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controversy over the way US firms are being awarded contracts to rebuild Iraq, leads European investigators to say

A

Alistar7

Lifer
There have been suggestions that the US is excluding other countries by awarding the main contracts to its own companies.

"We are continuing our examination but for the moment we have not found any flaw in the system," a spokeswoman for the Commission said.

"In any case for the time being no European enterprise has complained of discrimination when the US administration has awarded these contracts."


yet another "anti" conspiracy theory goes down in flames....
Must have killed the BBC to run this, maybe it was to defelct criticism and claims by their own employees of obvious anti-US bias in their "reporting"
This seemed to be a pressing issue for many members though who felt this was motivated more from a financial standpoint so I felt I should post this to alleviate some of their concern.
 
And people say Bush is negecting the economy
rolleye.gif
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I believe on May 7 there was a spoon.
Click to expand...

The EU believes otherwise, and they are never wrong....😉

at least as far as looking out for their own financial interests.
 
ok so let me get this straight....we went in and bomed the hell out of that country to find WMD and to oust a monster of a dictator...which I fully supported btw.

We have other countries who decided they want NO part on taking this action...ok fine.

NOW they are b!tching because companies in THIER country are not getting contracts?

The way I see it we made the mess it is our responsiblity to clean it up..and that means giving the contracts to our own companies.

If France, Germany etc. wanted a peice of the pie then perhaps they should have at least stood by us.

Not necessarily sending troops and munitions.....oh wait a minute they did it's just that they sent them to the wrong side...ooops
 
Originally posted by: Wheezer
ok so let me get this straight....we went in and bomed the hell out of that country to find WMD and to oust a monster of a dictator...which I fully supported btw.

We have other countries who decided they want NO part on taking this action...ok fine.

NOW they are b!tching because companies in THIER country are not getting contracts?

The way I see it we made the mess it is our responsiblity to clean it up..and that means giving the contracts to our own companies.

If France, Germany etc. wanted a peice of the pie then perhaps they should have at least stood by us.

Not necessarily sending troops and munitions.....oh wait a minute they did it's just that they sent them to the wrong side...ooops
Click to expand...


you almost got it right, except while they have been trying to find a
legitimate claim of unethical practices in the awarding of Iraqi reconstruction contracts, they haven't been able to find anything that even suggests this, and no EU company has even complained.

but this was all about Bush and his friends making money.
 
We should give the EU the contracts because they were right about Iraq and we were lying. Please oh please don't blow up the oil wells. They are the property of the Iraqi people. I wonder if we'll hear that warning next time when we attack Iran.
 
Who was right in the EU? Spain, Italy, Poland, and Britian who backed our efforts, or the 3 EU members who opposed? And what exactly were they right about?

We will add the Iraqi oil wells to our Kuwait fields and Afghani reserves, bolstered by our Haiti pipeline, just in time, we have used all the natural gas in Kosovo already.
 
Naturally the three who opposed. They were right in the same way Blix was, no evidence of WMD. I remember well when we invaded Haiti and Kosovo to eliminate their WMD. I just hate it when we lie about our motives. Remember how everybody was screaming, it's the oil? 😀
 
The three who opposed also were owed billions by Saddam and used every bit of their power to keep him in his, at the expense of the Iraqi people they claimed were their main concern, actions speak louder than words.

They never claimed Saddam did not have WMD, as a matter of fact Blair challenged any of the UN security council to come out and say just that, I would love to see a link where any of them took him up on the offer. Don't hurt yourself trying, you won't find one.

What's known is this Moonbeam. Saddam submitted a deatiled report to the UN accounting for his WMD and programs. There are tons of agents yet unaccounted for, if we only go by what they admitted to having. I understand for reasons beyond my intellect you have concluded that things can just cease to exist in this dimension.

When they initially wanted to hold up sanctions, what was their excuse? Bush had to prove all the WMD were gone, funny they wouldn't hold Saddam to that standard, but anyway, does that sound like the request someone would make who thought they were all gone before the war?
 
