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Carving Up the New Iraq
This article originally appeared in the Glasgow Sunday Herald on Tuesday April 15, 2003. It has been edited for length. A full version can be viewed at www.truthout.org/docs_03/041703A.shtml.

Iraq lies in ruins this morning. Its cities are bombed; its buildings have been torched by teenage arsonists; its shops, hospitals, factories, and homes have been looted. This is Year Zero for Iraq. The old regime is gone and the United States is to rebuild this country literally from the ground up.

Since the beginning of the year, America has had its reconstruction plan in place. Answering directly to Centcom commander General Tommy Franks, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner will be in command of the reconstruction effort. [L. Paul Bremer has since been named to head the reconstruction.] He will be aided by a series of military hardmen, diplomats and Republican party place-men who will help the United States create "Free Iraq''—aided by exiles who are returning to get their share of the spoils.

This isn't a selfless exercise. In a special Sunday Herald investigation, we have charted the network of financial kickbacks, political pay-backs, cronyism, self-interest, and ferocious ideology that underpins the entire reconstruction scheme.

The us denies that men like Jay Garner [who has since been replaced by L. Paul Bremer] are in effect the first wave of a military occupation. The Bush administration insists that it wants these men to work their way out of a job as quickly as possible. Some have mentioned three months as the possible length of their tenure in Iraq—others, more realistically, claim five years is a more likely term, taking the length of the us occupation of post-war Japan as the best comparison. America will be entrenched in this nation for decades to come. The colonization process has begun already.
In this investigation we have traced the roots of the reconstruction process back to the ideologues—the neo-conservatives now in the ascendancy in the us government—who devised the scheme. These men see the us military as the "cavalry on the new American frontier''; they wanted Saddam's "regime changed'' long before Bush took power and they have long dreamt of a permanent us satellite in the Gulf. They have also been brutally honest about having a say over Iraq's oil fields.

Ideology is ideology, but in the us government political theory goes hand-in-hand with big business. The end result of the lofty musings of Republican hawks fashioning the concepts behind the new world order is money-grubbing for the yankee dollar. The world isn't just watching the spread of a political philosophy in Iraq, it is watching a conquest by and for us big business as well. The term "military-industrial complex” brings to mind crazy conspiracy theories , but let's consider the term again. Each and every one of the companies in the running or in possession of contracts to reconstruct Iraq are either major Republican donors or have government staff working for them. The donations to the Republican party—and also to George W. Bush himself—run into millions.

Is this payback time? In the uk, connections like this between big business and politicians would be front page news for months. But not so in America.

There is more to this than just kickbacks. The Americans call it "the favor bank,'' we call it more simply cronyism. The connections between the reconstructors are staggering. If these people aren't in the same think-tank together, then they work for the same companies, have the same friends and interests.

Just look at one example—under our power-brokers section you will find Andrew Natsios. He's the head of USAid, the government department which hands out Iraqi reconstruction contracts. Would it surprise you to find out that Natsios has a connection to a company called Bechtel, which is—yes—tipped for a rather lucrative contract? Then there's IRG. It secured one of the eight government contracts up for grabs. Are you shocked to learn IRG has four vice-presidents and 24 other staff who at one time worked for USAid? There's also a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil giant once run by Dick Cheney (Bush's number two), which stands to make a cool $500 million out of reconstruction.

With only a few exceptions, there is a smoking gun for all those behind the reconstruction work. Whether it's a seat on a board, shares in a firm, a favor owed here or there, they call into question the impartiality of seriously powerful people and ask important questions about the levels of self-interest that lie behind the rebuilding of Iraq. While Iraq may be free of Saddam, it looks like it's going to be the most lucrative country on Earth for the foreseeable future—at least for us hawks anyway.

