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[casi] Carving Up The New Iraq



Hi all,

FYI

Best

Andreas

----------------

Contents

1) Firms that gave to Bush get contracts
2) Carving Up The New Iraq
3) Carving Up The New Iraq (cont.)

----------------------

1) Firms that gave to Bush get contracts

http://www.sundayherald.com/33046


Investigation: By Neil Mackay



All the American firms to get Iraqi reconstruction contracts have
bankrolled George Bush and the Republican Party or have direct links to
USAID, the department of state handing out the Iraqi contracts. All the
contracts are being negotiated in secret - in the interests of national
security - and all the contracts will go to US firms. British firms are
only allowed to bid for sub-contracted work. Yesterday, the US senate
approved a $80 billion package to finance the war in iraq and its
reconstruction.
International Resources Group, which made significant donations to the
Republican party, has won the $70 million (£44m) contract to establish the
humanitarian aid programme in Iraq. Four of IRG's vice presidents have held
senior posts with the US government's United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), and 24 of the firm's 48 technical staff
have worked for USAID.

John Hemingway, the president of SteveDoring Services of America, which won
the Iraqi reconstruction contract to manage the port of Umm Qasr, has made
personal donations to the Republican party. SSA was the first firm to
received a contract. It was worth $4.8m.

Other companies in the running for contracts include the Bechtel Group,
bidding to secure contracts worth up to $900m. According to the Federal
Election Commission, Bechtel handed over almost $770,000 to the Republicans
between 1999 and March 2003 .

Donald Rumsfeld once acted as a liaison between Bechtel and the Iraqi
regime in a bid to finesse the building of an oil pipeline.

Washington Group International Inc, bidding for the capital construction
job, gave $438,700 to the Republicans -- on top of a donation to Bush --
and the Louis Berger Group gave $26,300 to the Republicans.

Since 1999, the oil giant once run by Vice President Dick Cheney,
Halliburton, has given $700,000 or 95% of its political donations to the
Republican party. Its subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, was the first
company to win an Iraqi reconstruction contract. The deal is reportedly
worth $500m.

Also in the running for contracts are Fluor Corp, which donated $275,000 to
the Republicans and has ties to a number of intelligence and defence
procurement officials.


------------------


2) Carving Up The New Iraq

http://www.sundayherald.com/33021

Part Three: By Neil Mackay



IRAQ lies in ruins this morning. Its cities are bombed; its buildings have
been torched by teenage arsonists; its shops, hospitals, factories and
homes have been looted. This is Year Zero for Iraq. The old regime is gone
and the United States is to rebuild this country literally from the ground
up.
Since the beginning of the year, America has had its reconstruction plan in
place. Answering directly to Centcom commander General Tommy Franks,
retired Lt Gen Jay Garner will be in command of the reconstruction effort.
He will be aided by a series of military hardmen, diplomats and Republican
party place-men who will help the United States create “Free Iraq” – aided
by exiles who are returning to get their share of the spoils.

This isn’t a selfless exercise. In a special Sunday Herald investigation,
we have charted the network of financial kickbacks, political pay-backs,
cronyism, self-interest and ferocious ideology that underpins the entire
reconstruction scheme.

The US denies that men like Jay Garner are in effect the first wave of a
military occupation. The Bush administration insists that it wants these
men to work their way out of a job as quickly as possible. Some have
mentioned three months as the possible length of their tenure in Iraq –
others, more realistically, claim five years is a more likely term, taking
the length of the US occupation of post-war Japan as the best comparison.
America will be entrenched in this nation for decades to come. The
colonisation process has begun already.

In this investigation we have traced the roots of the reconstruction
process back to the ideologues – the neo-conservatives now in the
ascendancy in the US government – who devised the scheme. These men see the
US military as the “cavalry on the new American frontier”, they wanted
Saddam “regime changed” long before Bush took power and they have long
dreamt of a permanent US satellite in the Gulf. They have also been
brutally honest about having a say over Iraq’s oil fields .


