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| AFGHANISTAN: Iraq Lessons Ignored at Kabul Power Plant
by Pratap Chatterjee, Inter Press News Service
February 4th, 2010
A diesel-fueled power plant, nearing completion just outside Kabul, demonstrates that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its contractors have failed to learn lessons from identical mistakes in Iraq, despite clearly signposted advice from oversight agencies. |
| US/KUWAIT: Settlement possible in military contractor fraud case
by Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 29th, 2010
Kuwaiti firm Agility (formerly Public Warehousing) indicted here for overcharging the Army on an $8.5 billion contract is negotiating a possible settlement with the Justice Department. On Nov. 9, a federal grand jury in Atlanta indicted the firm on charges it gouged the U.S. government by overcharging on its contract to supply food to American troops in Iraq. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Paying Off the Warlords,
Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption
by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com
November 17th, 2009
Among the dozens of businesses with lucrative Afghan and U.S. taxpayer-financed reconstruction deals are two extremely well connected companies -- Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid -- that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country's new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim. |
| US: Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out
by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post
April 7th, 2009
The surge in the U.S. military contracting workforce would ebb under Defense Secretary Gates's budget proposal as the Pentagon moves to replace private workers with full-time civil servants. The move could affect companies such as CACI and SAIC. "We are right-sizing the defense acquisition workforce so we can improve our contract oversight and get a better deal for the taxpayers," said the Pentagon's director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. |
| US/AFGHANISTAN: Short-staffed USAID tries to keep pace
by Ken Dilanian, USA Today
February 1st, 2009
Like other government functions, U.S. foreign aid and reconstruction largely has been privatized. USAID now turns to contractors to fulfill its basic mission of fighting poverty and promoting democracy. CorpWatch's 2006 "Afghanistan, Inc" documented problems with Chemonics and other contractors operating in Afghanistan. |
| US/IRAQ: Indiana guardsmen sue defense contractor KBR
by Farah Stockman, Boston Globe
December 4th, 2008
Sixteen Indiana national guardsmen filed a lawsuit yesterday against military contractor KBR. The complaint alleges that several reservists contracted respiratory system tumors and skin rashes after guarding reconstruction work at the Qarmat Ali treatment plant, strewn with the toxin chromium dichromate. |
| KATRINA: Audit Faults KBR's Repairs of Hurricane Damage
by Derek Kravitz, The Washington Post
June 18th, 2008
Efforts by defense contractor KBR to repair hurricane-damaged Navy facilities were deemed shoddy and substandard, and one technical adviser alleged that the federal government "certainly paid twice" for many KBR projects because of "design and workmanship deficiencies," the Pentagon's inspector general reported in an audit released yesterday. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Missing: The £5bn aid needed to rebuild lives
by JEROME STARKEY AND ROSS LYDALL, The Scotsman
March 25th, 2008
Vast sums of aid are lost in corporate profits of contractors and sub-contractors, which can be as high as 50 per cent on a single contract. A vast amount of aid is absorbed by high salaries, with generous allowances, and other costs of expatriates working for consulting firms and contractors. |
| US: Protest Leads Army to Reconsider Big Contract
by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post
November 1st, 2007
One of the biggest military contracts to house, feed and provide other services to U.S. military troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait may be canceled and renegotiated after the Government Accountability Office said yesterday that it upheld a protest from two teams that lost the bid. |
| US: Rice Says ‘Hole’ in U.S. Law Shields Contractors in Iraq
by John M. Broder, NY Times
October 26th, 2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conceded on Thursday that there was a “hole” in United States law that had allowed Blackwater USA employees and other armed contractors in Iraq to escape legal jeopardy for crimes possibly committed there. |
| US: The People vs. the Profiteers
by David Rose, Vanity Fair
October 4th, 2007
Americans working in Iraq for Halliburton spin-off KBR have been outraged by the massive fraud they saw there. Dozens are suing the giant military contractor, on the taxpayers' behalf. Whose side is the Justice Department on?
