Under Cheops’ pyramid”
Was that the contractor did
Cheops out of several millions? . . .
(Rudyard Kipling, “Departmental Ditties”)
THE ASSAULTS ON THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S Iraq policy grow more cartoonish with each passing day. Last week the Center for Public Integrity and its journalistic and Democratic party echo chamber insinuated that the White House harbors a nest of war profiteers. “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,” read the breathless press release announcing the center’s new study, “Windfalls of War.” “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, the Center found.”
The Associated Press soon chimed in with a barely rewritten version of that press release, headlined “Report Links Iraq Deals to Bush Donations.” Citing the center’s study, the AP reported that “most of the 10 largest contracts went to companies that employed former high-ranking government officials, or executives with close ties to members of Congress and even the agencies awarding their contracts.”
Then, faster than you can say coordinated attack, came the press releases from the Democratic campaigns: “Clark Questions War-Related Windfall for Bush Backers; Calls for More Transparency” read a typical one, citing, again, the “more than $500,000” donated to Bush by the contractors.
Excuse us while we suppress a yawn and go back to our Kipling:
Do not deal with anything
New or never said before.
As it was in the beginning
Is to-day official sinning,
And shall be for evermore!
Yes, yes: Some people are going to make handsome profits from the reconstruction of Iraq, and we should pay close attention that they earn those profits honestly. And, yes, the usual arcane and cumbersome system of competitive bidding for federal contracts has been suspended in the interests of urgency. Shouldn’t it be? Is the reconstruction of Iraq not urgent business? Is there evidence that, say, Halliburton, the conglomerate once run by the vice president, shouldn’t be the largest contractor in Iraq, where it is helping get the oil industry back on its feet? This is, after all, Halliburton’s line of work. Is Halliburton in some way not up to the task? Is some better qualified company sitting on the sidelines? Would it have been advisable to tell the Iraqis to chill while we issued requests for proposals and then took competitive bids for the work? Who knows? Maybe Saddam Hussein’s French and Russian collaborators, arguably more familiar with Iraq’s infrastructure than American firms, would have underbid Halliburton and saved taxpayers a few million.
When it comes to malpractice in Iraq, we are not incapable of being outraged. But ritual incantations of the words Halliburton and cronyism don’t do it for us. Neither does huffing and puffing about a very old and unsurprising story–that government contractors routinely employ former government officials, and that individuals at such companies habitually make donations to political candidates of both parties. What’s missing from this elaborate insult to the Bush administration (which you can read for yourself at www.publicintegrity.org/wow/default.aspx) is any sense that the critics give a damn about the future of Iraq. If they did, they might have shined useful light on issues like the proper balance between American and Iraqi firms in reconstruction, and the degree to which military functions should be devolved onto private contractors.
Oh, and one other thing got left out of these stories. Those profiteering contractors are dying alongside American soldiers. As the AP reported the day before the “Windfalls of War” was released, “A contractor near the Iraqi city of Fallujah died and an American engineer was wounded when their vehicles came under attack Monday–possibly by U.S. soldiers, said the British-based company, European Landmine Solutions. . . . The chief military contractor in Iraq, Kellogg, Brown & Root [a Halliburton subsidiary], has had three workers killed in Iraq, two of whom died in ambushes. Another top U.S. military contractor, DynCorp, saw three of its workers killed in an ambush by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip this month.” Some windfall.
–Richard Starr, for the Editors
