U.S. Shuts Out France, Germany for Iraq Work

[USAcommitteeX]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Citing national security reasons, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has ruled that prime contracts to rebuild Iraq (news - web sites) will exclude firms from nations such as France and Germany that opposed the U.S. war.

In a policy document released on Tuesday, Wolfowitz said he was limiting competition for 26 reconstruction contracts worth up to $18.6 billion that will be advertised in coming days.

"It is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States to limit competition for the prime contracts of these procurements to companies from the United States, Iraq, coalition partners and force contributing nations," Wolfowitz said in a notice published on the web site www.rebuilding-iraq.net.

The move is likely to anger France and Germany and other traditional allies in NATO (news - web sites) and the U.N. Security Council who are being blocked out of prime contracts after their opposition to the war. They may bid for sub-contracts.

But the decision will placate countries such as Britain, Italy and Spain, which provided troops to Iraq but whose companies were excluded from the first round of deals that went to U.S. firms.

The contracts cover electricity, communications, public buildings, transportation, public works and security and justice. Additional contracts are also being awarded to oversee those projects.

[johnny861]

To the victor go the spoils!

Originally posted by johnny861
To the victor go the spoils!

yes indeed....perhaps the others should have done their part.

[Adam D]

I don't see why this is just making news now, this was known pretty openly before the war even began.

[Ryan]

I personally think they should take the lowest bidder like any business would instead of using our tax dollars to tell some of our closest allies to go fuck themselves.

Originally posted by Ryan
I personally think they should take the lowest bidder like any business would instead of using our tax dollars to tell some of our closest allies to go fuck themselves.

They way they told us to go fuck ourselves?

Regarding closests allies - we fought 2 world wars aginst Germany in living memory. France has not been a supporter of American policy anywhere (in general).

Fuck the French

Originally posted by Ryan
I personally think they should take the lowest bidder like any business would instead of using our tax dollars to tell some of our closest allies to go fuck themselves.

kinda like the no-bid contract given to halliburton huh?

[Ryan]

Originally posted by xiannaix
They way they told us to go fuck ourselves?

Regarding closests allies - we fought 2 world wars aginst Germany in living memory. France has not been a supporter of American policy anywhere (in general).

Fuck the French

You're right on that point, I'm just weary of all these contracts going to companies with little or no incentive to spend our money wisely. We're already out enough and I don't want to see Dubya or the next president coming back to Congress begging for another $50 billion because all our buddies screwed up the recon jobs.

Originally posted by Ryan
You're right on that point, I'm just weary of all these contracts going to companies with little or no incentive to spend our money wisely. We're already out enough and I don't want to see Dubya or the next president coming back to Congress begging for another $50 billion because all our buddies screwed up the recon jobs.

a very legit concern

[thumpcbd]

Originally posted by Dropzone
kinda like the no-bid contract given to halliburton huh?

Stealing from http://boortz.com/nuze/200312/12012003.html here:

...
We'll start with another question you can ask your bedwetting leftist friends. Ask them if they've ever heard of LOGCAP. They will tell you that they don't know what that is. You won't be at all surprised. LOGCAP is the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program created by the United States Army. It is a program that uses a competitive bidding process to award a contract to a corporation to be on call to provide whatever services the Army might need ... right then. Some brilliant thinkers in the Army came to the conclusion that it might not be such a swell idea to screw around with competitive bidding processes for logistics and other services during wartime. Imagine that.

Halliburton won the competitive bidding process for LOGCAP in 1992. They then lost that bidding process five years later in 1997. In spite of the fact that Halliburton no longer held the LOGCAP contract, Bill Clinton went ahead and awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton to do some work in the Balkans supporting U.S. peacekeeping actions. Odd, isn't it. The same people who are screaming about Halliburton right now had absolutely nothing .. nada .. nunca .. not one thing to say about Halliburton when it was the Clinton Administration that was handing out contracts .. with no bidding, by the way. You might also be interested in knowing that Al Gore was quite a fan of Halliburton. Gore's reinventing government panel had some very complimentary things to say about Halliburton and the services it provides to the U.S. government. Ahhh ... but what does Al Gore know, right?

That brings us to 2001. It's time for bidding on the LOGCAP contract again. Halliburton is right in there, and wins the bid. This means that at the time of the Iraq War Halliburton had the bid for providing logistical and other services to the U.S. government. They were the go-to company. So, along comes the U.S. Army with a fat contract for Halliburton to put out oil-well fires in Iraq and all hell breaks loose. To the left this is all the proof you needed to show that this whole war was about oil and enriching Bush pals.

Recap: Clinton awards no-bid contract to Halliburton at a time when Halliburton did not hold the LOGCAP contract. Bush awards contract to Halliburton at a time when Halliburton DID hold the LOGCAP contract.

So ... one last question for your mindless leftist friends. Well .. make that two questions. Ask them if Clinton went into the Balkans to enrich Halliburton. They'll say no. Then ask them if Bush went to Iraq to enrich Halliburton. They'll say yes. At this point do all that you can to have your friend institutionalized .. for they are beyond all help.
...

