The CIA has so far refused to hand over control of Iraq's intelligence service to the newly elected Iraqi government in a turf war that exposes serious doubts the Bush administration has over the ability of Iraqi leaders to fight the insurgency and worries about the new government's close ties to Iran.
The director of Iraq's secret police, a general who took part in a failed coup attempt against Saddam Hussein, was handpicked and funded by the U.S. government, and he still reports directly to the CIA, Iraqi politicians and intelligence officials in Baghdad said last week.
Read the article. Find how Bechtel is connected to the bin Ladens and to the U.S. spy world and military.On the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Bechtel, the gargantuan global construction firm based in San Francisco, issued its revenue numbers for 2005. While the situation continued to deteriorate for the US military forces in Iraq, Bechtel reported more fragrant news.
Although the privately-owned company doesn't disclose its profits, Bechtel did announce that its income was soaring to new heights not seen since the 1960s when the company was damming some of the world's most glorious canyons, building some of the most dangerous nuclear plants and constructing military bases for the staging of the war on Vietnam.[...]
Much of that robust income stream is coming from its operations in Iraq, where Bechtel is the king of contractors. A few days after the war began, the US Agency for International Development handed Bechtel a $680 million contract for the reconstruction of Iraq infrastructure, a by-invitation-only deal awarded in a secret process. That number has been jacked up twice and now totals more than $1.8 billion and may eventually reach as much as $50 billion.
[...]
So over the course of the last two years, Bechtel has been making tons of money from the war on Iraq that its executives helped orchestrate. But two years after the fall of Baghdad and billions later in reconstruction contracts, the daily situation for most Iraqis is worse than it was before the war. The power grid remains unreliable. Hundreds of sewage treatment plants are still inoperable, with millions of gallons of filthy water pouring into the Tigris and Euphrates every day. The phone system is primitive at best. The trains still don't run. The highways are cratered. The Baghdad airport serves only military flights. Schools are splashed with a coat of paint and told to reopen.
When local Iraqi officials object or try to offer advice, they are ignored or bullied. "The impression we get is that Bechtel is more powerful than the US Army," says Dr. Nabil Khudair Abbas, a top official with the new Iraqi government's Ministry of Education.
No one reviews or evaluates Bechtel's work. It's too dangerous and few non-Iraqis give a damn, anyway. Certainly, not the Bechtel executives, operating out of their opulent penthouses in Qatar and Kuwait City.[...]
Perhaps someone should tell the Iraqi people about the secret motto of this family run empire as dictated years ago by longtime CEO Stephen Bechtel: "We're more about making money, than making things."
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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