Bush and friends continue the incredible INSIDER ACTION ON REBUILDING WHAT THEY HAVE BLOWN UP!
and taking OUR TAX DOLLARS WITH THEM!
and in addition to this group....there's THIS GROUP!
newbridgestrategies.com
Washington Insiders' New Firm Consults on Contracts in Iraq
September 30, 2003
By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - A group of businessmen linked by
their close ties to President 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 M.
Allbaugh, Mr. Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and the
director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until
March. Other directors include Edward M. Rogers Jr., vice
chairman, and Lanny Griffith, lobbyists who were assistants
to the first President George Bush and now have close ties
to the White House.
At a time when the administration seeks Congressional
approval for $20.3 billion to rebuild Iraq, part of an $87
billion package for military and other spending in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the company's Web site,
www.newbridgestrategies.com, 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 company's
directors and the two Bush administrations by noting, for
example, that Mr. Allbaugh, the chairman, was "chief of
staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas and was the national
campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential
campaign."
The president of the company, John Howland, said in a
telephone interview that it did not intend to seek any
United States government contracts itself, but might be a
middleman to advise other companies that seek
taxpayer-financed business. The main focus, Mr. Howland
said, would be to advise companies that seek opportunities
in the private sector in Iraq, including licenses to market
products there. The existence of the company was first
reported in The Hill, a Congressional newspaper.
Mr. Howland said the company was not trying to promote its
political connections. He said that although Mr. 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 contracts, some
without competitive bidding, have included more than $500
million to support troops and extinguish oil field fires
for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton,
which Vice President Dick Cheney led from 1995 until 2000.
Of the $3.9 billion a month that the administration is
spending on military operations in Iraq, up to one-third
may go to contractors who provide food, housing and other
services, some military budget experts said. A spokesman
for the Pentagon said today that the military could not
provide an estimate of the breakdown.
Administration officials, including L. Paul Bremer III, the
top American official in Iraq, have said all future
contracts will be issued only as a result of competitive
bidding. Already, the Web site for the Coalition
Provisional Authority, cpa-iraq.org, lists 36
recent solicitations, including those for contractors who
might sell new AK-47 assault rifles, nine-millimeter
ammunition and other goods for new army and security
forces.
New Bridge Strategies was established in May and recently
began full-fledged operations, including opening an office
in Iraq, its officials said. They added that a decision by
the Governing Council of Iraq to allow foreign companies to
establish 100 percent ownership of businesses in Iraq, an
unusual arrangement in the Mideast, had added to the
attractiveness of the market.
Mr. Howland is a principal of Crest Investment in Houston
and was president of American Rice, once a major exporter
to Iraq. Richard Burt, ambassador to Germany in the Reagan
administration and a former assistant secretary of state,
and Lord Powell, a member of the British House of Lords and
an important military and foreign-policy adviser to Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher, are among the 10 principals.
Mr. Allbaugh, the chairman, spent most of his career in
Texas politics before Mr. Bush appointed him to head the
federal disaster agency. Mr. Allbaugh, who now heads his
own consulting firm here, did not return calls to his
office today.
Mr. Rogers, the vice chairman who was a deputy assistant to
the first President Bush and an executive assistant to the
White House chief of staff, is also vice chairman of
Barbour Griffith & Rogers, one of the best-connected
Republican lobbying firms in the capital. Mr. Rogers
founded it in 1991 with Haley Barbour, who became chairman
of the Republican National Committee and is now running for
governor of Mississippi.
Shortly after leaving the White House, Mr. Rogers was
publicly rebuked by the first President Bush after he
signed a $600,000 contract to represent a Saudi, Sheik
Kamal Adham, who was a main figure under scrutiny in a case
that involved the Bank of Commerce and Credit
International. Mr. Rogers canceled his contract to
represent the sheik, former head of Saudi intelligence.
Mr. Griffith, a director of the new company, is chief
operating officer of Barbour Griffith & Rogers, which he
joined in 1993. He was special assistant for
intergovernmental affairs to the first President Bush and
later worked under him as an assistant secretary of
education.
Until November, Mr. Rogers's wife, Edwina, was associate
director of the National Economic Council at the White
House. Reached by telephone today, Mr. Rogers said he did
not want to speak for the record and referred a reporter to
Mr. Howland.
The company Web site says the company was "created
specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate
and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle
East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq."
nytimes.com
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