A report released on Thursday by the US based Centre for Public Integrity details the movements of 70 firms and contractors involved in the reconstruction of Iraq and reveals that major donors to George Bush's election campaigns were the beneficiaries of a $US8bn bonanza in government contracts.
Vice President Dick Cheney's former roost, Halliburton, has been at the forefront of the 'humanitarian campaign' in the Middle East being awarded over $US2.3 billion in contracts so far through subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR).
It was even announced during the week that the company had retained an no-bid contract in Iraq longer than expected, with the Bush administration blaming sabotage of oil facilities for delays in replacement contracts.
So far that one contract has been worth over $US1.59 billion with the extension valid until December or January while the government receives and evaluates revised bids for replacement work that could total $US2 billion.
Halliburton's extended contract will now be split into two - with a maximum cost of $US800 million for work on the northern oil fields and up to $US1.2 billion to restore the southern facilities.
Cheney still receives deferred payments for services performed while he was employed by the company.
Separately, Halliburton reported Wednesday that its third-quarter revenue rose to $US4.14 billion from $US2.98 billion a year earlier, in part because of KBR's government work.
The report is the most comprehensive survey to date of the postwar financial dispensations for Afghanistan and Iraq, seeking to expose the companies connections to figures in various administrations, Congress and the Pentagon.
More than half of the companies - and nearly every one of the top 10 contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq - had close ties to Washington's political establishment or to the Pentagon. Company executives had worked in previous administrations and cultivated privileged connections with their old workplaces.
Connections to the Bush administration even helped with the dispensation of relatively low-profile projects. The Science Applications International Corp was awarded a $US38 million contract for the development of representative government and free media in Iraq.
Until October 2002 the company's Vice President was David Kay, the government's expert now leading Washington's hunt for Saddam Hussein's elusive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
However it appears the administration wasn't too excited about an introspective into its business dealings with the study taking more than six months to complete and having to file 73 petitions with the Pentagon, the state department, and the US agency for international development for information about contracts.
Two Democratic congressmen, Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan, have also accused the Bush administration of paying almost three times the market value for petrol imported into Iraq from Kuwait, with profits falling mostly to Halliburton.
The pair wrote to the White House to demand an explanation for why the United States was paying the company $US2.65 a gallon for oil, which it then sold on to Iraqi consumers at four to 15 cents a gallon.
"The US government is paying nearly three times more for gasoline from Kuwait than it should, and then it is reselling this gasoline at a huge loss inside Iraq," the congressmen said in a letter to Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser. "Whether this is due to incompetence, malfeasance, or some other reason, the waste of taxpayer dollars must be stopped."
Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg added: "Halliburton is looting the U.S. Treasury and this administration seems to be happy to help them."
Halliburton dismissed the claims saying the delivery of the fuels is 'difficult and hazardous in a hostile environment'.
As if to underline the relevance of the report the day before its arrival senators agreed to give $US18.4bn for the reconstruction of Iraq in grants, rather than loans, a move seen as a victory for the Bush administration, while President Bush was in Ohio trying to raise additional funds for an election warchest that has already reached $85m.
Democracy in its purest form.