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| US: Billions over Baghdad; The Spoils of War
by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair
October 1st, 2007
Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency--much of it belonging to the Iraqi people--was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. |
| IRAQ: Big oil’s waiting game over Iraq’s reserves
by Ed Crooks and Sheila McNulty, Financial Times
September 19th, 2007
Oil companies face a dilemma in Iraq over whether to wait for a new oil law which will give them a legal framework in which to operate or to sign agreements now with the Kurdistan Regional Government at the risk of sullying relations with Baghdad and the rest of the country. |
| IRAQ: Will Iraq Kick Out Blackwater?
by Adam Zagorin and Brian Bennett, TIME Magazine
September 17th, 2007
TIME has obtained an incident report prepared by the U.S. government describing a fire fight Sunday in Baghdad in which at least eight Iraqis were reported killed and 13 wounded. The loss of life has provoked anger in Baghdad, where the Interior Ministry has suspended Blackwater's license to operate around the country. |
| US: Army to examine Iraq contracts
by Richard Lardner, Associated Press
August 29th, 2007
The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse. |
| US: As Iraq Costs Soar, Contractors Earn Record Profits
by Eli Clifton, Inter Press Service News Agency
August 2nd, 2007
In a report to lawmakers earlier this week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the war in Iraq could cost U.S. taxpayers over a trillion dollars when the long-term costs of caring for soldiers wounded in action, military and economic aid for the Iraqi government, and ongoing costs associated with the 190,000 troops stationed in Iraq are totaled up. |
| US: Katrina Ice Being Melted After 2 Years
Associated Press
July 14th, 2007
After nearly two years, thousands of truck miles and $12.5 million in storage costs, the federal government is getting rid of thousands of pounds of ice it had sent south to help Katrina victims, then north when it determined much of the ice wasn't needed. |
| IRAQ: Death Toll for Contractors Reaches New High in Iraq
by John M. Broder and James Risen, New York Times
May 19th, 2007
Casualties among private contractors in Iraq have soared to record levels this year, setting a pace that seems certain to turn 2007 into the bloodiest year yet for the civilians who work alongside the American military in the war zone, according to new government numbers. |
| IRAQ: Idle Contractors Add Millions to Iraq Rebuilding
by James Glantz, The New York Times
October 25th, 2006
Overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq, according to a government estimate released yesterday, leaving far less money than expected to provide the oil, water and electricity needed to improve the lives of Iraqis. |
| US: Congress Is Told of Failures of Rebuilding Work in Iraq
by James Glanz, The New York Times
September 28th, 2006
In a sweeping new assessment of reconstruction failures in Iraq, a federal inspector told Congress on Thursday that 13 of 14 major projects built by the American contractor Parsons that were examined by his agency were substandard, with construction deficiencies and other serious problems. |
| IRAQ: Army Cancels Contract for Iraqi Prison
by James Glanz, The New York Times
June 20th, 2006
The Army Corps of Engineers said Monday that it had canceled a $99.1 million contract with Parsons, one of the largest companies working in Iraq, to build a prison north of Baghdad after the firm fell more than two years behind schedule, threatened to go millions of dollars over budget and essentially abandoned the construction site. |
| US: Lobbyists Advise Katrina Relief
by Alan C. Miller and Ken Silverstein, The Los Angeles Times
October 10th, 2005
Lobbyists representing transportation, energy and other special interests dominated panels that advised Louisiana's U.S. senators crafting legislation to rebuild the storm-damaged Gulf Coast, records and interviews show.
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| US: Katrina work goes to officials who led Iraq effort
by Adam Entous, Reuters
October 6th, 2005
Top officials who managed U.S. reconstruction projects in Iraq have been hired by some of the same big companies that received those contracts and which are now involved in a rush of deals to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. |
| US: U.S. Paying a Premium to Cover Storm-Damaged Roofs
by Aaron C. Davis, Knight Ridder
September 30th, 2005
Across the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast, thousands upon thousands of blue tarps are being nailed to wind-damaged roofs, a visible sign of government assistance.
Construction crews working with TJC Defense, out of Alabama, install a blue tarp on a home in Kenner, Louisiana. Ian McVea, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The blue sheeting - a godsend to residents whose homes are threatened by rain - is rapidly becoming the largest roofing project in the nation's history.
