Who is Getting the Contracts to Rebuild Iraq....

[headscratcher4]

http://salon.com/news/wire/2003/10/30/donations/index.html

Guess who is getting the contracts in Iraq...but, it is because they deserve those no-bid contracts, not because they give money to Bush...:rolleyes:

[renata]

Originally posted by headscratcher4
http://salon.com/news/wire/2003/10/30/donations/index.html

Guess who is getting the contracts in Iraq...but, it is because they deserve those no-bid contracts, not because they give money to Bush...:rolleyes:

Headscratcher, you pinkie liberal commie!
Obviously, the companies to got the contracts were the most qualified. And the reason they were so, is because they were headed by wise and competent businessmen . And as such, those leaders, obviously gave donations to a Republican, pro business candidate. Sheesh! You see conspiracies everywhere! Next thing you will do is ask for an investigation! I mean it is not like this is a bad land deal or a stay in Lincoln bedroom , or firing of travel staff or lying about a blow job! :rolleyes:

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by headscratcher4
http://salon.com/news/wire/2003/10/30/donations/index.html

Guess who is getting the contracts in Iraq...

US companies by any chance?

[clk]

From the article:

Major contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan were awarded by the Bush administration without competitive bids, because agencies said competition would have taken too much time to meet urgent needs in both countries.


Why didn't they start these competitions a few months before the war? Oh, that's right...at that time, Bush was still trying desperately to avoid war :rolleyes:

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by clk
Why didn't they start these competitions a few months before the war? Oh, that's right...at that time, Bush was still trying desperately to avoid war :rolleyes:

You can't bid for a contract if you have no idea what the job entails.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Short answer?
FOG's - Friends of George's and
FECS- Former employers of cabinet secretaries

There were major contracts that were signed BEFORE the war (war?) even started, they were no bid.

thats where the 86 doller apeice plywood ( that you can purchace at home depot for <$10 ) came from.

[Landis]

Bush's new campaign slogan should be "Bush, the best president money can buy!"

[Charles Livingston]

Originally posted by Landis
Bush's new campaign slogan should be "Bush, the best president money can buy!"

That would apply to almost every president.

[Furious]

Originally posted by renata


Headscratcher, you pinkie liberal commie!
Obviously, the companies to got the contracts were the most qualified. And the reason they were so, is because they were headed by wise and competent businessmen . And as such, those leaders, obviously gave donations to a Republican, pro business candidate. Sheesh! You see conspiracies everywhere! Next thing you will do is ask for an investigation! I mean it is not like this is a bad land deal or a stay in Lincoln bedroom , or firing of travel staff or lying about a blow job! :rolleyes:

Please, please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not calling the people who look at this skeptically pinko liberal communists because it sure does look like cronyism. My question is based on intellectual curiousity, and not a malicious attempt to denigrate the article.

What other companies out there are capable of rebuilding a Iraq's infrastructure quickly?

The answer to that question may not even really exist, since:
A) It is probably hard to quantify how much needs to be rebuilt.
B) It is debatable how the work should be split up and how efficiently any given company would perform such work.
C) Rebuilding a nation's infrastructure isn't a common occurence and is probably unique to each country.
D) It is hard to quantify how long the bidding process would take, and I think most people agree, the faster we rebuild Iraq, the better.

[Landis]

I saw a TV news report on MSNBC over the weekend where a US Soldier ( not sure the rank but he was the commander of his division in Iraq) needed to get a steel mill back in operation. The plant had been badly damaged by allied bombind during the initial phase of the war. When he requested funds he was met with typical bureauratic nonsense. He was told it would cost millions and take many months. Fortunately, he was gifted with a can do attitude. He rounded up the former Iraqi employees of the plant and turned the task of restoring operations over to them. They went to work at a rapid pace dismantling damaged machinery and salvaging the parts to get other machines back in operations. The end result was that for a cost of $10,000 they were able to restore operations and output in a short amount of time.

Perhaps, instead of giving out all of those contracts to big American Corporations, they should just let the Iraqi people do the work themselves.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Just to clarify...

When and where did the sarcasm begin in this thread?;)

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Originally posted by Landis
I saw a TV news report on MSNBC over the weekend where a US Soldier ( not sure the rank but he was the commander of his division in Iraq) needed to get a steel mill back in operation. The plant had been badly damaged by allied bombind during the initial phase of the war. When he requested funds he was met with typical bureauratic nonsense. He was told it would cost millions and take many months. Fortunately, he was gifted with a can do attitude. He rounded up the former Iraqi employees of the plant and turned the task of restoring operations over to them. They went to work at a rapid pace dismantling damaged machinery and salvaging the parts to get other machines back in operations. The end result was that for a cost of $10,000 they were able to restore operations and output in a short amount of time.

Perhaps, instead of giving out all of those contracts to big American Corporations, they should just let the Iraqi people do the work themselves.

crazy concept, might just work

[TillEulenspiegel]

Originally posted by Furious




What other companies out there are capable of rebuilding a Iraq's infrastructure quickly?

