Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A01
Stephen
Sniegoski
has this comment on the "Spending on
Iraq...." War
Profiteering Gold Rush WAR profiteers are looming large in
occupied Iraq. They undoubtedly provided
auxiliary support for the war on Iraq.
But now they are drawing scrutiny from the
media and Congress. War profiteering will
likely be a major Democratic criticism of
the Bush Administration. It is
politically safe -- no one supports war
profiteering but the war profiteers -- and
has mass appeal. 
David
Irving starts a new US tour this
Fall 2003. Locations include: Atlanta, New
Orleans, Houston, Arlington (TX), Oklahoma
City, Albuquerque, Tucson, Phoenix, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Portland (Oregon),
Moscow (Idaho), Sacramento, Las Vegas,
Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago,
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville. The
theme is comparisons - Hitler, Churchill,
Iraq, war crimes law, and Iraq.
[register
interest]
|
Lawmakers
Fear U.S. Is Losing Control of Funds Spending On Iraq
Sets Off Gold Rush By Jonathan Weisman and
Anitha Reddy
Washington Post Staff
Writers AS the House today takes up
President Bush's $87 billion spending request for
Iraq and Afghanistan, the debate over the bill is
increasingly focused not just on the amount of
money but also on who will get it. Of the $4 billion a month already being spent in
Iraq, as much as a third is going to the private
contractors who have flooded into the country, said
Deborah D. Avant, a political scientist at
George Washington University and an expert in the
new breed of private military companies. The flow
of money will increase greatly if Congress approves
Bush's request. Many of the services being sought -- including
police training, crimes-against-humanity
investigations and prison-construction expertise --
are highly specialized. Conditions are dangerous.
Experts say American taxpayers can expect to pay a
hefty premium to contractors in a classic seller's
market. Among the dozens of projects in the proposal is
a State Department plan to spend $800 million to
build a large training facility for a new Iraqi
police force. Management fees alone would run $26
million a month, while 1,500 police trainers would
cost $240,000 each per year, or $20,000 each per
month. DynCorp of Reston is likely to get the
contract. "All I can say is it's mind-boggling," James
Lyons, a former military subcontractor in
Bosnia, said of the opportunities for private
contractors. "People must be drooling." Avant said that as many as 1 in 10 Americans
deployed in Iraq and Kuwait -- perhaps 20,000 --
are contractors, a group larger than any of the
military forces fielded there by Britain or other
U.S. allies. Kellogg, Brown
& Root, a subsidiary of Vice President
Cheney's former firm, Houston-based
Halliburton Corp., has an exclusive contract to
rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure. San
Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. is the prime
contractor for much of the infrastructure
reconstruction. The Iraqi gold rush has raised concerns on
Capitol Hill that the administration may be losing
control of the taxpayers' money. As the task of
rebuilding shifts from government employees to
for-profit contractors, members of Congress are
worried that their oversight will diminish, cost
controls will weaken and decisions about security,
training and the shape of the new Iraqi government
will be in the hands of people with financial
stakes in the outcome. Avant calls it "the
commercialization of foreign policy." The Coalition Provisional Authority is
bolstering its contracting operations to keep up
with the flow of money from Washington,
congressional aides said, but lawmakers still
complain that the process of bidding out and
awarding contracts and subcontracts needs to be far
more transparent and organized.  "What we're seeing is waste and
gold-plating that's enriching Halliburton and
Bechtel while costing taxpayers billions of
dollars and actually holding back the pace of
reconstruction in Iraq," said Rep. Henry A.
Waxman (D-Calif. above), a leading
critic of the administration's handling of Iraq.
"We need greater transparency." Driven by those concerns, the Senate last week
added provisions to its version of the president's
request that would increase penalties for war
profiteering and demand a more open and competitive
bidding system. House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W.
Bill Young (R-Fla.) included a provision to
limit noncompetitive bidding in the House version
of the war-spending bill. Dan Senor, a senior adviser to Coalition
Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul
Bremer, said such concerns are misplaced. He
said competition among contractors would keep costs
down. "We are confident that there will be an enormous
supply of contractors and subcontractors interested
in these projects," he said. "That's what our
experience has shown." But Senor also emphasized that the authority's
primary contracting concerns right now are speed
and reducing the pressure on U.S. troops by
replacing them with contractors wherever
possible. For example, Fairfax-based Vinnell Corp., a
subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp., won a $48
million contract in July to begin training a new
Iraqi army, a sum that would be dwarfed by the $164
million for military contract training contained in
Bush's $87 billion request. Vinnell, in turn,
subcontracted with Alexandria-based Military
Professional Resources Inc. and several other
companies. Erinys, a British company with offices in the
Middle East and South Africa, is guarding oil
fields and pipelines that are in danger from
saboteurs. Custer Battles LLC, another Fairfax company, is
providing security for Baghdad International
Airport, guarding ground convoys and protecting
other contractors with 250 employees who served in
the U.S., Nepalese, British, French and Australian
military, joined by 300 to 400 Iraqis, said
Scott Custer, a principal of the firm. Those
numbers, he said, are "expanding
exponentially." "Iraqi operations are now the majority of our
business," Custer said yesterday. Those contracts are only the beginning. Edwin
E. Brockway, a manager in the defense and
federal products division of the
construction-equipment company Caterpillar Inc.,
said 500 to 600 of his company's machines are
already in Iraq. He said he expects Caterpillar to
receive many more orders for bulldozers and pipe
layers as private companies win contracts to
rebuild Iraq's sewer systems, water-purification
plants and roads. The bulldozers used by soldiers
in Iraq range in price from $100,000 to nearly $1
million, and the Army hires service companies to
repair and maintain the equipment. Engineered Support Systems Inc. estimated that
the military is using 4,000 of its gigantic
portable air conditioners and heaters in tents and
portable shelters in Iraq. Each unit costs $11,000
and can heat or cool a few thousand square
feet. "The Army and Air Force have said, 'How many
more can you build? How quickly can you build
them?' " said Bruce Gibbens, director of
field marketing for the St. Louis company. Congressional aides from both parties point to
the police-training program to illustrate their
concerns. DynCorp, a subsidiary of California-based
Computer Sciences Corp., landed the initial
police-training contract this summer, a contract
that is likely to expand greatly if all $800
million is approved. The State Department envisions
establishing a training camp capable of handling
3,000 recruits and 1,000 trainers and support staff
at any given time. The camp would turn out 35,000
Iraqi police officers in just two years. DynCorp has begun recruiting 1,000 "police
advisors" with at least 10 years of experience in
law enforcement or corrections, an "unblemished
background" and "excellent health." The draw?
DynCorp plans to pay salaries
as high as $153,600, with minimum pay of
$75,076.92. DynCorp declined to comment on the contract,
referring calls to the State Department. "The money is pretty good," said Doug
Brooks, president of the International Peace
Operations Association, an Alexandria-based trade
group of private military companies. "But the risk
is there, too." Brooks said fears of price gouging are
overblown. Erinys, the British firm guarding oil
facilities, won its $30 million security contract
by underbidding its competition by $10 million, he
said. "Yes, there are a lot of security companies
there," he said. "But I know quite a few that are
still waiting for contracts. If one company asks a
gouging price, there's going to be another in
line." 
Previous comments by Stephen Sniegoski: 
The hunt
for weapons of mass destruction yields -
nothing-
Official Is
Prepared To Address Issue Of Iraqi
Deception
-
Stephen
Sniegoski: "More on War Liberalism"
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