It isn't coming cheap. |
| US: Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
by Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon, The New York Times
September 26th, 2005
Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La. |
| US: Auditors investigate Katrina contracts
by Hope Yen, Associated Press
September 22nd, 2005
Government auditors are questioning whether several multimillion-dollar Katrina contracts” including one involving a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton Co.” invite abuse because they are open-ended and not clearly defined. |
| IRAQ: Contractor Charged in Baghdad Badge Scam
by Jerry Markon and Josh White, The Washington Post
September 21st, 2005
A military contractor returning from Iraq was charged yesterday with distributing identity badges that control access to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to people not allowed to receive them, including an Iraqi woman he was dating. |
| US: Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
by Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon, The New York Times
August 26th, 2005
Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La. |
| INDIA: Bechtel Sells Its Stake In Dabhol Power Plant
by JOHN LARKIN, Wall Street Journal
July 14th, 2005
Bechtel Group Inc. agreed to sell its equity in the troubled Dabhol power project for $160 million, according to people involved in the transaction, edging India closer to ending a four-year dispute that has plagued its efforts to boost foreign investment.
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| Iraq: Cellular Project Leads to U.S. Inquiry
by T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times
April 29th, 2004
A senior Defense Department official is under investigation by the Pentagon inspector general for allegations that he attempted to alter a contract proposal in Iraq to benefit a mobile phone consortium that includes friends and colleagues, according to documents obtained by The Times and sources with direct knowledge of the process. |
| IRAQ: 10 US Contractors Penalized
by Matt Kelley, Associated Press
April 26th, 2004
Ten companies with billions of dollars in U.S. contracts for Iraq reconstruction have paid more than $300 million in penalties since 2000 to resolve allegations of bid rigging, fraud, delivery of faulty military parts and environmental damage. |
| US: Bechtel's 2003 Revenue Breaks Company Record
by David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
April 20th, 2004
Bechtel Corp., the San Francisco engineering giant rebuilding Iraq, today will report record revenue of $16.3 billion in 2003, reversing a three- year slide. |
| Iraq: Companies Wait for the Smoke to Clear
by Tim Webb and Clayton Hirst
April 18th, 2004
Iraq was supposed to provide rich pickings, with billions of dollars' worth of contracts up for grabs. But as kidnappings and killings undermine security still further, Tim Webb and Clayton Hirst ask if the reconstruction effort is about to unravel |
| Iraq: KBR contractors weigh heavy risks
by Jenalia Moreno and Bill Hensel Jr. , Houston Chronicle
April 14th, 2004
For more than a week, KBR officials have tried to prepare new hires like Michael Tovar, 29, for the risks they'll face as contractors in Iraq. |
| Iraq: Trade Fair Postponed Over Security Fears
by Joshua Chaffin and Salamander Davoudi, Financial Times
April 1st, 2004
The deteriorating security situation in Iraq has prompted the postponement of a US-led trade fair aimed at accelerating reconstruction in the country amid heightening concerns about the safety of foreign civilians working there. Organisers of Destination Baghdad Expo, that was due to begin on Monday, postponed the event following the gruesome killings on Wednesday of four western contract workers in the city of Falluja. |
| Iraq: Rebuilding Plan Reviewed
by Jackie Spinner and Mary Pat Flaherty, Washington Post
March 31st, 2004
The new inspector general of the U.S.-led interim authority in Iraq reported yesterday that though he is just beginning his own audits of reconstruction spending, he is concerned about the oversight of spending and control of cash.
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| Iraq: Security Pushes Up Contract Costs
by Sue Pleming, Reuters
March 31st, 2004
Soaring security and insurance costs are driving up the price of contracts to rebuild Iraq and more funds may be needed, said a report on Wednesday by the U.S.-led authority's chief inspector in Iraq.
