WASHINGTON: More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Centre for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush — a little over $500,000 —than to any other politician over the last dozen years, a study by the centre for Public Integrity found.
Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton — which Vice President Dick Cheney led before he was chosen as Bush’s running mate in August 2000 — was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries — more than $2.3 billion. Bechtel Group, a major government contractor with similarly high-ranking ties, was second at around $1.03 billion.
Dozens of lower-profile, but well-connected, companies shared in the reconstruction bounty. Their tasks ranged from rebuilding Iraq’s government, police, military and media to providing translators for use in interrogations and psychological operations.
Nearly 60 per cent of the companies had employees or board members who either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican and Democratic administrations, for members of the US Congress of both parties, or at the highest levels of the military.
The results of the six-month investigation by the centre provide the most comprehensive list to date of American contractors in the two nations that were attacked in Washington’s war on terror. Based on the findings, it did not appear that any one government agency knew the total number of contractors or what they were doing. Congressional sources said they hoped such a full picture would emerge from the General Accounting Office, which has begun investigating the postwar contracting process amid allegations of fraud and cronyism.
The centre’s investigation focused on the three agencies that awarded most of the Iraq and Afghanistan contracts in 2002 and 2003 — the Pentagon, the State Department and the US Agency for International Development. It found that nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former high-ranking government officials or individuals with close ties to those agencies or Congress.
In addition, those top 10 contractors were established political donors, contributing nearly $11 million to national political parties, candidates and political action committees since 1990, according to an analysis of campaign finance records.
POLITICAL PLAYERS: Indeed, most of the companies that won contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan were political players. According to the centre’s analysis, the companies, their political action committees and their employees contributed a total of nearly $49 million to national political campaigns and parties since 1990.
According to the findings of the investigation, 14 of the contractors were awarded US government work in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Combined, those companies gave nearly $23 million in political contributions since 1990, and 13 employ former government officials or have close ties to various agencies and departments.
Although Afghanistan was once ground zero in Washington’s war on terrorism, spending on Iraq was more than double that on Afghanistan. At least $5.7 billion in government funding was slated for US contractors in Iraq, compared to nearly $2.7 billion for Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, had been based in Afghanistan, and prior to the March 2003 war on Iraq, US officials had said that a democratic Afghanistan was central to winning the war on terror.
The centre’s findings are based, in part, on 73 Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals to USAID, the Pentagon and its various uniformed services and the State Department, as well as an analysis of the General Services Administration database of contracts from 1990 through fiscal year 2002 — more than 7 million federal contract actions, in all.
Response to the requests was sporadic, at best, and on Oct. 29, the centre filed suit in the US District Court in Washington, D.C., against the State Department and the Army after both agencies failed to respond fully to its request for information as outlined under FOIA law.
For example, media accounts have noted that the State Department has a contract with DynCorp for work in Iraq worth at least $50 million, which reportedly could grow in value to as much as $800 million under the administration’s new spending request for Iraq. The Department of State did not respond to centre requests for information about this or any of its other contracts in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The US Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract to the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, potentially worth billions under an omnibus military contract known as “indefinite quantity-indefinite delivery,” which is one of the largest of its kind in US history.
Because of inconsistent and scarce information, the total value of contracts awarded for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan may be greater than what is publicly known. The centre found that there was no uniformity across the government in how contract values were reported. For example, the amount listed for an individual contract either represented only what had been paid to date on a multi-year contract, or a minimum and maximum dollar range of the contract, or, in some instances, a single figure, without any specification as to whether it represented a first payment, a first-year total, or a multi-year total. In some instances, the centre could determine nothing about what a particular contract cost or entailed because neither the company nor the government agency responsible for it would divulge that information.
The difficulty in obtaining contract amounts and the contradictory information coming from within government departments raise questions about management and oversight of the reconstruction effort. Although USAID has said that “to ensure that US tax dollars are utilised efficiently and effectively, USAID is providing a transparent monitoring and evaluation system to ensure that contractors are meeting their goals and staying on schedule,” the centre’s investigation suggested otherwise.
For example, in a list of contracts initially provided to the centre under FOIA, both USAID and the Pentagon omitted the largest contracts they had awarded in Iraq — to Bechtel and to Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary. Also omitted from the Pentagon’s list were major defence contractors such as Fluor, Washington Group International and Perini Corporation, each of which stands to earn up to $500 million for its Pentagon work in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. Combined, the three companies and their subsidiaries have won more than $11 billion dollars in US government contracts from 1990 through fiscal year 2002.— Courtesy The Centre for Public Integrity
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