I’m surprised no one has set this one up, yet, so here goes.
As reported today in the SJ Merc News:
“Bechtel… won a lucrative, contracersial contract Thursday… to help rebuild Iraq’s war-ravaged power plants, water systems and ports. The contract-- worth as much as $680M over 18 months-- is the largest chunck of the $1.1B that the US Agency for International Development is expected to hand out to American companies…”
Shoud companies such as Bechtel, with extensive ties to various US administration, be excluded from the bidding process?
I’m somewhat conflicted on this. There are some obvious conflicts of interest involved, but how many companies around the globe could handle something like this? And how many of those companies DON’T have extensive ties to either the US gov’t or some other western gov’t.
It looks like the Bush administration is pretty much saying, to hell with public opinion. People who hate us are going to hate us no matter what we do, so let’s just ignore the PR and go about our business.
Well, there are a few, but not very many firms that have the capability to do it. most of them declined to bid on this. From my experience, which is limited to Rechtel’s nuclear power plant folks, is that they bid low, then screw things up so that it will cost 4 times as much to fix it, with them being the only ones who can fix it, natch.
USAID, I have heard but have no cite, is used as a front for the CIA at times, so I’d be wary of anything they do…
Also interesting is the fact that Becthel isn’t publicly owned (no shareholders), so they have less to answer to.
Would any company of that size and capabilty have no connection to theh US government… or the government of whichever country it is headquartered in?
E:
Yeah, that was part of my whole point. The other part, though, is it’s hard to think of a situation in recent history when “PR” was as important as what’s going on in Iraq right now. Even the most noble minded of actions can easily get twisted by the ObLs of the world. With something like this-- who knows?
For future reference, as I expect a new thread to start every time a company is awarded a contract, I figure these pages might help serve to lend some factual evidence to whatever stance a person might be wanting to take:
Contribution Breakdown of Companies
Company/Contract Breakdowns
And, if I did the search correctly, a listing of specific Bechtel donations
Crap, looks like the 3rd link doesn’t remain specific to the search I did. If you want to see for yourself do an individual donor search on “Bechtel”. Granted, you’ll get the random result of Mary Lou Bechtel, homemaker from Tennessee, but you get the idea.
Sorry about that, should have tested it first.
Company…Percent to Democrats…Percent to Republicans
Bechtel…41…59
Mull:
Thanks for the above info. I was hoping that this discussion would be more general than just Bechtel, but certainly they have, like many other companies, covered their bases with the 2 parties.
Well, living in Boston, where Bechtel has been the lead contractor in building our $14,300,000,000 new highway, I’ve certainly heard the name before. Usually associated with tales of cost overruns and accusations of mismanagement. Here’s the first relevant link I found: http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/bechtel/
However, there aren’t many other construction companies to choose from with the resources to handle such projects, and Halliburton would be even more politically unfeasible.
Yeah, and I don’t think we will be asking the bin Laden company in Saudi Arabia to place bids either.
We need to get as many Iraqis involved as possible. Hopefully, Bechtel will be subcontracting a lot of work to locals. I just hope they don’t make a mess of this…