Ideology is ideology, but in the US government political theory goes
hand-in-hand with big business. The end result of the lofty musings of
Republican hawks fashioning the concepts behind the new world order is
money-grubbing for the yankee dollar. The world isn’t just watching the
spread of a political philosophy in Iraq, it is watching a conquest by and
for US big business as well. The term “military-industrial” complex brings
to mind crazy conspiracy theories , but let’s consider the term again. Each
and every one of the companies in the running or in posession of contracts
to reconstruct Iraq are either major Republican donors or have government
staff working for them. The donations to the Republican party – and also to
George W Bush himself – run into millions .

Is this payback time? In the UK, connections like this between big business
and politicians would be front page news for months. But not so in America.

There is more to this than just kickbacks. The Americans call it “the
favour bank”, we call it more simply cronyism. The connections between the
reconstructors is staggering. If these people aren’t in the same think-tank
together, then they work for the same companies, have the same friends and
interests.

Just look at one example – under our power-brokers section you will find
Andrew Natsios. He’s the head of USAid, the government department which
hands out Iraqi reconstruction contracts. Would it surprise you to find out
that Natsios has a connection to a company called Bechtel which is – yes –
tipped for a rather lucrative contract? Then there’s IRG. It secured one of
the eight government contracts up for grabs. Are you shocked to learn IRG
has four vice-presidents and 24 other staff who at one time worked for
USAid? There’s also a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil giant once run by
Dick Cheney (Bush’s number two), which stands to make a cool $500 million
out of reconstruction.

With only a few exceptions, there is a smoking gun for all those behind the
reconstruction work. Whether it’s a seat on a board, shares in a firm, a
favour owed here or there, these question the impartiality of seriously
powerful people and ask important questions about the levels of
self-interest that lie behind the rebuilding of Iraq. While Iraq may be
free of Saddam, it looks like it’s going to be the most lucrative country
on Earth for the foreseeable future – at least for US hawks anyway.


THE NEO-CONSERVATIVES


Paul Wolfowitz



The deputy defence secretary is the arch-ideologue of the Bush
administration and the key architect in the Pentagon of the post-war
reconstruction of Iraq.

Like many of the reconstructors Wolfowitz of Arabia, as he is known, is a
ranking member of the leading neo-conservative think-tank the Project for
the New American Century (PNAC), which advocated regime change in Iraq even
before George W Bush took office. He is also, like many of the
reconstruction team, a key member of the ultra-right-wing Jewish Institute
for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) – a think-tank that puts Israel and
its security at the heart of US foreign policy. Many of the reconstuctors –
known as Wolfie’s People or the True Believers – are hand-picked place-men
chosen by the defence deputy. Wolfowitz is the ideological link in Team
Bush’s grand scheme. His thinking is and was central to the war and its
aftermath.

Lewis Libby



Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff is a long-standing face at the
Pentagon, having served in the defence department during George Bush Snr’s
presidency. He is also friend, confidant and a neo-con fellow-traveller
with Wolfowitz, and a founding member of the PNAC.

He sits on the board of the Rand Corporation, a research and development
corporation which has a huge number of contracts with the Pentagon. Zalmay
Khalilzad (see the Arabs), Bush’s special envoy to the the Iraq opposition,
was an employee of Rand Corp.

Libby owns shares in armament companies and has various oil interests. He
is a consultant to Northrop Grumman, the defence contractor, which has an
influential voice on the Defence Policy Board (DPB), the so-called brains
of the Pentagon. Rand Corp, which won $83m in Pentagon contracts, is linked
to the DPB.

Donald Rumsfeld



A founding member of the PNAC, the Pentagon supremo is probably one of the
best-connected men in American politics. It was Rumsfeld who personally
designed the Iraqi invasion plan.

