One Debacle After Another

From The Huffington Post, September 17, 2006:

Halliburton and Cheney: War Profiteers in Chief Fight to Keep Their Wallets Fat

Halliburton's stock has risen 200% since the invasion of Iraq three and a half years ago. David Lesar, its CEO, made over $40,000,000 in 2004 alone.

Until very recently, there has been relatively little penetration into the popular psyche of the role played by Halliburton in particular and other private military contractors in general. 

The reason is simple: the Bush Administration and its Congressional foot soldiers ranging from George Allen and John Warner of Virginia to Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania have refused at every turn to allow for any oversight at all, even though Democratic Senators have asked for such bi-partisan review for years. 

From The New York Times today:

Deferring to Trump, G.O.P. Lawmakers Resist a Public Accounting on Iran

Nearly three weeks into a war that polls show is unpopular, top Republicans have yet to call administration officials to testify about it, arguing that hearings would put divisions on display.

 
From The Center for Public Integrity, March 19, 2013

Invasion of Iraq, 10 years later

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.

Kellogg, Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton—which Vice President Dick Cheney led prior to being chosen as Bush’s running mate in August 2000—was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to the company. Bechtel Group, a major government contractor with similarly high-ranking ties, was second at around $1.03 billion.

However, dozens of lower-profile, but well-connected, companies shared in the reconstruction bounty. Their tasks ranged from rebuilding Iraq’s government, police, military and media to providing translators for use in interrogations and psychological operations. There are even contractors to evaluate the contractors.

Nearly 60 percent of the companies had employees or board members who either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican and Democratic administrations, for members of Congress of both parties, or at the highest levels of the military.

The results of the Center’s six-month investigation provide the most comprehensive list to date of American contractors in the two nations that were attacked in Washington’s war on terror. Based on the findings, it did not appear that any one government agency knew the total number of contractors or what they were doing. Congressional sources said they hoped such a full picture would emerge from the General Accounting Office, which has begun investigating the postwar contracting process amid allegations of fraud and cronyism.

The Center’s investigation focused on the three agencies that awarded most of the Iraq and Afghanistan contracts in 2002 and 2003—the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. It found that nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former high-ranking government officials or individuals with close ties to those agencies or Congress.

In addition, those top 10 contractors were established political donors, contributing nearly $11 million to national political parties, candidates and political action committees since 1990, according to an analysis of campaign finance records.

Indeed, most of the companies that won contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan were political players. According to the Center’s analysis, the companies, their political action committees and their employees contributed a total of nearly $49 million to national political campaigns and parties since 1990. Donations to Republican Party committees—the Republican National Committee, the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee—outpaced those to Democratic committees, $12.7 million to $7.1 million. Among individual candidates, President George Bush received more money from these companies than any other, a little over $500,000.

From The New York Times, 16 years later:

Firm That Planned Trump’s Jan. 6 Rally Received No-Bid Contracts

This administration has given the company, staffed by the president’s allies, multimillion-dollar contracts it was guaranteed to win.

The Trump administration has bypassed regular procedures to award more than $13 million in contracts to the company that helped organize President Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021, repeatedly creating hidden business opportunities that only one firm could win.

Those contracts have transformed Event Strategies Inc., staffed by veterans of Mr. Trump’s campaigns and first White House, from a minor federal contractor into the government’s highest-paid event planner. The firm has arranged celebrations of the Navy’s 250th birthday and a Treasury Department event to tout new savings accounts for children, called “Trump accounts.”

By law, federal agencies are generally supposed to seek competing bids before awarding contracts, to get the best value for taxpayers. Event Strategies won contracts that were particularly lucrative, the kind that other companies say they would have liked to win.

In at least five cases, other firms never got the chance.

Instead, the agencies invoked legal loopholes meant for special situations — instances of urgent need, or cases where only one specialized vendor could do a job — and gave the contracts to Event Strategies.

Different Times article, next day:

A pair of senior Democratic lawmakers on Thursday demanded answers from the White House about efforts by Jared Kushner to raise billions of dollars from Middle East governments for his private-equity fund while also serving as an envoy in the region for the Trump administration.

Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the most senior member of his party on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a pair of letters to the White House and to Mr. Kushner’s firm that they had “serious concerns about whether the White House is letting Mr. Kushner use his influence for personal financial gain.”

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