THE NEO-CONSERVATIVES

Paul Wolfowitz
The deputy defense secretary is the arch-ideologue of the Bush administration and the key architect in the Pentagon of the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

Like many of the reconstructors, Wolfowitz of Arabia, as he is known, is a ranking member of the leading neo-conservative think-tank the Project for the New American Century (pnac), which advocated regime change in Iraq even before George W. Bush took office. He is also, like many of the reconstruction team, a key member of the ultra-right-wing Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (jinsa)—a think-tank that puts Israel and its security at the heart of us foreign policy. Many of the reconstuctors—known as Wolfie's People or the True Believers—are hand-picked place-men chosen by the defense deputy. Wolfowitz is the ideological link in Team Bush's grand scheme. His thinking is and was central to the war and its aftermath.

Lewis Libby
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff is a long-standing face at the Pentagon, having served in the defense department during George Bush Sr.'s presidency. He is also friend, confidant, and neo-con fellow-traveller with Wolfowitz, and a founding member of the pnac.

He sits on the board of the Rand Corporation, a research and development corporation which has a huge number of contracts with the Pentagon. Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's special envoy to the Iraq opposition, was an employee of Rand Corp.

Libby owns shares in armament companies and has various oil interests. He is a consultant to Northrop Grumman, the defense contractor, which has an influential voice on the Defense Policy Board (dpb), the so-called brains of the Pentagon. Rand Corp., which won $83 million in Pentagon contracts, is linked to the dpb.

Donald Rumsfeld
A founding member of the pnac, the Pentagon supremo is probably one of the best-connected men in American politics. It was Rumsfeld who personally designed the Iraqi invasion plan.

Every detail of the post-war reconstruction has to be cleared by the defense secretary. Each and every neo-con in the Pentagon owes their position to him. One fact he doesn't want to be reminded about is his former glad-handing with Saddam as Reagan's special envoy to Iraq in the early 1980s. While Saddam was blitzing the Ayatollah's armies with chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, Rumsfeld spent most of his time talking to the Ba'ath Party about the building of an oil pipeline on behalf of the construction company Bechtel. Bechtel's former vice-chairman is George Shultz, Reagan's secretary of state. Bechtel is one of the front-runners in the bid to secure us government contracts to rebuild Iraq.

Douglas J. Feith
Under-secretary for policy at the Pentagon, he picks and selects members of the dpb and is on the board of advisers of jinsa. As a lawyer, Feith represented Northrop Grumman (see Defense Players). He was a Pentagon place-man when Richard Perle was assistant defense secretary in the 1980s and hired Michael Mobbs (see Power-Brokers) to work at his law firm Feith and Zell.

Richard Perle
The Pentagon's Prince of Darkness is a key member of jinsa and a prominent member of the American Enterprise Institute (described by Ronnie Reagan as one of the most influential right-wing us think-tanks), along with Dick Cheney's wife Lynne. He also sits on the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, another right-wing think-tank, along with James Woolsey, tipped to become the information minister in the post-war Iraqi interim government.
Perle acted as an advisor to the lobbying firm run by Feith. Perle was also chair of the dpb until he resigned following a scandal over a conflict of interests relating to his business connections. However, he still sits on the board of the dpb. Perle is seeking permission from the Committee on Foreign Investment, on which Rumsfeld sits, to run telecommunications businesses in Asia.

Dick Cheney
Capitol Hill's resident hawk-in-chief is a pnac founding member and was on jinsa's board of advisors. The vice president was defense secretary under Bush Sr. and has been calling for Saddam's head for over a decade. He was chairman and ceo of the oil company Halliburton, the corporate behemoth. Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root has secured contracts worth up to $7 billion from the us Army Corp of Engineers to put out oil well fires in Iraq. Cheney is a trustee of the American Enterprise Institute and has had numerous oil interests. He has links to Chevron, for which he negotiated the building of an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea. Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, was the director of Chevron until 2001—and even had an oil tanker named after her. During Condi's tenure, Chevron's ceo Kenneth Derr once said: "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas—reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.''