Every detail of the post-war reconstruction has to be cleared by the
defence secretary. Each and every neo-con in the Pentagon owes their
position to him. One fact he doesn’t want reminded about is his former
glad-handing with Saddam as Reagan’s special envoy to Iraq in the early
1980s. While Saddam was blitzing the Ayatollah’s armies with chemical
weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, Rumsfeld spent most of his time talking to
the Ba’ath Party about the building of an oil pipeline on behalf of the
construction company Bechtel. Bechtel’s former vice-chairman is George
Shultz, Reagan’s secretary of state. Bechtel is one of the front-runners in
the bid to secure US government contracts to rebuild Iraq.

Douglas J Feith



Under-secretary for policy at the Pentagon, he picks and selects members of
the DPB and is on the board of advisers of Jinsa. As a lawyer, Feith
represented Northrop Grumman (see defence box). He was a Pentagon place-man
when Perle was assistant defence secretary in the 1980s and hired Michael
Mobbs (see power- brokers) to work at his law firm Feith and Zell.
Zealously pro-Israeli, Feith is a keen fan of Chalabi (see Arabs) as are
Perle and Rumsfeld. Other Iraqis who’ll be keen to get his ear include:
Jalal Talebani (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan); Maj General Tawfiq
al-Yassiri (Iraqi National Coalition); Massoud Barzani (Kurdish Democratic
Party); Ayadh Allawi (Iraqi National Accord); Shaif Ali Bin Hussein
(Constitutional Monarchy Party); Abdelaziz al-Hakim (brother of Muhammed
Bakr al-Hakim the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in
Iraq) and Major General Saad Obeidi (former head of Iraqi psychological
warfare).

Richard Perle



The Pentagon’s Prince of Darkness is a key member of Jinsa and a prominent
member of the American Enterprise Institute (described by Ronnie Reagan as
one of the most influential right-wing US think-tanks) along with Dick
Cheney’s wife Lynne. He also sits on the Foundation for the Defence of
Democracies, another right-wing think-tank, along with James Woolsey,
tipped to become the information minister in the post-war Iraqi interim
government.

Perle acted as an advisor to the lobbying firm run by Douglas J Feith – the
Pentagon’s under-secretary of defence. Perle was also chair of the DPB
until he resigned following a scandal over a conflict of interests relating
to his business connections. However, he still sits on the board of the
DPB. Perle is seeking permission from the Committee on Foreign Investment,
on which the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld sits, to run
telecommunications businesses in Asia. He is also a member of neo-con
think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, and worked as an
aide to ultra-right-wing former Israeli premier, Benyamin Netanyahu.

Dick Cheney



Capitol Hill’s resident hawk-in-chief, is a PNAC founding member and a was
on Jinsa’s board of advisors. The Vice-President was defence secretary
under Bush Snr and has been calling for Saddam’s head for over a decade. He
was chairman and CEO of oil company Halliburton, the corporate behemoth.
Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root has secured contracts worth
up to $7 billion from the US army’s Corp of Engineers to put out oil well
fires in Iraq. He is a trustee of the American Enterprise Institute and has
had numerous oil interests. He has links to Chevron, for whom he negotiated
the building of an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea. Condoleeza Rice, the
national security advisor, was the director of Chevron until 2001 – and
even had an oil tanker named after her. During Condi’s tenure, Chevron’s
CEO Kenneth Derr once said: “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas –
reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.” Dick Cheney’s wife Lynne sat
on the board of Lockheed Martin, which manufactures Cruise missiles and now
has a $800 million military satellite which will help troops in Iraq.

Michael Joyce



The former president of the Bradley Foundation, one of the largest and most
influential right-wing organisations in America. It set up the PNAC led by
William Kristol. Kristol’s Weekly Standard is viewed in Washington as the
in-house paper for Team Bush. The Standard is bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch.
Joyce once said that Bush’s key people such as Cheney, Rumsfeld and
Wolfowitz “were clearly influenced by Bradley Foundation thinking”.

There are rumours that Joyce’s “best buddy” William Bennett, Reagan’s
education secretary and Bush Snr’s drug czar, will have some involvement
with Iraq’s post-war education system.

