News Articles
| 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. |
| IRAQ: The Pentagon Garrisons the Gulf: As Washington Talks Iraq Withdrawal, the Pentagon Builds Up Bases in the Region by Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com November 22nd, 2009 Despite recent large-scale insurgent suicide bombings that have killed scores of civilians and the fact that well over 100,000 U.S. troops are still deployed in that country, coverage of the U.S. war in Iraq has been largely replaced in the mainstream press by the (previously) "forgotten war" in Afghanistan. Getting out of Iraq, however, doesn't mean getting out of the Middle East. |
| 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: Company Gets Pentagon Contract Despite Death Inquiries by Associated Press, New York Times February 7th, 2009 Private military contractor KBR has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work even though it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two American soldiers in Iraq. |
| 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: U.S. Raids New Orleans Agency in Scandal Over a Housing Cleanup Program
by ADAM NOSSITER, The New York Times August 11th, 2008 Federal investigators on Monday raided the downtown offices of a city-chartered nonprofit agency accused of abusing a federally financed program that was created to clean up houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina. |
| IRAQ: Electrical Risks at Bases in Iraq Worse Than Previously Said
by JAMES RISEN, The New York Times July 18th, 2008 Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents. |
| 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: U.S. paid $32M for Iraqi base that wasn't built by Matt Kelley, USA Today December 14th, 2007 The U.S. military paid a Florida company nearly $32 million to build barracks and offices for Iraqi army units even though nothing was ever built, Pentagon investigators reported. |
| AFGHANISTAN: NATO Airstrike Kills 14 Afghans by Abdul Waheed Wafa, New York Times November 29th, 2007 A NATO airstrike killed 14 laborers working for an Afghan road construction company that had been contracted by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. |
| GERMANY: Get Rich or Die Trying by John Goetz and Conny Neumann, Der Spiegel November 12th, 2007 Germany companies send mercenaries to Iraq. |
| US: Louisiana Charges Price Fixing by Insurers New York Times November 7th, 2007 The Louisiana attorney general sues the state’s largest property insurance companies for engaging in an elaborate price-fixing scheme. |
| IRELAND: Irish subsidiary implicated in Saddam fraud by Arthur Beesley, The Irish Times November 1st, 2007 The Irish subsidiary of US industrial group Ingersoll-Rand paid a $53,919 (EUR 37,235) "kickback" to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in an effort to secure a UN contract, US regulators have claimed. |
| 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: Houston Businessman Is Key Figure In U.S. Probe of Iraq Food Contracts
by Glenn R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal October 18th, 2007 As federal authorities probe the web of food suppliers for U.S. troops in Iraq, one focus of scrutiny is a Lebanese-American businessman indicted for allegedly inflating food prices with fraudulent bills. |
| US: Food Companies Face U.S. Probe Over Iraq Deals by Glen R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal October 16th, 2007 Prominent American food companies are under scrutiny in a federal probe of possible fraud and corruption in the military's food-supply operations for the Iraq war. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| US: Graft in Military Contracts Spread From Base by Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmit, New York Times September 24th, 2007 A US major is arrested in relation to a bribery scheme involving companies seeking military contracts. |
| US: U.S. probes Blackwater weapons shipments by Joseph Neff, News & Observer (North Carolina) September 22nd, 2007 The U.S. government is investigating whether private military contractor Blackwater USA, blamed for the deaths of 11 Iraqis in Baghdad on Sunday, has been shipping unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq. |
| US: Head of firm paid to track Iraq spending investigated by Matt Kelley, USA Today September 21st, 2007 The head of a firm hired to audit Iraqi reconstruction spending is under investigation for violation of conflict of interest laws. |
| US: Evoking Vietnam clash, Wisconsin students to protest Halliburton visit by Ryan J. Foley, AP, Houston Chronicle September 19th, 2007 Students at Madison protest against Halliburton Co. recruiters, evoking memories of a 1967 protest of Dow, which made napalm for the US military. |
| 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: Sale of KBR Bolsters Profit at Halliburton by Bloomberg News, The New York Times July 24th, 2007 Halliburton, the oil field contractor, said second-quarter net income more than doubled on a gain from selling its government services and construction subsidiary, KBR. |
| US: Contractors fume over slow FEMA checks by Becky Bohrer, Associated Press July 18th, 2007 |
| US: Cited firm gets big security contract;
Violations won't sour $323 million deal by Allen Powell II, West Bank Bureau July 15th, 2007 A Hammond security company, Inner Parish Security Corp., which admitted to several "serious" state violations, including hiring an underage officer, has been awarded a large federal contract to provide private security officers at FEMA trailer parks in metro New Orleans. |
| 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. |
| US: Former KBR employee pleads guilty in Kuwaiti kickback case by Brett Clanton, Houston Chronicle July 13th, 2007 A former KBR employee pleads guilty to Kuwaiti kickback charges. |
| US: Contractors Back From Iraq Suffer Trauma From Battle by James Risen, The New York Times July 5th, 2007 Contractors who have worked in Iraq are returning home with the same kinds of combat-related mental health problems that afflict United States military personnel, according to contractors, industry officials and mental health experts. |
| IRAQ: Blackwater Blues for Dead Contractors' Families by Bill Berkowitz, Inter Press Service News Agency June 29th, 2007 The families of four Blackwater employees who were killed in Iraq have filed a lawsuit that accuses the world's largest private security firm of negligence; Blackwater is suing back. |
