US firms win more Iraq deals
The American corporations that snapped up the early contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq will take a larger slice of the pie than previously disclosed.
Halliburton Co and Bechtel Group Inc, which have been awarded lucrative deals to help get Iraq back on its feet after the US-led invasion, are expected to win further contracts, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The Post reported that Halliburton, the world’s second-largest oilfield service company, could make hundreds of millions more dollars than earlier disclosed for services such as maintaining Iraqi oilfields under a US Army Corps of Engineers contract, according to documents surveyed by the newspaper.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Agency for International Development had recently said that San Francisco-based construction company Bechtel will receive about $350 million for infrastructure projects. That would amount to about 50% more than earlier allocated for Bechtel services, the paper said.
Cheney’s chums
The US General Accounting Office has told aides to US congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, that Halliburton subsidiary Brown and Root is likely to earn “several hundred million more dollars” from the no-bid Corps of Engineers contract to rehabilitate oilfields, The Post said.
The paper also surveyed a spreadsheet provided by the Joint Munitions Command that gave detailed estimates of money obligated to Brown and Root.
Houston-based Halliburton was once headed by US Vice President Dick Cheney.