U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls of Post-war Reconstruction

Here is the breakdown of the cronyism going on in Iraq and afghanistan according to The Center for Public Integrity.

Winning Contractors
U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls of Post-war Reconstruction
WASHINGTON, October 30, 2003 — More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush—a little over $500,000—than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.
www.publicintegrity.org...

LOL!

What is $500K in a presidential campaign these days?
A pittance!

Regards US companies getting the contracts: who else should get them? France or Germany?

Regards companies that land oil contracts these are the biggest and best anyways. Coincidence? That is an issue but this is not as much backslapping at first glance that the critics make it out to be.

Now we just have to figure out how to get in on the action.

Things like this always tend to occur when there is war. The war machine starts up, money is handed out to companies, and in a different post someone mentioned technological advancements. The money is used to create bigger and better things for the US forces to use.

well lets do some simple math here.

70 companies and 500,000 dollars donated to his campaign.

about 7,000 per company. woah! talk about HUGE contributions....

i wonder how much they gave democrats??? i know they gave some for them (so at to cover all their bases).

sorry, this isnt as sensational as they want it to be.

its old hat really.

I think the campaign donation figures may have been misniterpreted here.

But more significant in dollar terms than the known corruption in Presidential campaign funding, which Americans are regularly asked to turn a blind eye to in the celebratory party atmosphere (celebrating what???) these very corrupt and despicable things go by less reported and less noticed:

* Executive Order 13303 where Bush tried to render the war profiteers from oil immune from legal suits;

* price gouging of the most obscene order for current sales of gasoline into Iraq...

The shape of Iraq will be quite different in five years time than the unplanned idiotic mess that the Bush admin has misengineered. But it will still be important to repatriate the profits back to their rightful owners, who are not the cronies of the Bush admin that are currently touting to be the fast buck merchant vultures.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

[Edited on 31-10-2003 by MaskedAvatar]

Hey we know they pay off their friends.

It is the way politics works all over the world frankly.

I would be more offended if they awarded a contract to some guy working out of a temporary office with no staff a mega million dollar contract just cause he is kissing somebody's butt.

These are legit companies that have been around for ages and are world famous for what they do. Even if you had completely world wide open bidding they would likely win it anyways I'm guessing.

NEO, you don't read much, do you? Do some research on the Bush family and look into the legislation that was passed to stop them from war-profiteering during the run up to WW2 and into it. I know, I know.. you don't need to do research, you know everything already

Thanks for sharing, kiddo!