Posted on 04/15/2003 6:50:19 PM PDT by blam
US firms in £150m deal to wipe away Saddam cult
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 16/04/2003)
The United States has recruited a number of American consultancy firms to help to purge Iraqi society of decades of political terror and indoctrination, officials said yesterday.
The work includes rebuilding the country's propaganda-infested school system and launching a nationwide search for "legitimate" local leaders who can liaise with Pentagon-appointed interim administrators.
The contracts are worth up to £150 million in total, a spokesman for Usaid, the federal aid agency, said.
Under US law governing federal spending, only American firms were allowed to bid to be main contractors on the projects.
In addition, bidders for the Iraqi contracts had to hold US government security clearances - effectively excluding non-American organisations.
Foreign allies and some members of Congress have criticised the decision to dole out more than £1 billion worth of work in post-war Iraq to a handful of American firms and non-profit organisations.
Many of the successful bidders already do much of their work for the US government.
There were particular concerns raised over the decision to award a contract for oilfield repair to a unit of Halliburton, a firm once run by the vice president Dick Cheney, without competition.
Some oil industry analysts have defended the decision, saying Halliburton was the logical choice for a highly specialist job.
American firms have already won contracts to rebuild the port at Umm Qasr, and are still competing for £400 million in Iraqi roads and infrastructure repairs.
Usaid argues that the need to award sensitive projects rapidly made it necessary to turn to trusted partners.
The contract to rebuild Iraqi schools has been awarded to a Washington-based consultancy, Creative Associates, which prides itself on being owned by women from ethnic minority backgrounds, and employing women as sub-contractors when possible.
The firm, which was the only bidder for the contract, worth up to £41 million, has the daunting task of finding classrooms and school supplies for four million Iraqi children, by the start of the next school year, on Oct 1.
It will also help to retrain teachers forced for years to indoctrinate pupils with the glory of Saddam Hussein, and the evils of such enemies as America and the Jewish race.
American officials are reportedly keen to have secular state schools up and running in Iraq as soon as possible, to counter concerns that Islamic schools, possibly sponsored by Iran or Saudi Arabia, could emerge to fill the vacuum.
A separate project, to design a new system of accountable local government and identify legitimate local leaders has been awarded to Research Triangle Institute, a non-profit research agency. The contract is worth up to £111 million.
At the last minute, Usaid scrapped plans for American consultants to write and deliver an entirely new library of de-Ba'athised school textbooks.
Iraqi exiles working with Usaid on the project objected to the idea of US officials imposing a new curriculum on Iraq, sources said. One Iraqi exile familiar with the discussions said: "It's not up to the Americans to dictate to Iraqi students what to study.
"It has been removed from the contract."
Ellen Yount, a Usaid spokesman, said that textbook bid proposals would be published soon, with tenders being sought from organisations with experience of publishing "secular" books in Arabic.
"Clearly, we want to remove a lot of the hatred and intolerance perpetuated through textbooks for children as young as seven or eight. We will be working closely with the Iraqi people," Ms Yount said. Iraqi textbooks - even mathematics or science books - carry heroic images of Saddam, and Ba'ath Party slogans.
Every Thursday, Iraqi schoolchildren would sing hymns of praise to Saddam while raising the national flag, as a senior member of staff fired a few rounds from a gun into the air.
You reckon maybe we should purge the NAMBLA/GLSEN/GLAAD Perverts from our own schools before we go meddling in theirs?
Baath indoctrinisation was not very successful - the real sway has Shia Islam and Kurdish nationalism - are those deprogrammers targetting those last two?
Baath program promotes secularism, modernisation and common Arab identity (Saddam personality cult was grafted on).
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