Joyce has phoned Bennett with the words: “This is coach Joyce and this is
what I want you to do.” Neil Bush, Dubya’s brother, has also been spoken of
in connection with rebuilding the education system in Iraqi.

Joyce is a self-styled moral guardian of American family values who, along
with James Woolsey, is an adviser to Americans for Victory over Terrorism,
a group that wants to stifle criticism of American military muscle.

James Woolsey



A long-time supporter of war on Iraq and PNAC and Jinsa member, the former
director of the CIA has been named as the likely minister of information in
the new Iraq. His business interests have included: the arms company
British Aerospace; the Titan Corporation, which provides military
interpreters and DynCorp, which provides bodyguards for Hamid Karzai, the
Afghani president and has installed a police force monitoring service in
Bosnia. DynCorp is being sued for human rights violations in Bosnia,
environmental health disasters in Ecuador and fraud in America. He was a
partner in the law firm, Shea and Gardner, which acts as foreign agents for
the Iraqi National Congress, led by Chalabi. He is vice-president of Booz
Allen Hamilton, a corporate consultant firm, which won a contract to
develop a computer model of post-war Iraqi society after the first Gulf war
I. Booz Allen is also closely linked to the DPB. He said that “only fear
will re-establish [Arab] respect for us ... we need a little bit of
Machiavelli”. He has also said: “We really don’t need the Europeans.
Anyways, they will be the first in line patting us on the back following
our success and saying they were with us all along.”




THE MILITARY

Lt Gen Jay Garner



Nicknamed variously the Sheriff of Baghdad, Iraq’s king, pro-consul, or
president. Garner fought in the first Gulf war and in January was coaxed
out of retirement to be the director of the Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq. A fan of Jinsa (the Jewish Institute for
National security Affairs), he has praised the Israeli defence force for
its “remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by
the leadership of the Palestinian Authority”.

After one Jinsa junket he also said: “A strong Israel is an asset that
American military planners and political leaders can rely on.” He is
president of SY Coleman, the defence firm that specialises in Patriot
missiles and which was awarded over a billion-dollar contract this year to
provide logistics support to US special forces. SY Coleman is a subsidiary
of L-3 Communications, the ninth-largest contributor to US political
parties from the defence electronics sector.

He is a Pentagon place man who is directly answerable to General Tommy
Franks, head of US CentCom. This has been jumped on by many as proof that
the reconstruction work is at best a Pentagon operation and at worst a
military occupation. A Vietnam veteran and former assistant Chief of Staff,
Garner is no stranger to Iraq, having headed the Kurdish relief programme
after the first Gulf war. He is a close friend of Cheney and Rumsfeld, who
co-opted him to work on the extension of missile defence in space.

Lt Gen Ron Adams



Former commander of the Bosnia Stabilisation Force, in the first Gulf war
he was assistant divisional commander of the 101st Airborne . He has held
the office of Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans and was
hand-picked by Lt Gen Jay Garner to be his deputy on the civil
reconstruction committee.

Lt Gen John Abizaid



Tommy Franks’s second in command at Central Command in Qatar, Abizaid is
the most senior military officer of Arab descent in the US Army and is
currently the director of the Joint Staff. He served in the first Gulf war
as well as in Bosnia. He will have a significant voice in post-war Iraq.

Maj Gen Bruce Moore and Gen Buck Walters


Moore and Walters, both retired US Army officers, have been hand-picked by
the Pentagon to run the north and south of Iraq respectively. Walters, a
recently retired businessman, originates from President George W Bush’s
home state of Texas.

Cap Frederick ‘Skip’ Burkle


Burkle is a medical doctor and the Iraqi team’s resident polymath. He has
worked for the World Health Organisation and USAid. This highly decorated
Vietnam and Gulf war veteran will play a key role in the Iraqi health
ministry.

Gen Jerry Bates



General Bates will lead the logistical and administrative support
operations for General Garner. He took part in the military intervention in
Haiti . He is senior vice-president of the National Group, an arm of the
MPRI (Military Professionals Resources Inc), which has been condemned for
being a Pentagon-funded mercenary outfit.

