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Riley Bechtel and the crony economy. The joys of the Bush economy are limited to the administration's innermost circle of influence and affluence (Wall Street Journal, sub. req'd):

...Bechtel is widely perceived as the front-runner for future [Iraqi reconstruction] business as the U.S. spends up to $100 billion in what is seen as the biggest reconstruction project since World War II's aftermath.

[...]

At least two current Bechtel executives have ties to the Bush administration.

A senior vice president, Jack Sheehan, sits on the Defense Policy Board formed to advise Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who himself once lobbied for a Bechtel project. Sheehan, a retired Marine Corps general, manages Bechtel's petroleum and chemical operations.

And President Bush appointed Bechtel's chairman, Riley Bechtel, in February to the Export Council, which advises the president on international trade matters.

[...]

Bechtel's critics don't doubt the company is up to the job. Instead, they say that by limiting the bidding to Bechtel and five other U.S. companies, the federal government might not have gotten the best free-market deal.

"We are concerned that the government seems to be handpicking their buddies for these contracts," said Seth Morris, research associate for the nonpartisan Washington-based Project on Government Oversight.

[...]

Riley Bechtel, 51, is the great-grandson
I'm so rich!of company founder Warren Bechtel and has been chief executive for 13 years. He has emerged as one of the world's richest people with an estimated fortune of $3.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

The company has backed its personal contacts within Washington with sizable campaign contributions. Bechtel gave $1.3 million to political candidates from 1999 through 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That is a lot less than other influential businesses. The donations look like small change compared to the money Bechtel earns from the government.

In the fiscal year ended in September 2002, the Department of Defense paid Bechtel $1.03 billion, making it the 17th-largest military contractor in the country.

In retrospect, Bechtel makes even more sense than Cheney's Halliburton.

Why? Because it's a private, family-owned company, and therefore not bothered by such messy details as disclosure or accountability. It's logical for one dynasty — the Bushes — to honor the Bechtel dynasty.

Bechtel's past, too rich to go into detail here, is fascinating in its contrivances — first by wooing Saddam Hussein as a suitor (with one Donald Rumsfeld popping a breath mint and holding the bouquet), then by punishing him by killing him for his rejection of its affections:

After serving as treasury secretary in the Nixon administration, George Shultz was Bechtel's president for seven years before he left in 1981 to become secretary of state in the Reagan administration.

And Casper Weinberger was its general counsel and served on the company's board from 1975 to 1981 before becoming secretary of defense under Reagan.

While Shultz was U.S.'s top diplomat, the U.S. government tried unsuccessfully to persuade Saddam Hussein to let Bechtel build a pipeline to carry Iraqi crude oil through Jordan to the Red Sea port of Aqaba.

In 1983, Rumsfeld, while working as a special U.S. envoy in the Middle East, traveled to Baghdad to discuss the pipeline with Saddam and Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, according to memos in the National Archives.

Iraq rejected the pipeline idea in 1986. Shultz has since returned to Bechtel's board of directors.

Bechtel exemplifies "the revolving door between government and business that Washington has helped perpetuate for years," said Jim Vallette, a research director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a nonpartisan Washington-based think tank. "We should have a separation between the state and corporations. Instead, they're acting more like partners."

Bechtel reminds us that the war wasn't totally about political hypocrites craving Iraqi oil.

It was also hypocritical hyper-opportunists moving American taxpayer money from the US Treasury directly into the hands of the Bush dynasty's supporters. And cynical geopolitical strategies designed to pilfer international assets. And the new Faustian alliance between corporate financial power and American military power.

Who would have thought that a choice other than Halliburton could stink quite as detestably?

{ 11:51 AM }

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