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| Iraq: Parsons Corp. Wins $900 Million Contract
Reuters
March 30th, 2004
California's Parsons Corp., one of the most active U.S. companies in Iraq, said on Tuesday it won a contract worth up to $900 million from the U.S. military for security and justice work in Iraq. The privately-owned engineering and construction company said the latest deal includes the restoration and construction of bases for the Iraqi security forces, police stations, border control stations, fire stations, courthouses and prisons. |
| Iraq: Halliburton Continues to Profit
by Matt Kelley, Associated Press
March 30th, 2004
Halliburton Co. has reaped as much as $6 billion in contracts from the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but improprieties in those military contracts have also given Vice President Dick Cheney's former company high-profile headaches. Pentagon auditors have criticized Halliburton's estimating, spending and subcontracting, and they plan to begin withholding up to $300 million in payments next month. The Justice Department is investigating allegations of overcharges, bribes and kickbacks. Democrats have accused the company of war profiteering. |
| UK: Pentagon Warns British Contractors
by David Gow, Guardian (London)
March 27th, 2004
The Pentagon yesterday warned British firms winning contracts under its $ 18.4bn (£10bn) Iraqi reconstruction programme that they would be thrown out if they failed to give a minimum 10% of the work to US small businesses. |
| Iraq: Violence Slows Bechtel in Iraq
by David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
March 23rd, 2004
Violence has slowed or interrupted work at approximately 10 percent of Bechtel Corp.'s reconstruction sites in Iraq, government and company representatives said Thursday. Two of its subcontractors forced to curtail or suspend operations at hostile sites. |
| US: Carlyle Stands to Profit from Disaster
by David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle
March 21st, 2004
The Washington investment firm, run by a who's who of Republican heavyweights, including former Secretary of State James Baker and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, has put money into about 300 different companies and properties.
Those investments include United Defense Industries, a maker of combat vehicles, naval guns and missile launchers; and Sippican, a maker of submarine systems and countermeasures to protect warships |
| UK: Whitehall Warns UK Firms to Stop Sending Workers to Iraq
by Severin Carrell, Tim Webb and Clayton Hirst, The Independent (London)
March 18th, 2004
British businesses hoping to win lucrative deals in Iraq have been told to scrap their plans to travel there because of the escalating violence against Westerners. |
| US: SF Firm Awarded Contract in Iraq
by David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
March 12th, 2004
The Pentagon has begun doling out $5 billion in new contracts to rebuild Iraq, and a San Francisco firm partially owned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband has landed some of the cash. URS Corp. will oversee repairs to Iraq's communications system, hospitals and courthouses under contracts worth a total of $27.7 million.
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| Unearthing Democratic Root to Halliburton Flap
by Al Kamen, Washington Post
March 5th, 2004
Truly there is nothing new under the sun. In recent months Democrats have been bleating about fat Iraq construction contracts going to Halliburton, about Halliburton's ties to the administration because Vice President Cheney happened to run the company just before taking his current job and a shocking GOP tendency to help contributors. |
| Iraq: Pentagon Opens Criminal Inquiry of Halliburton
by Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times
February 24th, 2004
Pentagon officials said Monday night that they have opened a criminal fraud investigation of Halliburton, the giant Texas oil-services concern, in an inquiry that will examine "potential overpricing" of fuel taken into Iraq by one of the company's subcontractors. |
| US: American Companies in Iraq Starting from Ground Up
by Joel Brinkley
February 22nd, 2004
When government contractors took on the task of rebuilding Iraq's hospital system last year, they were distressed to learn that nursing staffs no longer existed. Under Saddam Hussein, the contractors discovered, hospitals were forced to fire all their nurses to save money.
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| Iraq: Occupation, Inc.
by Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert Docena, Southern Exposure
February 4th, 2004
Bechtel's projects are examined by freelance journalists. Locals complain of shoddy work, problems with schools, sewage, electricity, gas lines, and low wages. |
| US: Risky Business
by Naomi Klein
January 5th, 2004
This is ReBuilding Iraq 2, a gathering of 400 businesspeople itching to get
a
piece of the Iraqi reconstruction action. They are here to meet the people
doling out the cash, in particular the $18.6 billion in contracts to be
awarded in the next two months to companies from "coalition partner"
countries. The people to meet are from the Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA), its new Program Management Office, the Army Corps of Engineers, the
US
Agency for International Development, Halliburton, Bechtel and members of
Iraq's interim Governing Council. All these players are on the conference
program, and delegates have been promised that they'll get a chance to
corner
them at regularly scheduled "networking breaks."
