Are We Supposed to be Shocked When We Aren't the Least Bit Surprised? Just business as usual in the good ol' USA. I mean, if you can't get by without a little help for your friends, you might just as well be a goshdarn socialist-commie-do goodin'-LIBERAL-pinko-fink-O.J is innocent-stooge!
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Executives, employees and political action committees of the 70 companies that received government contracts for work in either Iraq or Afghanistan contributed slightly more than $500,000 to President Bush's 2000 election campaign, according to a comprehensive study of the contracts released on Tuesday.
The overwhelming majority of government contracts for billions of dollars of reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies run by executives who were heavy political contributors to both political parties.
Though the employees contributed to both parties, their giving favored Republicans by a two-to-one margin. And they gave more money to Mr. Bush than any other politician in the last 12 years.
Among the biggest contributions to Mr. Bush's election and re-election efforts were those from executives and employees of Dell Computer at $113,000; of Bearing Point, a business consulting firm, at $119,000; of General Electric at $72,000 and of Halliburton Inc. at $28,000, according to the report.
Nine of the 10 biggest contractors — the biggest of which were Bechtel Corporation and Halliburton, either employed former senior government officials or had close ties to government agencies and to Congress.
Prepared by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research group, the report said the contractors' executives and employees had contributed $49 million to political candidates and parties since 1990.
The new report is the first comprehensive independent study of companies involved in Iraqi reconstruction, and it provides evidence that the process for handing out big contracts has often been secretive, chaotic and favorable to companies with good political contacts. ...
One consultant, given a four-month contract to advise Iraqi government agencies, was the husband of Carol Haave, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for security and information operations. A Pentagon spokesman said that Ms. Haave did not see this as a conflict of interest, according to Bloomberg News.
The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, told reporters on Thursday that "the reason that these companies get the contracts has nothing to do with who may have worked there before."
He added: "The decisions are made by career procurement officials. There's a separation, a wall, between them and political-level questions when they're doing the contracts."
One of the report's most basic conclusions is that neither the Pentagon nor the State Department or the Agency for International Development were eager to provide comprehensive or accurate information about contracts that total about $8 billion over the past two years.
