It's About The Reconstruction Contracts!

Get ready for Round 2 of the "Bush is persecuting this war to support vested capitalist interests" argument ... this time about how the government will parse out reconstruction contracts to insiders. The press is already sewing the debate ... today Malaysiakini reports:

Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a division of the Houston-based oil services company Halliburton, has won a Pentagon contract to assess and rehabilitate possible damage to Iraq's oil infrastructure, in case Saddam Hussein sets his oilfields ablaze following a US military strike.

... while Page 1 of today's Wall Street Journal offers significantly more detail. As the WSJ requires registration, I'll provide the highlights:

The Bush administration's audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war's end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies.

The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children.

Within weeks of a war ending, the administration plans to begin everything from repairing Iraqi roads, schools and hospitals to revamping its financial rules and government payroll system. Agencies such as the U.S. Treasury Department would be deeply involved in overhauling the country's central bank, and some U.S. government officials would serve as "shadow ministers" to oversee Baghdad's bureaucracies.

The White House is expected to ask Congress for as much as $100 billion to wage a war in Iraq and pay for the aftermath. Included in this would be a request for $1.8 billion this year for reconstruction and about $800 million for relief assistance. However, the U.N. Development Program estimates that reconstruction alone could cost $10 billion a year over three years.

Chris Patten, head of the European Union's external relations, has slammed the Bush plan as "maladroit," and suggested in a speech last week that the EU wouldn't contribute to rebuilding unless the U.N. led the effort. A German official said the U.S. should be "magnanimous" in an expected military victory, enlisting European partners in the cleanup.

Senior U.S. administration officials say problems in rebuilding Afghanistan -- including work on the Kabul-Kandahar-Herat highway, a pivotal project that is proceeding slowly -- prove that a multilateral approach only slows postwar assistance. "At least to start, we intend to handle the big jobs ourselves," said one Bush official closely involved in the postwar planning.

Much of the heaviest work will fall to U.S. companies through a growing web of contracts with the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID is expected this week to pick the prime contractor for a $900 million job rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, including highways, bridges, airports and government buildings. The agency is also contracting for five other large jobs, worth a total of between $300 million and $500 million, administering Iraq's seaport and international airports, revamping its schools and health-care system, and handling large scale logistics such as water transport. The Army Corps of Engineers is also taking bids for work worth up to $500 million for building projects such as roadways and military barracks. Additional contracts to refurbish Iraq's neglected oil industry would likely be handled through the U.N., which currently administers Iraq's oil exports.

Four groups of U.S. companies are competing for the $900 million contract, which was put out for bids in secret last month. The companies were picked under rules that allow U.S. agencies to skirt open and competitive bidding procedures to meet emergency needs. All have done government work for years and have deep political ties to Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney once served as head of Halliburton Co., whose subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root is part of one bidding consortium.

Other big bidders are Bechtel Group Inc.; Parsons Corp., which has allied with Brown & Root; and Louis Berger Group and Fluor Corp., which are bidding as a team. These companies made political contributions of a combined $2.8 million between 1999 and 2002, more than two-thirds of which went to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. Bechtel was the largest single donor, having given $1.3 million in political contributions. Another bidder is Washington Group International Inc.