Bush election donors share $8bn Iraq bonanza

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1074763,00.html

Major donors to George Bush's election campaigns were the main beneficiaries of an $8bn (£4.7bn) bonanza in government contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, an investigation published yesterday said.
In the most comprehensive survey to date of the postwar financial dispensations for Afghanistan and Iraq, the Centre for Public Integrity tracked more than 70 US firms and contractors involved in reconstruction, exposing their connections to figures in various administrations, Congress and the Pentagon.

The report arrives a day after senators agreed to give $18.4bn for the reconstruction of Iraq in grants, rather than loans, a move seen as a victory for the Bush administration. Mr Bush was in Ohio yesterday trying to raise additional funds for an election warchest that has reached $85m.

According to the centre's report, more than half of the companies - and nearly every one of the top 10 contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq - had close ties to Washington's political establishment or to the Pentagon. Company executives had worked in previous administrations - Democratic as well as Republican - and cultivated privileged connections with their old workplaces. The study found a clear tilt towards firms with Republican connections - especially among the top 10 list of beneficiaries from the postwar era.

Connections to the Bush administration helped even with the dispensation of relatively low-profile projects, such as the $38m contract awarded to Science Applications International Corp for development of representative government and free media in Iraq.

[ozymandius]

1. So this is how * plans to fund his campaign.

Taxpayers are the de facto contributors to the Bush campaign through boondoggle open-ended, no bid contracts to Bush's constituency.

[Mika]

4. That' exactly how our anti Cuba policy has worked all these years

"Taxpayers are the de facto contributors.."

The hundreds of taxpayer funded Miamicuban exile "free Cuba" foundations and organizations host fundraisers for all political comers, R & D, as long as they rail against Fidel. The said politicians then turn around and vote for more taxpayer funding for the exile foundations who fill their campaign coffers, in a 40+ year loop. (Of course, if we really did get rid of Fidel then all of this taxpayer teat sucking would end. That's why our current policy only plays into further entrenching "Castroism" in Cuba.)

[LizW]

2. Confirms what we knew was happening a year ago

Isn't it depressing? What is going to happen to this country?

[liberalmuse]

3. This makes me sick.

Anyone else have the urge to puke after seeing this headline? If there were justice, every one of these companies would sink. I don't even believe in 'karma' or 'universal justice' anymore after seeing what these people are getting away with.