Here's anInteresting article on who, exactly, is getting the contracts for rebuilding Fallujah and the rest of Iraq. Two clues. The answer will disappoint the left, and it's not Halliburton:
Iraqi reconstruction is hitting a decisive phase as the Baghdad-based Project and Contracting Office drives for 1,000 project starts by year's end. The PCO wants to establish a tone of success before elections Jan. 31 by giving local Iraqi contractors fast-start projects, especially in hot spots like Fallujah.
The surge in starts-873 as of Nov. 1 and up 24% from Oct. 7-is being achieved in part because months of preparations are hitting the construction phase. But it also is happening because the PCO has rejiggered the schedule to push small, fast projects up the calendar and award local firms the work.
"It's mostly Iraqis," said Charles Hess, director of the PCO, in a telephone interview Nov. 18 from Baghdad. "We had to do that in response to the security situation to avoid having a large expatriate presence on the ground. We use U.S. design-build contractors to shape the more complicated issues we brought them here to help us with....They don't need to be worrying about a $50,000 school when they should be working on a $500-million gas combustion generator in an undeveloped oilfield."
The strategy has been evolving since last summer when negotiations ended major fighting in Najaf, Samarra and Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. Fastpaced reconstruction drives there have become the model for the effort going forward.
In Najaf, 25 projects were completed in two months, including rehabilitation of the main market, sewer and waterline repair, health clinic upgrades, as well as local clean-ups and road repairs.
Similar efforts, the article goes on to say, are beginning now in Fallujah. Iraq is being rebuilt largely by Iraqis who are getting the jobs and receiving the paychecks.
Our question, however, is how did the evil Dick Cheney allow these contracts to slip from the grasping fingers of his cronies at Halliburton? Maybe this story is just another Karl Rove-inspired sham to cover-up the real plot to enrich friends of the administration at the expense of the American taxpayers and the poor Iraqis. We hear MoveOn.org will be on the case as soon as they're finished exposing how Bush stole the election in Ohio.
