Reply #6: Bechtel stuff [View All]

[bigtree]

Halliburton, Bechtel Win More Iraq Deals:
http://news.findlaw.com/business/s/20030828/iraqusacontractsdc.html

Bechtel Awards Lucent Technologies Subcontract To Rebuild Communications Network in Iraq:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-25-2003/0002006092&EDATE=


As Secretary of State for Reagan (and former president of Bechtel), in 1983 George Schultz sent Donald Rumsfeld on a Middle East peace envoy to the city of Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld was instructed to ask for the leader’s support in Bechtel’s bid on construction of an oil pipeline from Iraq to the port of Aqaba. Twenty years later, Rumsfeld and his cohorts were in the position to once again launch Bechtel into a position of power in the Middle East, and they did so.

Jack Sheehan, a senior Vice President at Bechtel, is a member of the Defense Policy Board. USAID administrator Andrew Natsios, the overseer of bidding contracts in Iraq, also has close ties to Bechtel; he headed Boston’s massive "Big Dig" construction process, a disastrous $14 billion boondoggle the accounted for some of the biggest cost overruns in the history of American municipal public works. Bechtel is one the main contractors on the "Big Dig" project.

Just two months before war, President Bush appointed multi-billionaire Riley Bechtel (the 104th richest man in the world thanks to his family’s company) to his Export Council to advise the government on how to create markets for American companies overseas.

From 1999 to 2001, Bechtel contributed $1.3 million to political campaigns; 58% went to Republican candidates.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/081203.html