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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (41506)	4/11/2005 10:52:19 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Bush et al: a bunch of crooks and nothing more... BECHTEL Iraq contracts In April 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced that Bechtel won a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract worth up to $680 million to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure such as schools, roads and sewers, as well as perform "institutional capacity building" to maintain the improvements and create "roadmaps for future longer term needs and investments." The contract had been awarded after Bechtel and five other companies, including Fluor, Louis Berger Group, Parsons and Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root, were privately selected by the agency to bid. The contract also allows indemnification of the company against chemical or biological weapons, mines and other perils, according to the contract, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity through the Freedom of Information Act. In September 2003, USAID announced that, due to the poor infrastructure and deteriorating stability in Iraq, Bechtel would receive an additional $350 million on the contract, raising the contract's potential ceiling to $1.03 billion. USAID was heavily criticized for conducting the contracting process outside of public view. USAID spokesmen said the agency used an exemption from federal contract procurement regulations that allowed it to limit competition for contracts in cases where open bidding would impair foreign aid by slowing down operations. They also said that only the U.S. firms selected had the necessary security clearances to immediately start work in Iraq. However, Congressmen Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and John Dingell, D-Mich., asked the General Accounting Office—the U.S. government's internal watchdog agency—to investigate whether USAID and the military were circumventing U.S. government contracting procedures and favoring companies with ties to the Bush administration. The GAO said it would conduct two inquiries on its own, with a projected release in 2004: one on military logistical contracts and another on civilian reconstruction contracts from USAID, DOD, the State Dept. and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. USAID Director Andrew Natsios also requested the agency's inspector general to conduct an investigation into the process, though it found no evidence of impropriety. Bechtel said it would subcontract the majority of the work and use Iraqi companies as much as possible. According to a company spokeswoman, Bechtel has awarded 102 of 140 subcontracts to 90 different Iraqi companies. Iraqi companies are tasked mainly with rehabilitating schools, but also with repairing bridges, power transformers and rehabilitating the Baghdad airport. U.S. subcontractors include Lucent Technologies, Lockheed Martin and Motorola, all of which provide telecommunications equipment and services, and ArmorGroup Services Ltd. for mine clearing. Bechtel also took out three contracts with Olive Security, a company made up of former British Special Forces officers, to provide security for its workers. In August 2003, Bechtel announced it was dropping out of the competition for two U.S. Army contracts to rebuild the oil industry, citing a timetable intended to accelerate transition of responsibility to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, minimizing future contracts. Other companies reportedly complained the timetable favored incumbent contract holder Kellogg, Brown & Root. However, CPA officials said the Bechtel contract would go up for public rebidding, like the KBR contract, by the end of the year.... Bechtel was part of a consortium hired by the Bolivian government to privatize the water system in the rural area. When the company raised prices—at the government's behest, it claims, to pay off debt—mass riots erupted, and the consortium pulled out of the project. Bechtel has pursued arbitration with the Bolivian government to recover its losses, in the amount of $25 million. publicintegrity.org