that the Army had hired one of its divisions and a partner to help with troop mobilization, weapons system training and anti-terrorism assessment.
Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, serves on the company's board of directors and controls about 24 percent of its stock.
The new contract is the latest lucrative defense job to be won by URS, which also works with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration among other federal departments. The firm was awarded an Army engineering and logistics contract in February that could be worth $3.1 billion over the next eight years.
``We are very pleased with this important win, which further expands our strong relationship with the Army,'' George R. Melton, president of the company's EG&* division, which will be performing the work.
A spokesman for Feinstein, D-Calif., declined to comment. Blum could not be reached for comment.
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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...
Last edited by WaywardFan; April 23rd, 2003 at 05:51 PM.
Army contract goes to firm co-owned by Feinstein's husband
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -A planning and engineering firm co-owned by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband has been awarded a five-year Pentagon contract that could be worth up to $600 million.
San Francisco-based URS Corp. announced Monday that the Army had hired one of its divisions and a partner to help with troop mobilization, weapons system training and anti-terrorism assessment.
Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, serves on the company's board of directors and controls about 24 percent of its stock.
The new contract is the latest lucrative defense job to be won by URS, which also works with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration among other federal departments. The firm was awarded an Army engineering and logistics contract in February that could be worth $3.1 billion over the next eight years.
``We are very pleased with this important win, which further expands our strong relationship with the Army,'' George R. Melton, president of the company's EG&* division, which will be performing the work.
A spokesman for Feinstein, D-Calif., declined to comment. Blum could not be reached for comment.
C'mon, Sean. This situation is completely okay. Didn't you notice the D after Feinstein's name?
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"If Chuck is Solo, Larkin is his Fett!" - Morgan
Originally posted by WaywardFan Nice to see the liberal playbook has changed not a wit. Nice to see that no good deed goes unpunished and that all consuming hatred for Bush knows no bounds. Sheesh.
The FIRST post was also an editorial.
I find it interesting to note that both the Bectel and Halliburton contracts were awarded because they were the BEST COMPANIES FOR THE JOB!! Also omitted was that the next best company for such undertakings was a french company.
So, DBackJon, you would rather have either substandard work done or loads more money going to the French than to an American company that is the best at what it does that just so happens to have people connected to the Republican party???
Oh, besides, your outrage rings hollow due to your hypocrisy. Do you denounce this as vehemently???
Army contract goes to firm co-owned by Feinstein's husband
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -A planning and engineering firm co-owned by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband has been awarded a five-year Pentagon contract that could be worth up to $600 million.
San Francisco-based URS Corp. announced Monday that the Army had hired one of its divisions and a partner to help with troop mobilization, weapons system training and anti-terrorism assessment.
Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, serves on the company's board of directors and controls about 24 percent of its stock.
The new contract is the latest lucrative defense job to be won by URS, which also works with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration among other federal departments. The firm was awarded an Army engineering and logistics contract in February that could be worth $3.1 billion over the next eight years.
``We are very pleased with this important win, which further expands our strong relationship with the Army,'' George R. Melton, president of the company's EG&* division, which will be performing the work.
A spokesman for Feinstein, D-Calif., declined to comment. Blum could not be reached for comment.
Note that this contract was WON during an open bidding process, Bechtel's contract was not. OPEN BIDDING vs Being Given WITHOUT open bidding - hopefully even you can tell the difference.
Originally posted by Dback Jon Note that this contract was WON during an open bidding process, Bechtel's contract was not. OPEN BIDDING vs Being Given WITHOUT open bidding - hopefully even you can tell the difference.
So, if there is really one one contractor to go with, only one who can handle it, then you should still go and ask other companies?
Seems to me if there is one company to do it, then the open bidding is pretty much a moot point.
And I suppose you mean to say that because this was an OPEN BIDDING that it was totally legit and had NOTHING to do with DiFi.
Yeah, all the gifts and graft only applies to those waskly wepublicans. It's only suspect when there is an appearance that a company who has ties to the Republican party (and which company DOESN'T have ties to both parties these days).
__________________
Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...
Originally posted by Dback Jon Typical Conservative BS - call some one a Commie or Anti-American if they critize the Republicans or Bush.
For you info, since you seem to not comprehend - I am for free speech, democracy, openness. Concepts that seem to be foreign to Dubya.
Let's see. Bush pushed for this Iraq war when most of Europe and the Middle East were against it (not to mention the bulk of the liberal establishment and rank & file).
What will be the benefits to the Iraqi people because of his leadership:
free speech: they can now say what they want to say, even openly protest both Saddam and the US
democracy: I know that you consider it a failure because its not already done, but we're going to help them have their own democracy
openness: Iraqis now won't be raped and murdered for saying what they want, doing what they want, practicing their own religion, dressing how they want. Why? Because of this war, because of Bush's leadership.
Sounds like he understands those concepts much better than you know or would like to consider. Then again, he's only Bush, right? He's stupid, he's a Republican.
__________________
Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...
Originally posted by WaywardFan Let's see. Bush pushed for this Iraq war when most of Europe and the Middle East were against it (not to mention the bulk of the liberal establishment and rank & file).
What will be the benefits to the Iraqi people because of his leadership:
free speech: they can now say what they want to say, even openly protest both Saddam and the US
democracy: I know that you consider it a failure because its not already done, but we're going to help them have their own democracy
openness: Iraqis now won't be raped and murdered for saying what they want, doing what they want, practicing their own religion, dressing how they want. Why? Because of this war, because of Bush's leadership.
