-Caveat Lector- Bush's War Spending Feeds Corporate Interests http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/business/23REBU.html?th=&pagewanted=print &position=top
DIANA B. HENRIQUES - War began last week. Reconstruction starts this week.That, at least, is how it looks to government contract officers, who in the coming days plan to give American companies the first contracts to rebuild Iraq, a task that experts say could eventually cost $25 billion to $100 billion. It would be the largest postwar rebuilding since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II. . . The companies that have been invited to bid on the work include some of the nation's largest and most politically connected construction businesses. Among them are Halliburton, where Vice President Dick Cheney served as chief executive from 1995 until mid-2000; the Bechtel Group, whose ranks have included several Republican cabinet alumni; and Fluor, which has ties to several former top government intelligence and Pentagon procurement officials. Others bidding on reconstruction business are the Parsons Corporation, the Louis Berger Group and the Washington Group International, which absorbed Morrison-Knudsen in 1996. . . No company has firmer political connections than Kellogg Brown & Root, the engineering and construction arm of Halliburton. Besides its links to Mr. Cheney, the company has been a major military contractor since World War II. Most recently, it handled the high-speed construction of the Guantánamo prison compound for terror suspects . But since last May, the company has also come under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is investigating how the company has accounted for cost overruns on its construction and engineering work since 1998. And this spring, its shareholders will vote on a proposal, sponsored by two giant New York City pension funds, calling for a review of Halliburton's previous business ties to Iran. Louis Berger, based in East Orange, N.J., could be a dark-horse contender in the Iraq reconstruction sweepstakes. Besides its work on an ambitious pipeline to carry oil from Tengiz, Kazakhstan, to a deep-water port on the Black Sea in Russia, the privately held firm has been an important government contractor in the Balkans for years. More recently, it won a contract to oversee extensive infrastructure development in postwar Afghanistan. The centerpiece of the $300 million contract was the rebuilding of a shattered 600-mile highway from Kabul to Herat. . . Bechtel is considered the largest contractor in the country, and one of the largest in the world. Its board includes a former secretary of state, George P. Shultz, and its ranks once included a former defense secretary, Caspar W. Weinberger. . . It is facing a political meltdown of its own in Massachusetts, where it is under severe criticism by the state's inspector general for more than $1 billion in cost overruns on the tunnel and highway construction project in Boston, the so-called big dig. Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has ordered an independent review of the project, which was managed for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority by Bechtel and its joint venture partner, Parsons Brinckerhoff - which is not related to the Parsons Corporation that is bidding on the Iraqi work. . . Fluor, based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., is not currently working on any Agency for International Development projects, but it has extensive experience building petroleum facilities in difficult places. It is building an enormous plant on Sakhalin Island, off Russia's Pacific coast, for an international consortium that includes Exxon Mobil, and is developing oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan for a consortium whose largest member is ChevronTexaco. Last April, Fluor hired Kenneth J. Oscar, who as acting assistant secretary of the Army oversaw the Pentagon's $35 billion-a-year procurement budget. Its board includes Bobby R. Inman, a retired admiral who was also former director of the National Security Agency and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Fluor is currently in arbitration to untangle a dispute with Anaconda Nickel in Australia over Fluor's work on a $615 million nickel-cobalt processing plant in western Australia. Fluor has disputed the accusations of poor workmanship, but Anaconda has collected millions of dollars in compensation in the first phase of the arbitration. A spokesman for Fluor, Jerry Holloway, confirmed that it had been invited to bid on the work in Iraq but said he could not comment on the scale or scope of the contracts. Parsons, an employee-owned company based in Pasadena, Calif., is one of Bechel's most formidable rivals in the construction market. . . It does not have the prominent political connections that Bechtel and Fluor have, though the labor secretary, Elaine Chao, served on its board for about a year before joining the cabinet in January 2001. In 1998, Parsons won a contract to take over the vehicle inspection program in New Jersey, a deal that has mired the company in a long dispute over delays and malfunctions. But last year, the state renewed the company's contract for another two years, though it cut the company's pay rate and established penalties for poor service. . . Confidential contract documents indicate that companies will be paid under an arrangement known as "cost plus fixed fee." Once the cost of a project is established, the contractor is entitled to recover those costs plus a fee that is a fixed percentage of those costs. That percentage is generally 8 to 10 percent, although the security precautions required under the Iraq contracts might justify a higher fee in some cases, construction industry analysts said. The fast-track reconstruction bidding is already drawing fire in Congress. "We can't tell the taxpayers in this country, who are going to be asked to foot the bill for all of this, what the charge is going to be in the aftermath," Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who is on the Foreign Relations Committee, complained recently. "Apparently, I think the administration believes that they can get away with it, that the Congress will not do anything about it." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