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| US: The $87 billion money pit
by Rod Nordland and Michael Hirsh, Newsweek
October 27th, 2003
Iraqis like to point out that after the 1991 war, Saddam restored the badly destroyed electric grid in only three months. Some six months after Bush declared an end to major hostilities, a much more ambitious and costly American effort has yet to get to that point. It is only in recent weeks that the Coalition amped up to the power-generation level that Saddam achieved last March-4,400 megawatts for the country (though it's since dropped back). True, Saddam didn't have a guerrilla war to contend with, and his power infrastructure was in much better shape than the Americans found it. But he also had far fewer resources. |
| Iraq: Some of Army's Civilian Contractors Are No-Shows
by David Wood, Newhouse News Service
July 31st, 2003
U.S. troops in Iraq suffered through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because some civilian contractors hired by the Army for logistics support failed to show up, Army officers said. |
| US: Now Bush wants to buy the complicity of aid workers
by Naomi Klein, The Guardian
June 24th, 2003
The war on NGOs is being fought on two clear fronts. One buys the silence and complicity of mainstream humanitarian and religious groups by offering lucrative reconstruction contracts. The other marginalises and criminalises more independent-minded NGOs by claiming that their work is a threat to democracy. The US Agency for International Development (USaid) is in charge of handing out the carrots, while the American Enterprise Institute, the most powerful think-tank in Washington, is wielding the sticks. |
| US: Security Issues Delay Rebuilding
by Jackie Spinner, The Washington Post
June 20th, 2003
To get the lights back on and the air conditioning humming again in Iraq, U.S. construction firm Bechtel National Inc. needed a giant tool called a crimper to repair and reconnect high-voltage power lines. But three days after the San Francisco-based company shipped in an 80-pound crimper last month, the $15,000 tool disappeared, stolen in a ripple of looting that has become a major challenge for aid workers and private contractors operating in Iraq. |
| IRAQ: Privatization in Disguise
by Naomi Klein, The Nation
April 18th, 2003
On April 6, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz spelled it out: There will be no role for the United Nations in setting up an interim government in Iraq. The US-run regime will last at least six months, "probably...longer than that." |
| US: Builders Look at Iraq Project as Open Door
by David Streitfeld, Nancy Cleeland and Mark Fineman, The New York Times
March 31st, 2003
When the U.S. Agency for International Development asked the three California companies whether they wanted to bid on a project on the other side of the world, all of them jumped at the chance to write proposals on a tight deadline.
The reason: No one wanted to miss out on the chance to be the first to rebuild Iraq. As the corporate giants well know, the $600 million is merely the initial installment of what promises to be a much bigger sum.
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| US: In Tough Times, a Company Finds Profits in Terror War
by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., New York Times
July 12th, 2002
The Halliburton Company, the Dallas oil services company bedeviled lately by an array of accounting and business issues, is benefiting very directly from the United States efforts to combat terrorism.From building cells for detainees at Guantnamo Bay in Cuba to feeding American troops in Uzbekistan, the Pentagon is increasingly relying on a unit of Halliburton called KBR, sometimes referred to as Kellogg Brown & Root. |
| US: Iraq healthcare system faces $1.6 billion financing gap
by Sunita Kaul, The Daily Star
After 13 years of economic sanctions, the healthcare system in Iraq is in disrepair. A further blow was dealt to it by the damage caused by the looting of hospitals and clinics since the war began and the ongoing disruptions in the delivery of supplies and equipment. |
| US: Bechtel criticized over school project in Iraq
by Larry Kaplow, Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service
President Bush and other U.S. officials tout the repairs to Iraq's schools as a hallmark of an American-led renewal, a symbol of hope for a new generation of Iraqis. But for many in Baghdad, including some U.S. troops involved in the work, Bechtel's school rehabilitation appears slipshod and wasteful. |
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