James Woolsey
A long-time supporter of war on Iraq and pnac and jinsa member, the former director of the cia has been named as the likely minister of information in the new Iraq. His business interests have included: the arms company British Aerospace; the Titan Corporation, which provides military interpreters; and DynCorp, which provides bodyguards for Hamid Karzai, the Afghani president, and has installed a police force monitoring service in Bosnia. DynCorp is being sued for human rights violations in Bosnia, environmental health disasters in Ecuador, and fraud in America. He was a partner in the law firm Shea and Gardner, which acts as foreign agents for the Iraqi National Congress, led by Chalabi. He is vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a corporate consultant firm, which won a contract to develop a computer model of post-war Iraqi society after Gulf War I. Booz Allen is also closely linked to the dpb. He said that "only fear will re-establish [Arab] respect for us...we need a little bit of Machiavelli.'' He has also said: "We really don't need the Europeans. Anyways, they will be the first in line patting us on the back following our success and saying they were with us all along.''

THE POWER-BROKERS

Robert Reilly
Former director of Voice of America, the pro-us radio service, Reilly has been entrusted with overhauling Iraqi radio, television, and newspapers.

The Bush administration has already given Reilly the green light to operate Radio Free Iraq. This will involve using transmitters that have been sent to the Middle East for the military's psychological operations.

Reilly is closely involved with an American administration plan to establish a media network in the Middle East. A $62 million satellite tv station is scheduled to begin at the end of the year.

Michael Mobbs
Pentagon lawyer and overall civilian coordinator who will be in charge of 11 of the ministries, Mobbs wants us citizens imprisoned indefinitely without charge for terrorist offences. A notorious hawk and close friend of Richard Perle, Mobbs also worked for Douglas Feith's law firm.

Currently a Pentagon consultant, he created the legal framework for the indefinite detention of al-Qaeda suspects at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, which was built by Bechtel (see The Businesses) for $16 million. Mobbs is also a former member of the us arms control agency under former President Ronald Reagan.

Andrew Natsios
The head of USAid, United States Agency for International Development, Natsios is the man who hands out the post-war reconstruction contracts. Only us companies can bid for these lucrative deals.

One of the most controversial episodes of his career saw him, as ceo of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, oversee the Big Dig construction project, a three-mile underground highway in Boston, undertaken by Bechtel. The budget spiraled out of control, costing up to $10 billion more than it should have, with the largest budget rises under Natsios' tenure.

Natsios will be assisted by Michael Marx, the head of USAid Disaster Assistance Response Team (Dart) and a former us army officer. Marx previously headed the Dart team after the conflict in Afghanistan.

George Shultz and Clint Williamson
A Republican heavyweight and former secretary of state under Nixon, Shultz was Bush Jr.'s presidential campaign adviser. He is also one of the administration's key thinkers on running post-war Iraq, and is on the board of directors at Bechtel. Like Perle, he has lucrative financial relationships, which bring his impartiality into question. Shultz is the chairman of the International Council of JP Morgan Chase, the banking syndicate in which Lewis Libby (see Neo-Cons) has heavy investments. Morgan Chase lent Saddam's regime $500 million in 1983. Shultz is a member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and a patron of the American Enterprise Institute. Perle advised clients of Goldman Sachs, the investment house, on post-war investment opportunities in Iraq. Perle is also a director of the software company Autonomy Corp., whose clients include the Pentagon. Autonomy says it expects its profits to increase dramatically after the war in Iraq ends.

Clint Williamson, who is expected to head the Iraqi ministry of justice, appears to be one of the good guys. A former prosecutor at The Hague's International War Crimes Tribunal, he helped compile evidence against Slobodan Milosevic. Williamson now works at Condoleezza Rice's National Security Agency. Williamson appears ideally placed to deal with the unfolding chaos gripping the nation of Iraq, and is skilled and seasoned in preparing indictments against war criminals.

THE THINK-TANKS

These are the right-wing foundations and intellectual powerhouses stuffed with Republican Party hacks which have successfully influenced Bush's Iraq policy since he took power.

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
With its aims of informing Americans of the continued importance of American security, and of the need for an Israeli "victory'' in the Middle East, jinsa places itself firmly on the extreme right wing. It has repeatedly praised Israel for what it views as "remarkable restraint'' in the face of a centrally-orchestrated campaign of terror from the Palestinian authorities, and its ranks include most of Bush's neo-cons. It also supports both Garner and Chalabi.

