Bush Pals Looking for $$$ to help Rebuild Iraq

[headscratcher4]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&ncid=68&e=1&u=/nyt/20030930/ts_nyt/washingtoninsidersnewfirmconsultsoncontractsiniraq

America, land of opporunity....

Really, this is not the Administration's problem. These guys are playing the game the way it has always been played in both past Democrat and Republican Administration. However, one can't help thinking that the closeness of the connections seem so tawdry. Republican rally against Davis in California for being too close to the lobbyiest, but in DC, they are building new firms to suck at the public teet...I guess it is all where you are in the food chain...

[arcticpenguin]

Please check your link:


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If they're looking for money, they should check under the sofa cushions.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by arcticpenguin
If they're looking for money, they should check under the sofa cushions.

Or maybe spend what they had planned as a campaign contribution...

[Cain]

Sure, I'll contribute a couple articles of interest:

"Washington Insiders' New Firm Consults on Contracts in Iraq": http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/politics/30LOBB.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to President Bush, his family and his administration have set up a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects.

The firm, New Bridge Strategies, is headed by Joe M. Allbaugh, Mr. Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until March. Other directors include Edward M. Rogers Jr., vice chairman, and Lanny Griffith, lobbyists who were assistants to the first President George Bush and now have close ties to the White House.

At a time when the administration seeks Congressional approval for $20.3 billion to rebuild Iraq, part of an $87 billion package for military and other spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, the company's Web site, www.newbridgestrategies.com, says, "The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C., and on the ground in Iraq."

The site calls attention to the links between the company's directors and the two Bush administrations by noting, for example, that Mr. Allbaugh, the chairman, was "chief of staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas and was the national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign."

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And Paul Krugman's mandatory column: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/opinion/30KRUG.html

It's official: the administration that once scorned nation-building now says that it's engaged in a modern version of the Marshall Plan. But Iraq isn't postwar Europe, and George W. Bush definitely isn't Harry Truman. Indeed, while Truman led this country in what Churchill called the "most unsordid act in history," the stories about Iraqi reconstruction keep getting more sordid. And the sordidness isn't, as some would have you believe, a minor blemish on an otherwise noble enterprise.

Cronyism is an important factor in our Iraqi debacle. It's not just that reconstruction is much more expensive than it should be. The really important thing is that cronyism is warping policy: by treating contracts as prizes to be handed to their friends, administration officials are delaying Iraq's recovery, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

It's rarely mentioned nowadays, but at the time of the Marshall Plan, Americans were very concerned about profiteering in the name of patriotism. To get Congressional approval, Truman had to provide assurances that the plan would not become a boondoggle. Funds were administered by an agency independent of the White House, and Marshall promised that priorities would be determined by Europeans, not Americans.

Fortunately, Truman's assurances were credible. Although he is now honored for his postwar leadership, Truman initially rose to prominence as a fierce crusader against war profiteering, which he considered treason.

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