is it just me or did david brooks miss the entire point this morning? i mean, he argues against the claims that the bush administration is handing out contracts in iraq to its political supporters. brooks claims that there are strict procedures that the government follows to avoid such abuses. while he alludes to a single no-bid contract, he really does not really discuss the full nature of how critics of the administration claim the regular federal contract procedures are being circumvented. the first contracts in iraq were awarded to halliburton without competitive bids. brooks claims that the no-bid contract was justified because the u.s. government did not have time to go through the competitive bidding process last spring when it needed to immediately get firefighters on the ground in iraq. however, as the article i just linked to points out, the u.s. recently announced that it was extending that no-bid contract even though there is no rush now.
furthermore, because halliburton and its subsidiaries already had equipment and personnel on the ground in iraq because of the initial no-bid contracts, the company had a distinct advantage in the awarding of subsequent contracts. indeed, the bechtel group, a halliburton competitor, has publicly complained that the job descriptions of those contracts which were put up for competitive bids seemed to be written specifically with halliburton in mind. the bechtel group claimed that because they were written that way, it was impossible for any other company to get the contract other than halliburton.
brooks writes that those people "who actually know something about the government procurement process" do not see anything wrong with how contracts are being awarded in iraq. but the bechtel group certainly knows about the process, it has been a government contractor many times before, and yet it went to the press claiming that the bidding process was being undermined to favor halliburton. the members of the senate also are familiar with the process, which is why they included in the recent $87.5 billion appropriations bill a provision that future contracts cannot be awarded without competitive bids or congressional oversight. the provision was taken out by the house members in the conference committee and was not in the final bill that president bush signed. if nothing odd is going on here, why did someone work hard to get the competitive bid and oversight provision removed?
everything about this iraq adventure reeks of war profiteering. reconstruction of iraq has often been compared to the marshall plan, but the marshall plan included strict oversight of the money allocated, and a requirement that reconstruction priorities be decided by locals who could use local companies to perform the reconstruction work (if you think about it, using local companies makes the most sense if we really want to rebuild, rather than simply loot, iraq. when you use an american company, the portion of the reconstruction funds will flow out of iraq as profits. if you use a local company the profits stay in iraq to be reinvested in the iraqi economy). brooks' weak defense of the bush administration's corruption when it comes to iraq only makes me support naomi klein's call to get foreign company's out of iraq.
