Firm offering business advice on Iraq has ties to Bush
By Douglas Jehl (NYT)
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
iht.com
WASHINGTON: A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to President
George W. Bush, his family and his administration have set up a consulting firm to
advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces
of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects.
The firm, New Bridge Strategies, is headed by Joe Allbaugh, Bush's campaign
manager in 2000 and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
until March.
Other directors include Edward Rogers Jr., vice chairman, and Lanny Griffith,
lobbyists who were assistants to President George H.W. Bush and now have close
ties to the White House.
Richard Burt, who served as the U.S. ambassador to West Germany during the
Reagan administration, and Lord Charles Powell, a member of the British House of
Lords and a key defense and foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, are also among the 10 principals of the firm.
At a time when the administration is seeking the approval of Congress for $20.3
billion to rebuild Iraq - part of an $87 billion package for military and other spending
in Iraq and Afghanistan - the Web site of the consulting firm,
www.newbridgestrategies.com/index. asp, says, "The opportunities evolving in Iraq
today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm
has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C.,
and on the ground in Iraq."
The site calls attention to the links between the firm's directors and the current and
previous Bush administrations by noting, for example, that Allbaugh, the chairman,
was "chief of staff to then-Governor Bush of Texas and was the national campaign
manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign."
The president and chief executive of the company, John Howland, said in a
telephone interview that the firm did not intend to seek any U.S. government
contracts itself, but might be a middleman to advise other companies that seek
taxpayer-financed business.
The main focus, Howland said, would be to advise companies that seek
opportunities in the private sector in Iraq. The existence of the firm was first
reported in The Hill, a congressional newspaper.
Howland said the firm was not trying to promote its political connections. He said
that although Allbaugh, for example, had spent most of his career "in the political
arena, there's a lot of cross-pollination between that world and the one that exists
in Iraq today."
As part of the administration's postwar work in Iraq, the government has awarded
hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to American businesses. Those awards,
some issued without competitive bidding, have included more than $500 million for
troop support and extinguishing oil field fires to Kellogg, Brown Root, a subsidiary
of Halliburton, which was headed by Dick Cheney from 1995 until 2000, when he
left to seek the vice presidency.
Of the $3.9 billion a month the administration is currently spending for military
operations in Iraq, as much as one-third may go to private contractors who are
providing food, housing and other services to the military, some defense budget
experts say.
Administration officials, including L. Paul Bremer 3rd, the top American official in
Iraq, have said that all future contracts will be issued only as a result of competitive
bidding. Already, the Web site for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq lists 36
recent solicitations, including those for contractors who might provide new AK-47
assault rifles, ammunition and other goods for Iraq's new army and security forces.
New Bridge Strategies was established in May but has only recently begun
full-fledged operations, including setting up an office in Iraq, officials of the firm
said. They said that a recent decision by the Iraqi Governing Council to allow
foreign firms to establish 100 percent ownership of businesses in Iraq had added to
the attractiveness of the Iraqi market.
Howland is a principal of Crest Investment Company in Houston and was president
of American Rice, which was once a major exporter to Iraq. The New York Times |