Col George Oliver



A former head of the Army War College’s Peacekeeping Institute and a
Pentagon insider, Oliver has trained Israeli military staff and was a
delegate to the United Nations’ military staff committee. He also served as
a military adviser to the US Permanent Representative to the UN.

Col Richard Naab



Naab was the commander of allied forces during Operation Provide Comfort in
the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq following the first Gulf war and, like
Garner, is seen as a friend by the Kurds. He is also an adviser to the
Iraqi Institute for Democracy.

-------------------


3) Carving Up The New Iraq (cont.)


http://www.sundayherald.com/33079



THE POWER-BROKERS



Robert Reilly



Former director of Voice of America, the pro-US radio service, Reilly has
been entrusted with overhauling Iraqi radio, television and newspapers.

The Bush administration has already given Reilly the green light to operate
Radio Free Iraq. This will involve using transmitters that have been sent
to the Middle East for the military’s psychological operations.

Reilly is closely involved with an American administration plan to
establish a media network in the Middle East. A $62m (£40m) satellite TV
station is scheduled to begin at the end of the year.

He is a very close friend and business partner of Ahmed Chalabi.

Michael Mobbs



Pentagon lawyer and overall civilian co-ordinator who will be in charge of
11 of the ministries.

Mobbs wants US citizens imprisoned indefinitely without charge for
terrorist offences. A notorious hawk and close friend of Richard Perle,
Mobbs also worked for Douglas Feith’s law firm.

Currently a Pentagon consultant, he created the legal framework for the
indefinite detention of al-Qaeda suspects at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay,
which was built by Bechtel (see The businesses) for $16m (£10m). Also a
former member of the US arms control agency under former president Ronald
Reagan.

William Eagleton



Like George Shultz, a contemporary of George Bush Snr. and revered by the
right as one the grand old men of republican foreign policy.

The pair went to Yale together and both served in the Far East during the
second world war. A career diplomat, Eagleton was based in Iraq between
1980-1984 as Chief of US Interests Section in Baghdad.

His tenure there came at a time when Iraqi use of chemical weapons against
Iran was being studiously ignored by Washington.

He is tipped to be the “Mayor of Kirkuk”, the oil-rich city in northern
Iraq, or Kurdistan.

Andrew Natsios



The head of USAid, United States Agency for International Development,
Natsios is the man who hands out the post-war reconstruction contracts.
Only US companies can bid for these lucrative deals.

One of the most controversial episodes of his career saw him, as CEO of the
Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, oversee the Big Dig construction project,
a three-mile underground highway in Boston, undertaken by Bechtel. The
budget spiralled out of control costing up to $10bn (£6.3bn) more than it
should have, with the largest budget rises under Natsios’s tenure.

A former Massachusetts House of Representatives congressman, he is the
author of a book called US Foreign Policy And The Four Horsemen Of The
Apocalypse and a retired lieutenant colonel from the first Gulf war. He was
also the chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party for most of the
1980s.

Natsios will be assisted by Michael Marx, the head of USAid Disaster
Assistance Response Team (Dart) and a former US army officer. Marx
previously headed the Dart team after the conflict in Afghanistan.

Lewis Lucke, another USAid senior staffer, will oversee the Iraqi
reconstruction process. He headed the USAid mission team in Haiti alongside
Timothy Carney (see grey suits), one of the former US ambassadors who is
now involved in administering Free Iraq. Attempts at establishing democracy
in Haiti have so far failed, with elections collapsing amid allegations of
electoral manipulation and fraud.

