Bush Pals Get Rich Off Iraq
Mondo Washington
by James Ridgeway
Daddy Warbucks
Bush Pals Get Rich Off Iraq
villagevoice.com
March 18th, 2003 12:00 PM
Unwilling to wait for bombs over Baghdad, Washington lobbyists kicked
off the real Iraq war weeks ago. They've been quietly
squaring off for the contracts to implement George Bush's one-year remake of Iraq,
the squalid dictatorship, into Iraq, the gleaming
democracy.
With the reconstruction roughly figured to run at least $20 billion a
year for many years to come, this is a bonanza for the
construction and allied industries.
Last week USAID asked five construction concerns to submit bids
on an initial $900 million contract. Among them were three
heavyweight players that collectively gave $2.8 million to presidential
candidates over the last two election cycles.
Two-thirds of that
money went to Republicans, according to a report
by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The three are:
Bechtel: The huge engineering firm employed top Reagan officials
before they took office, including Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger, Secretary of State George Schultz, and CIA director William Casey.
Bechtel gave $1.3 million in PAC and soft-money
contributions.
A German report claims Bechtel sold weapons to Iraq during the 1980s.
Kellogg, Brown & Root: A Halliburton subsidiary, KBR has
an open-ended contract to provide logistical support to the U.S. military
around the world, and reportedly is in line to put out flaming oil
wells should Saddam set them afire. Halliburton was the second
largest contributor, chipping in $709,000.
Fluor: This corporation gave $483,000 to pols. Kenneth
Oscar, the firm's VP for strategy and government services, recently was
acting assistant secretary of the army, which has a $35 billion procurement budget. |