The Project for a New American Century
Founded by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney in 1997 to counter what it viewed as Clinton's drifting foreign and defense policy, this think-tank would come to form the nucleus of Team Bush. It has always lobbied for regime change in Iraq and for America to play a more permanent role in the Middle East. It also believes American foreign policy to be by definition inherently "right''. Many see it as the brains behind a us-controlled "new world order.''

The American Enterprise Institute
One of America's biggest and most-established think-tanks, the American Enterprise Institute has been pushing its conservative agendas for over 50 years in both foreign and domestic policy. With 14 of its members in Bush's administration, it claims to be better represented than any other think-tank in the current administration.

THE BUSINESSES

Bechtel
Bechtel is almost certain to win $900 million in contracts. The total amount of business from Iraqi reconstruction could total $100 billion. Bechtel has donated $1.3 million to political campaign funds since 1999, with the majority going to the Republican Party. George Shultz (see Power-Brokers) is Bechtel's former ceo and is still on the board of directors. Other Republicans linked to the company include former Reagan defense secretary Caspar Weinberger. Jack Sheehan, retired Marine Corps general, is its senior vice president; he also sits on the Pentagon's influential dpb. In the 1980s Bechtel proposed building an oil pipeline through Iraq with Rumsfeld as an intermediary for the company to Saddam.

International Resources Group
The Washington-based company has won a $70 million contract to establish the humanitarian aid program in Iraq. Obviously this involves an exceptionally close working relationship with USAid, which awards the contracts. Four of irg's vice presidents have all held senior posts with USAid, and 24 of the firm's 48 technical staff have worked for USAid. Other players tipped to win contracts include Washington Group International, bidding for the capital construction job, which gave $438,700 to the Republicans—along with a donation to Bush; and the Louis Berger Group, which gave $26,300 to the Republicans and is implementing the USAid Croatia development program.

Halliburton
This was Dick Cheney's oil company until he joined Team Bush, walking out the door with a pay-off worth around $30 million. There have been deferred payments of $180,000 a year.

Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, was the first company to be awarded an Iraqi reconstruction contract by the Pentagon to cap burning oil wells; the deal is reportedly worth $500 million. The Army Corps of Engineers awarded the contract without any open competitive bidding process thanks to federal laws allowing the negotiations to take place in secret in the interests of national security. kbr has won a string of lucrative contracts despite failing to control the cost of work in the Balkans and being fined $2 million following claims of fraud at a military base. kbr is also one of two contractors chosen by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to undertake the disposal of weapons of mass destruction—if they are ever found. Since 1999 Halliburton has given 95 percent, or just under $700,000, of its political donations to the Republican Party. It also gave George Bush nearly $18,000. kbr has subcontracted some of the work to two Houston firms—Wild Wells, and Boots and Coots, which is close to bankruptcy. Boots and Coots has a capital deficit of $17 million.

THE DEFENSE PLAYERS

The business players inextricably tied to the reconstructors:

Northrop Grumman
One of the biggest winners under Bush's increases in defense spending, they won $8.5 billion in contracts last year. It has links with jinsa and the aei and key Bush administration hawks. The company planned a merger with Lockheed Martin, another defense giant who had Lynne Cheney on the board.

DynCorp
Linked to former cia director James Woolsey, DynCorp provides security in world trouble spots where America has had to act as the policeman. Woolsey's DynCorp links tally with his intellectual inclinations—both he and Richard Perle sit on the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, a pro-military think-tank.

The Defense Policy Board
This is the massively influential Pentagon advisory group, headed by Richard Perle until forced to resign over a conflict of interests. Currying favor with the dpb is the key to getting a Pentagon contract. Eight other dpb members have links to firms that have won defense contracts including Northrop Grumman, Bechtel, and Rand Corp., which is linked to Lewis Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad. dpb members include General Jack Sheehan, who is connected to Bechtel, the cia's James Woolsey, and former Republican secretary of defense James Schlesinger.

Neil Mackay is the Home Affairs editor for the Sunday Herald weekly newspaper of Glasgow, Scotland.