George Shultz and Clint Williamson


A Republican heavyweight and former secretary of state under Nixon, Shultz
was Bush Jnr’s presidential campaign adviser. He is also one of the
administration’s key thinkers on running post-war Iraq, and on the board of
directors at Bechtel, which is in the running for contracts after regime
change. Like Perle, he has lucrative financial relationships, which bring
his impartiality into question. Shultz is the chairman of the International
Council of JP Morgan Chase, the banking syndicate in which Lewis Libby (see
neo-cons) has heavy investments. Morgan Chase lent Saddam’s regime $500m
(£320m) in 1983. Shultz is a member of the Committee for the Liberation of
Iraq and a patron of the American Enterprise Institute. Perle advised
clients of Goldman Sachs, the investment house, on post-war investment
opportunities in Iraq. Perle is also a director of the software company
Autonomy Corp, which has clients including the Pentagon. Autonomy says it
expects its profits to increase dramatically after the war in Iraq ends.

Clint Williamson, who is expected to head the Iraqi ministry of justice,
appears to be one of the good guys. A former prosecutor at the Hague’s
International War Crimes Tribunal, he helped compile evidence against
Slobodan Milosevic. Williamson now works at Condoleezza Rice’s National
Security Agency. Williamson appears ideally placed to deal with the
unfolding chaos gripping the nation of Iraq, and is skilled and seasoned in
preparing indictments against war criminals.

John Bolton



A prime architect of Bush’s Iraq policy, Bolton served Bush Snr and Reagan
in the state department, justice department and USAid and is now
under-secretary for arms control and international security in Bush Jnr’s
state department. His appointment was intended to counter the dove-ish
Colin Powell.

Bolton now leads Rumsfeld’s charge to destabilise Powell’s multilateralism.
Bolton is part of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the
Project for the New American Century and is a vice-president at the
American Enterprise Institute. He was also one of Bush’s chad-counters
during the Florida count. Bolton has long advocated Taiwan getting a UN
seat – he’s been on the payroll of the Taiwanese government.

The US unilateralist is a regular contributor to William Kristol’s
right-wing Weekly Standard and has vilified UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan. Bolton was an opponent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a
cheerleader for the Star Wars Defence System. He has hinted at targeting
Cuba in the war on terror. His financial interests include oil and arms
firms and JP Morgan Chase, like Shultz. It is said that Bolton believes in
the inevitability of Armageddon.

Like Woolsey, Bolton is said to believe we are in the midst of world war
four which he estimates could take 40 years to finish. Despite evidence to
the contrary they believe Iraq was involved in September 11. With Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Khalilzad, Bennet, Woolsey, Perle and Kristol, Bolton co-signed
a letter in 1998 urging President Bill Clinton to take military action in
Iraq .




THE THINK-TANKS

These are the right-wing foundations and intellectual powerhouses stuffed
with Republican Party hacks which have successfully influenced Bush’s Iraq
policy since he took power.



The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.


With its aims of informing Americans of the continued importance of
American security, and of the need for an Israeli “victory” in the Middle
East, Jinsa places itself firmly on the extreme right wing. It has
repeatedly praised Israel for what it views as “remarkable restraint” in
the face of a centrally-orchestrated campaign of terror from the
Palestinian authorities, and its ranks include most of Bush’s neo-cons. It
also supports both Garner and Chalabi.



The Project for a New American Century.


Founded by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney in 1997 to counter what it
viewed as Clinton’s drifting foreign and defence policy, this think-tank
would come to form the nucleus of Team Bush. It has always lobbied for
regime change in Iraq and for America to play a more permanent role in the
Middle East. It also believes American foreign policy to be by definition,
inherently “right”. Many see it as the brains behind a US-controlled “new
world order”.



The American Enterprise Institute.


One of America’s biggest and most-established think-tanks, the American
Enterprise Institute has been pushing its conservative agendas for over 50
years in both foreign and domestic policy. With 14 of its members in Bush’s
administration, it claims to be better represented than any other think
tank in the current administration.



The Bradley Foundation.


During the 15-year tenure of Michael Joyce heading up this charitable body,
the century-old foundation increased its profile dramatically and can now
claim to be cash-rich and very powerful. It even provided the money needed
to set up the Project for a New American Century. The Republicans love it
and some even call it the patron saint of hawkish causes, thanks to the
considerable amounts of money it doles out to neo-con causes.