| IRAQ: Audit of KBR Iraq Contract Faults Records For Fuel, Food; U.S. Says It Will Increase Monitoring in Baghdad
by Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post June 24th, 2007 KBR, the government contracting firm formerly under Halliburton, did not keep accurate records of gasoline distribution, put its employees in living spaces that may be larger than warranted and served meals that appeared to cost $4.5 million more than necessary under a contract to perform work in Iraq, according to an audit by a government oversight agency. |
| IRAQ: Contractors Face Growing Parallel War; As Security Work Increases, So Do Casualties by Steve Fainaru, Washington Post Foreign Service June 16th, 2007 Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives. |
| 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: US money is 'squandered' in Iraq BBC News January 31st, 2007 Millions of dollars in US rebuilding funds have been wasted in Iraq, US auditors say in a report which warns corruption in the country is rife. |
| IRAQ: Bechtel Departure Removes More Illusions by Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service November 9th, 2006 The decision of the giant engineering company Bechtel to withdraw from Iraq has left many Iraqis feeling betrayed. In its departure they see the end of remaining hopes for the reconstruction of Iraq. |
| IRAQ: Bechtel ends Iraq rebuilding after a rough 3 years by David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle November 1st, 2006 Bechtel Corp. went to Iraq three years ago to help rebuild a nation torn by war. Since then, 52 of its people have been killed and much of its work sabotaged as Iraq dissolved into insurgency and sectarian violence. |
| 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. |
| IRAQ: As U.S. effort winds down, can Iraq fill 'reconstruction gap'? by Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press October 16th, 2006 America's big builders invaded Iraq three years ago, hard on the heels of U.S. troops and tanks. Now the reconstruction billions are drying up so they're pulling out, leaving both completed and unfinished projects in the hands of an Iraqi government unprepared to manage either. |
| IRAQ: In Iraq, contractor deaths near 650, legal fog thickens by Bernd Debusmann, Reuters October 10th, 2006 The war in Iraq has killed at least 647 civilian contractors to date, according to official figures that provide a stark reminder of the huge role of civilians in supporting the U.S. military. |
| 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. |
| US: Katrina Costs Continue to Swell by Richard Wolf, USA Today August 22nd, 2006 The fiscal impact of Hurricane Katrina, the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history, shows no sign of ending. |
| CANADA: Our side of defence
by Jorge Barrera, The Ottawa Times August 20th, 2006 Ottawa may have the reputation of a government town, but it's also home to Canada's military-industrial complex. |
| 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: Suspected Illegal Workers Found at Halliburton Job Site by Griff Witte, The Washington Post October 22nd, 2005 Federal agents have identified 10 suspected illegal immigrants working at a naval base near New Orleans where the Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root is leading hurricane reconstruction, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. |
| 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. |
| 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: Boosted, not battered, in the hurricane's wake by Carola Hoyos, Financial Times, The Financial Times October 4th, 2005 |
| 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. |
| IRAQ: Poor Planning and Corruption Hobble Reconstruction of Iraq by Craig S. Smith, The New York Times September 18th, 2005 In April, Najaf's main maternity hospital received rare good news: an $8 million refurbishment program financed by the United States would begin immediately. But five months and millions of dollars later, the hospital administrators say they have little but frustration to show for it. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Iraq: Families of Hostages Say They're Being Kept in Dark by Bill Murphy, Houston Chronicle April 25th, 2004 Family members of KBR employees taken hostage by insurgents in Iraq say they are still being kept in the dark about their status |
| Iraq: Iraqis Investigate Halliburton over Allegations of Bribery by Clayton Hirst, London Independent April 25th, 2004 The probe centres on allegations that staff working for the Houston-based company took bribes for awarding sub-contracts in Iraq. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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." |
| 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: The Aftermath; Bush Launches Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan by Rupert Cornwell, Independent (London) May 2nd, 2003 The US declared an end to serious hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq yesterday, and it shifted the focus to reconstruction in the two countries that have been the prime targets of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. |
| 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. |
| US: American firms set to cash in on reconstruction of Iraq by Danny Penman March 11th, 2003 The American government is on the verge of awarding construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is deposed. |
| IRAQ: Thousands of Private Contractors Support U.S. Forces in Persian Gulf by Kenneth Bredemeier, Washington Post March 3rd, 2003 Private contractors are sending thousands of technical experts to the Persian Gulf region. They operate communications systems, repair helicopters, fix weapons systems and link the computers with the troops to command centers. |
| 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. |
| Afghanistan: New World Bank Grants Worth US$90 Million Reach Out Across Afghanistan June 6th, 2002 The World Bank today approved grants for three development projects in Afghanistan, bringing the institution's support for the war-ravaged country to a total of US$100 million in grant funding for the fiscal year ending June 30. |
| 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. |