Biggest reconstruction contractors are GOP donors

A small number of U.S. companies and individuals who are major contributors to the Republican party have earned about $8 billion in post-war reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a study released Thursday.

The companies have given more money to the presidential campaign of George W. Bush than any politician in the past twelve years, the study found.

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, reported that engineering company Kellogg, Brown & Root was the top recipient of federal contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past two years, with more than $2.3 billion in awards. KBR is a division of oil services firm Halliburton, helmed by Vice President Dick Cheney before he joined the Bush campaign in 2000.

Bechtel Group came in second in the study, with $1.03 billion in contracts. Bechtel and KBR are the government's lead contractors in the rebuilding of Iraq. Bechtel is working on construction projects through a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. KBR is repairing the country's oil infrastructure under an Army Corps of Engineers contract, and also supplies logistical support to the Army under a contract it won before the war began.

The center's study also found that dozens of "lower-profile" companies are sharing in the post-war boom. Their contracts range from helping to build Iraq's government to providing translators "for use in interrogations and psychological operations," the center found.

Twenty researchers spent six months compiling the center's report, "The Windfalls of War," which is largely the result of 73 Freedom of Information Act requests. The researchers examined only prime contracts, and didn't account for money spent on subcontractors.

The report found that the top 10 reconstruction contractors have contributed $11 million to national political parties, candidates and political action committees since 1990. Of the 71 companies studied, 14 won contracts in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Collectively, those firms gave more than $23 million in political contributions in the past 13 years.

The study contends that donations to Republican Party committees were greater than those to Democratic committees by a wide margin. Since 1990, contributions by contractors to the GOP totaled $12.7 million, while the total of their contributions to Democrats over the same period stood at $7.1 million.

A high number of former government officials also work for the reconstruction contractors, the study found. About 60 percent of the companies had employees or board members who had served in the executive branch and Congress, or in senior positions in the military.

The report's authors argued that the fact that no single agency is in charge of overseeing reconstruction contracts leaves the process open to potential abuse. AID has a small number of contracting officers overseeing work in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the agency's inspector general has found no improprieties, according to AID officials.

The General Accounting Office is currently examining reconstruction contracting operations, and lawmakers have called for greater transparency in how such contracts are awarded.

Charles Lewis, the executive director of the center and a veteran investigative journalist, said his group was unable to show that any federal laws had been broken in the contracting process. But he said the reconstruction awards carried a "stench of political favoritism." The large number of personal and professional connections between Bush and Cheney and some of the reconstruction contractors made the nature of doing business during these wars "startlingly different" than in the past, he said.

Ellen Yount, a spokeswoman for AID, which awarded Bechtel's contract, said the report was "simply inaccurate on so many counts." She said researchers at the Center for Public Integrity never informed the agency why they were seeking information about the contracts, and didn't meet with AID officials to let them explain why they believe regulations were followed.

"I find it curious that for an organization that claims to be objective that they failed to seek objective answers to questions," Yount said.