THE BUSINESSES




SteveDoring Services Of America


This world-leading Seattle port company won the first USAid contract for
Iraqi reconstruction – a $4.8m (£3m) deal to manage Iraq’s strategic port,
Umm Qasr. Known for its union-busting activities, it turns over around $1bn
(£634m) a year and its president, John Hemingway, has made personal
donations to Republican Party candidates. SSA’s contract has angered the
British government and army, and Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt
unsuccessfully called on Washington to intervene. The British shipping
giant P&O is also angered about missing out and about not being told why
they lost. EU commissioner Chris Patten called the US-exclusive bidding
“exceptionally maladroit”.

Bechtel



Almost certain to win $900m (£573m) in contracts. The total amount of
business from Iraqi reconstruction could total $100bn (£634m). Bechtel has
donated $1.3m (£820,000) to political campaign funds since 1999, with the
majority going to the republican Party. George Shultz (see power-brokers)
is Bechtel’s former CEO and is still on the board of directors. Other
Republicans linked to the company include former Reagan defence secretary
Caspar Weinberger. General Jack Sheehan, retired Marine corp general, is
its senior vice president, he also sits on the Pentagon’s influential
Defence Policy Board. In the 1980s Bechtel proposed building an oil
pipeline through Iraq with Rumsfeld as a intermediary for the company to
Saddam.

International Resources Group


The Washington-based company has won a $70m (£44m) contract to establish
the humanitarian aid programme in Iraq. Obviously this involves an
exceptionally close working relationship with USAid, which awards the
contracts. Four of IRG’s vice-presidents have all held senior posts with
USAid, and 24 of the firm’s 48 technical staff have worked for USAid.

Other players tipped to win contracts include Washington Group
International, bidding for the capital construction job, which gave
$438,700 (£270,000) to the Republicans – along with a donation to Bush, and
the Louis Berger Group which gave $26,300 to the republicans and is
implementing the USAid Croatia development programme.

Halliburton



This was Dick Cheney’s old oil company until he joined Team Bush, walking
out the door with a pay-off worth around $30m (£19m). There have been
deferred payments of $180,000 (£120,000) a year.

Halliburton’s subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, was the first company to be
awarded an Iraqi reconstruction contract by the Pentagon to cap burning oil
wells, the deal is reportedly worth $500m (£320m). The contract was awarded
by the Army Corps of Engineers without any open competitive bidding process
thanks to federal laws allowing the negotiations to take place in secret in
the interests of national security. KBR has won a string of lucrative
contracts despite failing to control the cost of work in the Balkans and
being fined $2m (£1.3m) following claims of fraud at a military base. KBR
is also one of two contractors chosen by the Defence Threat Reduction
Agency to undertake the disposal of weapons of mass destruction – if they
are ever found. Since 1999, Halliburton has given 95%, or just under
$700,000, (£448,000) of its political donations to the Republican party. It
also gave George Bush nearly $18,000 (£12,000). KBR has subcontracted some
of the work to two Houston firms – Wild Wells, and Boots and Coots, which
is close to bankruptcy. Boots and Coots have a capital deficit of $17m
(£11m).

They were recently given a $1m (£634,000) loan from a Panama-registered
investment company, Checkpoint, run by Texas oilmen. It claims Boots and
Coots defaulted and wants it to file for bankruptcy.

Best of the rest



Fluor Corp, which donated $275,000 (£175,000) to the Republicans and $3500
(£2200) personally to George Bush, has ties to a number of intelligence and
defence procurement officials. These include Kenneth J Oscar, former acting
assistant secretary of the army and Bobby R Inman a retired admiral, former
NSA director and CIA deputy director.

Also in the running is Parsons Corp, which donated $152,000 (£96,000) to
the Republican party and £2000 (£1800) to Bush. It has helped reconstruct
Kosovo and Bosnia and built the Saudi “military city” of Yanbu. Bush’s
labour secretary Elaine Chao served on its board before joining the
cabinet. It has got a chance of $900m (£570m) of reconstruction contracts
and works closely with Halliburton. Chao’s husband, assistant majority
leader and majority whip Mitch McConnell has links to defence contractor
Northrop Grumman. He has also received donations from, among others,
Halliburton and arms firm Lockheed Martin .

