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By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - U.S. contractors helping to rebuild Iraq weighed the risks of operating in such a hostile environment on Monday, after a string of deadly coordinated attacks in Baghdad. Suicide bombers struck four times in Baghdad on Monday, killing 35 people and wounding 230 in attacks that included one on the Red Cross. On Sunday, rockets pounded a hotel where a top Pentagon official was staying, killing a U.S. colonel and injuring 17 others. Government contractors, many of them with hundreds of millions of dollars in business at stake, said publicly they were committed...

A Fresh Start for Iraqi Children Bechtel joins with Iraqi contractors and workers to renovate damaged schools   Most of the schools in Iraq escaped damage during the conflict that toppled Saddam Hussein, but they’re damaged nonetheless. Years of neglect under a harsh regime left them dilapidated, and at many schools, whatever dignity remained was stripped away, along with plumbing, wiring, light fixtures, and desks, during the wave of looting and vandalism that followed the fighting. So when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) took on the task of rebuilding key aspects of the country’s infrastructure, one of...

Date posted: 22.09.2003. Reconstruction contracts Business centre gateway to tenders By Ali B. AL-Shouk BAGHDAD - The Baghdad Business Centre (BC) is responsible for providing information of Iraqi subcontractors to the Coalition, Bechtel and Kellog Brown and Root (KBR) for participation in the reconstruction of the country. "We met the Iraqi businessmen and the Iraqi companies every day from 9 to 12 in the morning and took their information to compile in a database. The BC is like an information source and it's an important link between businessmen and CPA, KBR and Bechtel, "explained Specialist Varetta Barnes, assistant director of...

By NEELA BANERJEE New York Times August 08, 2003 The Bechtel Group, one of the world's biggest engineering and construction companies, has dropped out of the running for a contract to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry, as other competitors have begun to conclude that the bidding process favors the one company already working in Iraq, Halliburton. After the United States Army Corps of Engineers quietly selected Halliburton in the spring to perform early repairs of the Iraqi oil business in the aftermath of the war, other companies and members of Congress protested that the work should have been awarded through...

Bechtel, most contracts for Iraqis US engineering giant Bechtel charged with the initial contract to rebuild Iraq says it will give most subcontracts to Iraqi firms and not the international companies desparate for a share, reported Reuters. Foreign firms will be tapped only for equipment not available in Iraq or top-end design and engineering services, said officials. Bechtel has been overwhelmed by interest in Iraqi contracts.

When U.S. government agencies awarded Halliburton (HAL) and Bechtel Group contracts to help rebuild Iraq, observers cried foul. Lawmakers, media commentators, and even British companies complained that politics was involved: Vice-President Dick Cheney, it was noted, ran Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, and Bechtel's Republican ties reach back generations. Moreover, the critics said, deals worth billions of dollars were being handed out in a secretive process that unfairly excluded foreign competitors. Not so, say government officials who oversaw the process. The contracts were awarded by career civil servants, not political appointees, on the basis of technical merit, following strict government...

KUWAIT (Reuters) - A prominent Iraqi exile said on Saturday only a democratically elected government should be allowed to sign the massive contracts needed to reconstruct the country. Former Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi criticized Washington over its plans for a U.S.-led civilian authority to hand out reconstruction contracts without the approval of an elected Iraqi government. No one has the right to commit Iraq to obligations and costs," he told a news conference in Kuwait. "Only an Iraqi government can do that. A parliament should also endorse the agreements." The U.S. government on Thursday awarded Bechtel Corp. a $680-million-contract to...

WASHINGTON, April 17 — The Bush administration awarded the Bechtel Group of San Francisco the first major contract today in a vast reconstruction plan for Iraq that assigns no position of authority to the United Nations or Europe. The contract, which was awarded by the United States Agency for International Development, had set off a heated contest among some of the nation's most politically connected construction concerns. The award will initially pay Bechtel, a closely held San Francisco company that posted $11.6 billion in revenue last year, $34.6 million and could go up to $680 million over 18 months.But those...

Turkey, which says it lost $30bn (£19bn) in trade with Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war, is preparing to compete for a substantial share in the business of rebuilding Iraq. The foreign ministry said yesterday it had appointed Ahmet Okcu, a senior diplomat, to co-ordinate government and private sector lobbying efforts. Nihat Ozdemir, head of the Turkish Contractors' Union, said he would be pleased if Turkey could secure 20 per cent of the reconstruction contracts, which could be worth as much as $100bn. Tusiad, the Turkish business association, is sending a mission to Washington next month to "warm up bilateral...

<p>WASHINGTON - The government on Thursday awarded a big contract to evaluate and repair Iraq's power, water and sewage systems to Bechtel Corp. of San Francisco.</p> <p>The initial award by the U.S. Agency for International Development was for $34.6 million, although the contract could be worth up to $680 million over 18 months.</p>

Senator Wyden and other Democrats are concerned that Bechtel Corp. is not having to competitively bid for contract work in Iraq. Hmm? That name rings a bell. Oh yes. It's the same Bechtel Corp. that was handed without bid the contract to build the Airport Max. It's the same Bechtel that was handed 120 acres of Oregon public land. The same Bechtel that never revealed what precisely they paid or earned. Senator Wyden and every Democrat in Oregon wholly endorsed what was called a "public-private partnership". Democrats who control the Port of Portland, Metro, Tri-Met, the City of Portland and...

The American government is on the verge of awarding construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is deposed. Halliburton, one of the companies in the running for the highly profitable deals, was formerly headed by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney. Halliburton has already been awarded a lucrative contract to resurrect the Iraqi oilfields if there is a war. Other companies have strong ties to the US administration, including the construction giant Bechtel, the Fluor Corporation, and the Louis Berger Group, which is involved in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Only US companies are on...

<p>That laughing sound you hear echoing through the completed Big Dig tunnels isn't coming from celebrating construction workers. No, it's the merry contractors who are skipping off with the last few hundred million in state overpayments.</p> <p>Welcome to the waning days of the Big Dig, not much different from the dying days of the Roman Empire, only this time for the engineering set.</p>

Mainstream Media Moments - Oregon MagazineJuly 5, PBS, Bill Moyers' NOW - Celebrating the coming socialization of the world was the order of the day after Independence Day. The propaganda began with an expose of an American engineering firm from San Francisco which became the water boy for Bolivia when that nation slid into poverty because the WTO and the World Bank ordered them to stop growing coca leaf......(snip) For complete article, click here.

Multinational corporations that buy and sell water and water services are seeking public utilities in the industrialized world for what they hope will be guaranteed profits. In the United States, towns and cities are flirting with water privatization as a way to pass on the costs of upgrading their aging utility infrastructure. But water is unique. Unlike electricity, natural gas or telecommunications, everyone needs water to survive. Nonetheless, local officials worldwide are negotiating deals in private with companies that view a government-guaranteed monopoly on water as the ultimate deal. In their zeal to embrace white knights, local water boards...