Search

Well the war has been a huge success, and I guess it's time for congratulations all round. And wow! It's hard to know where to begin. First, I'd like to congratulate Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) and the Bechtel Corporation, which are the construction companies most likely to benefit from the reconstruction of Iraq. Contracts in the region of $1 billion should soon coming your way, chaps. Well done! And what with the US dropping 15,000 precision-guided munitions, 7,500 unguided bombs and 750 cruise missiles on Iraq so far and with more to come, there's going to be a lot of reconstruction. It looks like it could be a bonanza year.

BOSTON - April 28 -- Median CEO pay at the 37 largest defense contractors rose 79 percent from 2001 to 2002, while overall CEO pay climbed only 6 percent, according to a new report from United for a Fair Economy, "More Bucks for the Bang: CEO Pay at Top Defense Contractors," by Chris Hartman and David Martin.

In this special investigative series we look at Bechtel's friends in high places, the revolving door between government and the corporate giant and some of its past boondoggles.

CorpWatch has learned that VP Cheney's former company has a $multi-million contract servicing troops in Kuwait. This special series looks at how Halliburton profits from the Iraq war, now that bombs are falling on Baghdad.

As legend has it, Peter Berlandi, chief campaign fund-raiser for the Massachusetts governor William Weld in the 1990s, was not subtle when he intervened on behalf of Bechtel's multi-billion dollar "Big Dig" Boston Central Artery construction project. Berlandi allegedly called the company's competitors in the construction industry and said: "If you want to work in this state again, don't play games with Bechtel."

Bechtel Corp., the San Francisco construction giant known for its global reach and high-powered political connections, won a contract Thursday worth up to $680 million to rebuild Iraqi roads, schools, sewers and hospitals damaged in the war.

Fifteen activists bound together by a mixture of roofing tar, chicken wire and nails wrapped around PVC piping were arrested Tuesday after trying to block the entrance to General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products Co.

Bush administration officials have been clear in saying that as the war winds down and they begin their campaign to bring political reform to Iraq and the Middle East, a critical step will be opening the region's markets to trade and investment.

Private Jessica Lynch is a hero, the kind who in her hopefully long life will never escape her youthful fame. The baby-faced 19-year-old fought off Iraqis in an ambush, endured broken bones, gunshot and stab wounds, and went eight days without food. This movie played in real time has all the elements that make fast-paced war flicks like "Behind Enemy Lines" box office magic. Her face, frozen with what must have been shock, pain and relief during her rescue, is already one of the most haunting images of the war.

When the dust finally settles on post-war Iraq, the United States may have unleashed virtually all of its state-of-the-art weaponry on a country already devastated by 13 years of rigid U.N. sanctions.

At the December 2004 Destination Baghdad Expo in Iraq, Iraqex listed itself as Iraq-based, but provided only its Washington telephone and address. Then, in March 2005, it changed its name yet again, to Lincoln Group, a communications and PR firm "providing insight and influence in challenging and hostile environments." And on June 11, along with SYColeman and Science Applications International Corp., Lincoln Group got its JPSE contract.

A major military contractor - already underfire for alleged human rights violations and fraud - may get a multi-million dollar contract to police post-Saddam Iraq.

Why Dick Cheney's wartime conflicts of interest are among the most troubling in Washington.

Examining recently released government and corporate sources, researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies have uncovered new evidence that oil has long been the driving concern behind US-Iraqi relations. Key figures associated with the Bush Administration, in particular Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, pressed Saddam Hussein during the mid '80's to approve the Aqaba pipeline project from Iraq to Jordan.

The surreptitious way the process for inviting engineering companies to submit bids for the rebuilding of Iraq was handled could lead to more trouble for the Bush administration, writes Mark Tran

Even before winning the war, the United States appears intent on managing the peace and the costly reconstruction on its own. This opens Washington to criticism that the conflict is partially about profiteering, rather than simply the removal of a vile dictator and the introduction of some stability to a volatile region.

The subtleties surrounding the sensitive role oil plays in the Iraqi war may have eluded the United States Army. Deep in some newspaper coverage yesterday was a report that the 101st Airborne Division had named one central Iraq outpost Forward Operating Base Shell and another Forward Operating Base Exxon.