----------------------------------

I think that sums it up nicely. Some folk here might have a problem with Boortz, but it was the first site that I could find that actually had a decent and quick synopsys of what LOGICAP is.

Casey
( Politics/goverment is Fun )

[Dionysos]

Originally posted by Ryan
You're right on that point, I'm just weary of all these contracts going to companies with little or no incentive to spend our money wisely. We're already out enough and I don't want to see Dubya or the next president coming back to Congress begging for another $50 billion because all our buddies screwed up the recon jobs.

A legitimate concern, but the contracts aren't just available to the US. In all there's ~60 countries whose companies are able to bid on these contracts. Not only that France & Germany(as well as the others shut out) can still work on the subcontracts. At least on the face of things this is a pretty open audition. We'll see if things play out that way. My hunch is that these contracts are going to get passed around to other countries pretty liberally because the administration is trying to convince countries who straddled the fence that cooperating with us is a profitable idea.

[Ryan]

Originally posted by Dionysos
A legitimate concern, but the contracts aren't just available to the US. In all there's ~60 countries whose companies are able to bid on these contracts. Not only that France & Germany(as well as the others shut out) can still work on the subcontracts. At least on the face of things this is a pretty open audition. We'll see if things play out that way. My hunch is that these contracts are going to get passed around to other countries pretty liberally because the administration is trying to convince countries who straddled the fence that cooperating with us is a profitable idea.

I am not an expert in government contract bids, but it is my understanding, gained from reading and personal info from a contractor who is working with the Iraq situation, that many of these contracts will be divided up proportionally based upon the level of support given. In other words, American companies will be given most of the contracts, British companies will be next in line, and then there will be a few token projects set aside for Poland, Spain, etc. Perhaps I'm presuming too much, but I'd be really interested to see how many of the contracts awarded can be directly linked to our political heroes in Washington.

Originally posted by Dionysos
A legitimate concern, but the contracts aren't just available to the US. In all there's ~60 countries whose companies are able to bid on these contracts. Not only that France & Germany(as well as the others shut out) can still work on the subcontracts. At least on the face of things this is a pretty open audition. We'll see if things play out that way. My hunch is that these contracts are going to get passed around to other countries pretty liberally because the administration is trying to convince countries who straddled the fence that cooperating with us is a profitable idea.

well said

Originally posted by thumpcbd
Stealing from http://boortz.com/nuze/200312/12012003.html here:

...
We'll start with another question you can ask your bedwetting leftist friends. Ask them if they've ever heard of LOGCAP. They will tell you that they don't know what that is. You won't be at all surprised. LOGCAP is the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program created by the United States Army. It is a program that uses a competitive bidding process to award a contract to a corporation to be on call to provide whatever services the Army might need ... right then. Some brilliant thinkers in the Army came to the conclusion that it might not be such a swell idea to screw around with competitive bidding processes for logistics and other services during wartime. Imagine that.

Halliburton won the competitive bidding process for LOGCAP in 1992. They then lost that bidding process five years later in 1997. In spite of the fact that Halliburton no longer held the LOGCAP contract, Bill Clinton went ahead and awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton to do some work in the Balkans supporting U.S. peacekeeping actions. Odd, isn't it. The same people who are screaming about Halliburton right now had absolutely nothing .. nada .. nunca .. not one thing to say about Halliburton when it was the Clinton Administration that was handing out contracts .. with no bidding, by the way. You might also be interested in knowing that Al Gore was quite a fan of Halliburton. Gore's reinventing government panel had some very complimentary things to say about Halliburton and the services it provides to the U.S. government. Ahhh ... but what does Al Gore know, right?

That brings us to 2001. It's time for bidding on the LOGCAP contract again. Halliburton is right in there, and wins the bid. This means that at the time of the Iraq War Halliburton had the bid for providing logistical and other services to the U.S. government. They were the go-to company. So, along comes the U.S. Army with a fat contract for Halliburton to put out oil-well fires in Iraq and all hell breaks loose. To the left this is all the proof you needed to show that this whole war was about oil and enriching Bush pals.

Recap: Clinton awards no-bid contract to Halliburton at a time when Halliburton did not hold the LOGCAP contract. Bush awards contract to Halliburton at a time when Halliburton DID hold the LOGCAP contract.

So ... one last question for your mindless leftist friends. Well .. make that two questions. Ask them if Clinton went into the Balkans to enrich Halliburton. They'll say no. Then ask them if Bush went to Iraq to enrich Halliburton. They'll say yes. At this point do all that you can to have your friend institutionalized .. for they are beyond all help.
...

----------------------------------

I think that sums it up nicely. Some folk here might have a problem with Boortz, but it was the first site that I could find that actually had a decent and quick synopsys of what LOGICAP is.

Casey
( Politics/goverment is Fun )

thank you

[bfp]

There are about 3 companies in the world that can match to Halliburton. Halliburton is a top-notch company. It's no wonder they get most of the contracts. They can get the job done as they are well equipped with money, supplies, skill and man-power. I'm tired of hearing about Halliburton. When you think about it, all of the arguments that come from the left are bankrupt at their core. You just have to do some analysis to come to the conclusion that the arguments are meaningless propoganda. It seems that there is always something to counter-balance their whining.