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Dyncorp police iraq police bosnia sex scandal Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030418.wxbech0418/BNStory/Fronthttp://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030418.wxbech0418/BNStory/Front
White House fast tracks tenders to rebuild Iraq
By PAUL KNOX
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
UPDATED AT 9:21 PM EST Friday, Apr. 18, 2003
A U.S.-financed bonanza of reconstruction and nation-building work is about to roll across Iraq, and U.S.-based firms with close links to the Pentagon and State Department are cashing in.
School systems, textbooks, airports, police operations, local government, water plants and sewers will be overhauled and in some cases created from scratch by U.S. contractors, paid out of U.S. funds.
The initial round of contracts totals about $1-billion (U.S.). Independent analysts say the cost of rebuilding Iraq could reach $20-billion a year over several years.
But the Bush administration's fast-track method of doling out the work is drawing fire from critics who say it is inviting abuse by choosing politically connected firms and failing to ensure it will be closely monitored.
"If you don't have good oversight, a private contractor will operate like any other private entity," said Peter Singer, a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "It will operate in the interest of the bottom line rather than in the public interest."
One of the most controversial firms is DynCorp, a Virginia-based unit of Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., chosen to recruit a 150-member group to help reorganize Iraqi police forces. DynCorp was accused of dismissing an employee because she blew the whistle on sexual misconduct on a similar mission in Bosnia.
The largest Iraq contract awarded so far by the U.S. Agency for International Development is for work on Iraqi infrastructure, including power, water and sewer systems, a seaport and an airport. It could reach $680-million over 18 months, although the initial value is $34.6-million.
The winner, announced on Thursday, was Bechtel Corp. of San Francisco, a veteran of U.S.-financed overseas construction projects and a significant donor to U.S. political parties and candidates.
Former U.S. cabinet members who have been employed by Bechtel include secretary of state George Shultz and defence secretary Caspar Weinberger. In 1983, Mr. Shultz and current Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought to persuade now-deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to let Bechtel build a pipeline to carry Iraqi oil to the Red Sea.
Bechtel was among 21 companies asked to apply for eight USAID contracts. One deal, for personnel recruiting, went without a competition to International Resources Group of Arlington, Va.
A deal with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fight Iraqi oil-well fires was also awarded without bidding but later put out to tender after criticism from congressmen. It initially went to a unit of Halliburton Co. of Houston, formerly run by Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Foreign businesses and governments have complained of being shut out of the profits from reconstruction work. The European Commission is investigating U.S. procedures to see whether they violate World Trade Organization rules against restricting government procurement.
USAID says it invited bids from U.S. companies with proven track records and security clearance, under regulations allowing limited competition when foreign aid needs to be delivered quickly.
U.S. officials have said they hope to turn Iraq over to an interim Iraqi administration in three months — an estimate many analysts consider too optimistic.
"We won't be getting out of there in a year," Mr. Singer said. "We'll be there, and officials will try to minimize the troop levels as much as they can by privatizing as much as they can."
Apart from traditional infrastructure work, U.S. firms will be active in setting up school programs, local elections and a banking system — activities in which values are more important than nuts and bolts.
Creative Associates International Inc. of Washington has five months to get the school system running with a post-Saddam curriculum. A USAID document says the company must implement "child-centred, inquiry-based, participatory teaching methods that lay a foundation for democratic practices and attitudes."
Roland Paris, a political scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said multinational police forces have worked well in postconflict areas such as East Timor, where a United Nations mission handed over control last year to an elected government.
"I see no reason in principle why a private contractor couldn't do police training," Prof. Paris said. "But they need thousands of people, and they need them now."
Chuck Taylor, a spokesman for DynCorp's owner, Computer Sciences Corp., said the company hopes it will be involved in recruitment of up to 1,000 police officers and lawyers for Iraq to build police and judicial systems. The current 150-member contingent is being formed under DynCorp's existing $300-million deal with the U.S. State Department, Mr. Taylor said.
The company, owned until recently by former military officers and Pentagon employees, provides staff to UN peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. It is also paid by the State Department to supply bodyguards for Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Kathryn Bolkovac, an employee of DynCorp's British subsidiary who was hired to help police Bosnia, was fired in 2001 after telling her supervisors her colleagues were involved in buying and selling underaged prostitutes.
© 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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