Sounds like he understands those concepts much better than you know or would like to consider. Then again, he's only Bush, right? He's stupid, he's a Republican.
As you said - it is early - we will see if Democracy really emerges (I hope it does).
Bush Comes Clean: It Was About the Oil
Corporate Vultures Swoop Into the Killing Fields
by Ted Rall
Iraq is going to hell. Shiites are killing Sunnis, Kurds are killing Arabs and Islamists are killing secular Baathists. Baghdad, the cradle of human civilization, has been left to looters and rapists. As in Beirut during the '70s, neighborhood zones are separated by checkpoints manned by armed tribesmen. The war has, however, managed to unite Iraqis in one respect: everyone loathes the United States.
Some Iraqis hate us for deposing Saddam Hussein. No dictator remains in power without the tacit support of at some of his subjects. Now that we've committed the cardinal sin of conquest--getting rid of the old system without thinking up a new one--even those who chafed under Saddam blame us for their present misery.
Others resent our Pentagon-appointed pretender, 58-year-old banker/embezzler Ahmed Chalabi. The State Department points out that Iraq's new puppet autocrat has zero support among Iraqis, having lived abroad since 1958. But who knows? Maybe he was a really popular kid.
Thousands of Iraqis have been reduced to poverty, raped and murdered by rampaging goons as U.S. Marines stood around and watched. Wanna guess how long it will take them to "get over it"? We watched the plunder of museums in Mosul and Baghdad safe at home with our tisk-tisk dismay, but Iraqis will remain outraged by the wanton devastation we wrought through war, permitted through negligence and shrugged off through arrogance. ("We didn't allow it," Rumsfeld shrugged. "It happened.") Imagine foreign troops sitting idly, laughing as hooligans trashed the Smithsonian, stole the gold from Fort Knox and burned down the Department of the Interior.
That was us in Iraq.
But let's forget this penny ante stuff. Let the real looting begin! George W. Bush's bestest buddies, corporate executives at companies which donate money in exchange for a few rounds of golf and a few million-dollar favors, are being handed the keys to Iraq's oil fields.
Bush's brazen Genghis Khan act seems carefully calculated to confirm our worst suspicions. First he appoints retired general Jay Garner, president of a GOP-connected defense contractor, SYColeman Corp., as viceroy of occupied Iraq. "The idea is we are in Iraq not as occupiers but as liberators, and here comes a guy who has attachments to companies that provided the wherewithal for the military assault on that country," marvels David Armstrong, a defense analyst at the National Security News Service. A smart and/or decent president would have picked a civilian for a civil administration post.
Then Bush slips a $680 million contract to the Bechtel Group, whose Republican-oriented board includes such Reagan-era GOP luminaries as secretary of state George Schulz and defense secretary Caspar Weinberger (the late William Casey, Reagan's CIA director, was a Bechtel executive). The deal puts the company in position to receive a big part of the $100 billion estimated total cost of Iraqi reconstruction. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bechtel gave Republican candidates, including Bush, about $765,000 in PAC, soft money and individual campaign contributions between 1999 and 2002.
Finally, refusing to accept bids from potential competitors, Bush grants a two-year, $490 million contract for Iraqi oil field repairs to Halliburton Co., the Houston-based company where Dick Cheney worked as CEO from 1995 to 2000. "It will look a lot worse if Halliburton gets the USAID [Agency for International Development] contract, too," Bathsheba Crocker, an Iraq specialist for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned in March. "Then it really starts looking bad." Guess what! Halliburton has since scored a piece of that $600 million USAID contract.
Are we looking bad yet?
Only Bush's most intimate friends were invited to bid for these contracts. Even businesses based in Great Britain, where Tony Blair risked his political career to support Bush, have been excluded from a rigged process where only U.S.-based, Republican-led, Bush-connected companies need apply.
Two senior Democratic Congressmen, Henry Waxman and John Dingell, are asking the General Accounting Office to look into these sleazy kickback deals. "These ties between the vice president and Halliburton have raised concerns about whether the company has received favorable treatment from the administration," their letter reads. Well, duh. But don't count on appropriate action--like impeachment proceedings--from the do-nothing Dems.
Bush's right-wing Gang of Four--Cheney, Rummy, Condi and Wolfy--saw Operation Iraqi Freedom as a chance to line their buddies' pockets, emasculate the Muslim world, place U.S. military bases in Russia's former sphere of influence and, according to the experts, lower the price of oil by busting OPEC. "There will be a substantial increase in Iraqi oil production [under U.S. occupation], and I wouldn't be surprised if schemes emerged to weaken, if not destroy, OPEC," says Jumberto Calderón, former energy minister of Venezuela. Former OPEC secretary general Fadhil Chalabi (no relation to Ahmed) estimates that increased exploration could potentially double Iraq's proven reserves, which would raise production from 2.4 to 10 million barrels a day. Such Saudi-scale production would "bring OPEC to its knees," says Chalabi. The cartel's member nations, ten of 11 of them predominantly Muslim, would suffer staggering increases in poverty as a result of falling oil revenues, plunging some into the political chaos that breeds Islamist fundamentalism. Meanwhile, the people of Iraq, whose self-flagellating Shias already make the evening news look like a rerun of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, would starve as foreign infidels raked in billions thanks to the oil beneath their land.
Tetris Champion!