The answer to that question may not even really exist, since:
A) It is probably hard to quantify how much needs to be rebuilt.
B) It is debatable how the work should be split up and how efficiently any given company would perform such work.
C) Rebuilding a nation's infrastructure isn't a common occurence and is probably unique to each country.
D) It is hard to quantify how long the bidding process would take, and I think most people agree, the faster we rebuild Iraq, the better.

In answer to Your question ..none , but the firms hired ( even if they were Dubya's friends ) have the same lack of grasp of the needs and scope of project that every schmo from bob's plumbing to general dynamics has.
A)it was impossible to quntify the rebuilding effortnow , but BEFORE the war ever took place that didn't stop the administration from signing contracts with thier friends ( while George II was baying for an accptence for war by the American people and the UN ).
B) well george and posse didn't care about scope of contract they just hired there friends with the ole texas handshake..Ah boys don't worry about the cost , We'll cover It later.
c) see above comments.
D) I disaggree the faster we hand that bloody piece of real estate off to it's inhabidence without our tax dollars flowing like the Tigres The better

[fishbob]

well george and posse didn't care about scope of contract they just hired there friends with the ole texas handshake..Ah boys don't worry about the cost , We'll cover It later.

Not quite. Yup, just hired their buddies, but they probably signed a 5 pound (2.3 kg) contract with so many clauses and subsections that the lawyers are still reviewing it. It will certainly have so many admistrative requirements that providing a hammer to Iraq will cost at least $900. Halliburton and Bechtel are very good at this type of administrative work. Also Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Fluor. What these guys are not good at is moving fast or effectively.

[corplinx]

Yes, the administration hired the same companies that always do this sort of work to do this sort of work yet again.


FOR SHAME!

I'm shocked and outraged. Its ibvioulsy kickbacks as a part of a large web of corruption between the DIC and the white house.

Or, maybe its more mundane like "lets not waste time, lets just sign the companies that we know can do the work". Nah, thats too mundane. There's gotta be more to it! Occam's Razor be damned!

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

http://www.thatwasrandom.com/random/images/58.jpg

[Agammamon]

I don't know about the rest but KBR deserved their contracts. It was obvious from the Army commissioned report that KBR was he company best suited to handle rebuilding Iraq, after all KBR was the independent company hired by the Army to evaluate contracts and you can't get much more impartial than that.

[Frank Newgent]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3905.htm

The Army says KBR got the Iraqi oil-field contract without having to compete for it because, according to the Army's classified contingency plan for repairing Iraq 's infrastructure, KBR was the only company with the skills, resources and security clearances to do the job on short notice. Who wrote the Army's contingency plan? KBR. It was in a position to do so because it holds another contract that is poorly understood yet in many ways more important, and potentially bigger, than the one to repair the oil fields: the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or Logcap, which essentially turns KBR into a kind of for-profit Ministry of Public Works for the Army. Under Logcap, which KBR won in open bidding in 2001, KBR is on call to the Army for 10 years to do a lot of the things most people think soldiers do for themselves -- from fixing trucks to warehousing ammunition, from delivering mail to cleaning up hazardous waste. K.P. is history; KBR civilians now peel potatoes, and serve them, at many installations. KBR does the laundry. It fixes the pipes and cleans the sewers, generates the power and repairs the wiring. It built some of the bases used in the Iraq war.

Writing the oil-field contingency plan was only one of a thousand things KBR did for the Army last year under Logcap. (KBR has a similarly broad contract with the Navy, under which it built, among other things, the cages for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay .) The technical term for Logcap is ''cost-reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity,'' or ''cost-plus,'' meaning KBR spends whatever it believes necessary to get a job done, then adds from 1 to 9 percent as profit. There's practically no limit on how lucrative Logcap can be, and as the awarding of the Iraqi oil-field contract -- by KBR, to KBR -- demonstrates, Logcap can become a generator of yet more contracts. Nothing like it exists elsewhere in government. That KBR wrote the oil-field plan wasn't considered by the Army a disqualifying conflict of interest -- in fact, just the opposite. ''They were the company best positioned to execute the oil-field work because of their involvement in the planning,'' said Lt. Col. Gene Pawlik, an Army spokesman.
Do they still have to drink Odoul's?

[TillEulenspiegel]

Damn right frank...gotta keep our presious bodily fluids pure!

Isn't a hoot how some people ( notice I didn't say democrats or repubilican or conserviyive or liberal ) rationalize the most damning behavior from the folks that they identify with where if a member of the oppisition ever pulld the same crap they would have 'em drawn and quartered?
Yup yup Dubya cut all the red tape to get the job done...and we all know that the war was Clinton's fault anyway ( heard he was gona have Hillery run so's he could get back to his old digs).

edit to add
Is it just me or does anyone else see a problem with the fact that there were signed contracts BEFORE the war while G II and Wolfowitz n Cheany N Rumsfeld where doin dog and pony shows every night trying to drum up support for a war that they already decided to wage?