First Obligatory Iraq Post:
Over at the NYT I read on yestedays decision by the all mighty Pentagon to keep "non-coalition" countries out of the bidding process. you can read it here. Now Canada and others are pissy about this. First off, this isn't really the problem. The question that needs to be asked is why the US is shelling out contracts to rebuild Iraq and not an Iraqi government. Of course the answer is the Iraq is America's newest meal-I mean colony. What do companies bestowed the cash of the US taxpayer?
well a look see over here reveals the high quality hand work:
"In almost every case, the paint jobs were done in a hurry, causing more damage to the appearance of the school than in terms of providing a finish that will protect the structure," a recent Army investigation into Bechtel's work found. "In one case, the paint job actually damaged critical lab equipment, making it unusable."
Bechtel is one of the biggest corporate winners of U.S. contracts to rebuild Iraq. Before the war ended, it received a $680 million contract to fix Iraq's electrical grids, water ports and more than 1,200 schools. In October, it won an additional $350 million contract to continue the electrical work.
Grab the cash and run. This is, of course, how the real profits are made. Of course Coalition Partners will make the cash. Looking at the list of coalition countries it should be clear that the main beneficiaries will be US and British companies, in that order. And they won't be employing any US people for these jobs. Not many anyway. why ship over expensive US workers when you can exploit some Ugandans, Kenyans and Iraqis? Speaking of exploitation of workers. let me get off this here and get that Walmart commentary going.
links:
http://nytimes.com/2003/12/11/international/middleeast/11PREX.html?hp
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=IRAQ-BECHTEL-12-08-03&cat=II
(17 years of informed commentary)
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