It's ok Moonbeam, you have nothing to fear, come join the rest of us, reality is actually quite nice once you assimilate....
 
Yeah, Alistar, I know the reality of what a threat Iraq was. Nobody in the neighborhood was worried, especially the Israelis and there were so many WMD there it took us all of three weeks to topple their government. Wow what a threat and history proves my every word. You, on the other hand are sure all those tons and tons of weapons are going to turn up, right. Talk about reality when you start to live in it. You are dreaming. 😀 I like your perspective on a lot of stuff, but you got a goodie two shoe complex of some kind I don't understand. Maybe it's CAD's rose coloured lenses you borrowed. 😀
 
Yeah, Alistar, I know the reality of what a threat Iraq was. Nobody in the neighborhood was worried, especially the Israelis
Click to expand...

Kuwait conducts war drill ahead of possible military action in region

"Fearful of a surprise Iraqi missile attack, Kuwait on Saturday tested its readiness to cope with chemical weapons in the largest civil defence exercise ever staged in the country.
...
An Iraqi missile strike is regarded as a serious possibility.

Iraq fired Scud missiles into Saudi Arabia and Israel during the 1991 Gulf War and the US military is expected to use Kuwait as a launch pad of an invasion into Iraq if UN inspections fail to eliminate Saddam's arms of mass destruction.

The Kuwait government has ordered around two million gas masks for its citizens, but officials warned that gas masks would be insufficient protection and that people would be safer in their homes.
"

 
Right etech, that really counts. We were talking about before american troups started pouring into Kuwait for the war that was planned since pretty much 9/11/01, before this.
 
The question is, did Bush intend the war to reap rewards to insiders and the well-connected or is this all coincidental?

Forget for a moment the Constitution doesn't authorize nation building. Pesky document, that. Is it wrong for U.S. companies to be awarded reconstruction contracts in Iraq? Why does this bother so many people?

Many felt one of the elitists goals of the war was to provide economic opportunities for key industries. Now if had Bush turned over reconstruction efforts to the international community there would be no question here. But actions like keeping the lucrative contracts (some into the billions of dollars) "in the family" and by using Iraq's natural resources to help defer the cost of the destruction, Bush makes no mistake about who he feels deserves the spoils of war.

But do European companies deserve the contracts? Or reverse it. Say the French fix Congo's ills by invading and destroying it. In that case why should U.S. companies be awared reconstruction efforts?

Here I think the debbil might be in the detail. U.S. contract awards are often given behind closed doors and without a bidding process, even among U.S. companies. The Dept. of Defense has a hard-to-understand (to be read as "rigged"?) process by which companies are selected. The lack of a fair bidding process does a disservice to American taxpayers by preventing lo-bidders from earning contracts. Conclusion? Greed and influence are alive and well.

Anyway, all I know is a more virtuous path of doing good without seeking reward appeals to me much more than what I've seen done with Iraq by this administration.
 
Jelly the EU has a commision watching how and why every contract is awarded in Iraq, not only have they found nothing unethical or against established law, they have not even had one complaint by any EU companies.

Does that answer your question about Bush's intentions? At least now you know there are others watching as well.

BTW the contracts are awarded by career civil servants, their jobs are not at stake and they are generally not partisan in their work.
 
Dang, Jelly, your last post there was, I thought, was remarkably well put and cogent and could have come, unless I'm still fogged from sleep (I just awoke up), only from a very highly developed moral and ethical sense. I'm very impressed and even actually experienced some sort of burst of inner joy and excitement. It's sort of like knowing you aren't alone in the world. Thanks. I liked your response to his post too Alistar even though I in it your usual Goodie Two Shoeism. The kind of moral and ethical question I think Jelly was talking about goes, I think, far beyond what is technically legal and would include even appearance. My sense, Jelly, is that Bush doesn't come close to measuring up. To the victor belong the spoils and it was about victory and spoils.
 
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