California congressman, Darrell Issa, wants firms such as Lucent
Technologies and Qualcomm to rebuild Iraq’s decrepit telecoms system – a
deal worth around $1bn (£634m). Pentagon under-secretary, Douglas Feith,
has up to $500,000 (£317,000) invested in Lucent; and Dick Cheney’s chief
of staff, Lewis Libby, has shares in Qualcomm.

Raytheon Corp alongside KBR is another company apparently chosen by the
Defence Threat Reduction Agency to deal with WMD. Libby also has shares in
this company.


THE DEFENCE PLAYERS

The business players inextricably tied to the reconstructors:



SY Coleman


It is a key company connected to the US Patriot missile system. The fact
that the company is headed by Lt Gen Jay Garner, the so-called Sheriff of
Baghdad, has caused consternation among both aid agencies and the UN.



Northrop Grumman


One of the biggest winners under Bush’s increases in defence spending, they
won $8.5 billion in contracts last year. It has links with Jinsa and the
AEI and key Bush administration hawks. The company planned a merger with
Lockheed Martin, another defence giant who had Dick Cheney’s wife Lynne on
the board.



DynCorp


Linked to former CIA director James Woolsey. It provides security in world
trouble spots where America has had to act as the policeman. Woolsey’s
DynCorp links tally with his intellectual inclinations – both he and
Richard Perle sit on the Foundation for the Defence of Democracy, a
pro-military think-tank



The Defence Policy Board


This is the massively influential Pentagon advisory group, headed by
Richard Perle until forced to resign over a conflict of interests. Currying
favour with the DPB is the key to getting a Pentagon contract. Eight other
DPB members have links to firms that have won defence contracts including
Northrop Grumman, Bechtel and Rand Corp, which is linked to Lewis Libby and
Zalmay Khalilzad. DPB members include General Jack Sheehan, who is
connected to Bechtel, the CIA’s James Woolsey and former Republican
secretary of defence James Schlesinger.



THE ARABS


Ahmed Chalabi



Leader of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), Chalabi’s
supporters include Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, who are pushing for
him to be the interim leader of the post-war Iraq. He is backed by the
think-tank Jinsa and linked to the American Enterprise Institute.

Convicted in absentia in Jordan for his part in an massive embezzlement
scandal, Chalabi received up to $12 million from Washington after the first
Gulf war.

He will be working with Reilly (see power-brokers) on broadcasting and
communications in the new Iraq. Often referred to as “Cheney’s protégé”, he
is unpopular in Iraq and loathed by Colin Powell’s state department. He has
also fallen out of favour with the CIA, which in the early 1990s funded the
INC to the tune of $325,000 a month. However, in a recent trip to Israel,
organised by Jinsa, he tried to warm up relations regarding Iraq’s
post-regime change. Other Iraqis involved in a future government – at the
behest of Wolfowitz – include INC members Salem Chalabi (Chalabi’s nephew)
and Aras Habib. Habib’s cousin, Dr Ali Yassin Karim, a former medic with
the CIA, was nearly kicked out of the agency but was saved by the CIA’s
James Woolsey. Wolfowitz also wants jobs to go to Chalabi’s friends Tamara
Daghestani and Goran Talebani.

Zalmay Khalilzad



Afghanistan-born Khalilzad is Bush’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq
and has a wide variety of oil interests. He co-wrote an article on Saddam,
entitled Overthrow Him, with Wolfowitz, his former boss. A consultant with
the oil company Unocal, he was pushing for a natural gas pipeline in
Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, and worked under Condoleezza Rice
when she served as director of Chevron. He is also a close associate of
George Shultz, and encouraged Schultz to use Iran to help topple Saddam. He
is a former Rand Corp employee and a charter member of the PNAC.






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