Cutting and Running

...Bechtel Corp. went to Iraq three years ago to help rebuild a nation torn by war. Since then, 52 of its people have been killed and much of its work sabotaged as Iraq dissolved into insurgency and sectarian violence.

Now Bechtel is leaving.

The San Francisco engineering company's last government contract to rebuild power, water and sewage plants across Iraq expired on Tuesday. Some employees remain to finish the paperwork, but essentially, the company's job is done.

Bechtel's contracts were part of an enormous U.S. effort to put Iraq back on its feet after decades of wars and sanctions. That rebuilding campaign, once touted as the Marshall Plan of modern times, was supposed to win the hearts of skeptical Iraqis by giving them clean water, dependable power, telephones that worked and modern sanitation. President Bush said he wanted the country's infrastructure to be the very best in the Middle East.

But Bechtel -- which charged into Iraq with American "can-do" fervor -- found it tough to keep its engineers and workers alive, much less make progress in piecing Iraq back together.

"Did Iraq come out the way you hoped it would?" asked Cliff Mumm, Bechtel's president for infrastructure work. "I would say, emphatically, no. And it's heartbreaking."

The violence that has gripped Iraq drove up costs and hamstrung the engineers who poured into the country after the U.S.-led invasion.

Bechtel's first reconstruction contract, awarded shortly after Saddam Hussein's overthrow in April 2003, assured the company that it would have a safe environment for its workers. But, by the end, dozens of Bechtel's employees and subcontractors had been killed, some of them kidnapped, others marched out of their office and shot. Forty-nine others were wounded.

Bechtel responded by hiring more guards , driving armored cars and fortifying its camps . Those steps ate up money that otherwise would have brought electricity and clean water to Iraqis. Sure it would've. To the ones that worked for Bechtel. But for some odd reason, none did.

The size of Bechtel's contracts also shrank over time, as U.S. officials diverted money from reconstruction and toward security. Instead of the nearly $3 billion originally budgeted, Bechtel finally received about $2.3 billion, a figure that includes money the company spent on projects as well as its undisclosed profit.

Mumm directed Bechtel's work from a bare-bones trailer in Baghdad. He is proud of his people for finding ways to work despite the threat of imminent death. Of 99 projects that the U.S. government directed Bechtel to complete, the company finished 97, abandoning only two for security reasons, the company says.

But Mumm's pride is mixed with frustration. Many of those completed projects later fell victim to collapsing security, which made maintenance dangerous and, in some cases, resulting in damage to plants and equipment.

He once hoped the new Iraqi government would turn into a steady Bechtel client, bringing the company lucrative new contracts in a country where virtually every road, power plant and waterworks needs repair.

"Had Iraq been a calmer place while we were there, amazing things could have been done," he said... [thanks to Defense Tech for the link]

Indeed. The level of self-disinformation in those last two paragraphs makes the mind reel. Every road, power plant, and waterworks needs repair. The Shock. The Awe.

From CNN: ...NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Bush administration launched a war on terror because of the alleged acts of Osama bin Laden. Ironically, one of the companies the administration has picked to rebuild Iraq after the latest phase of that war has ties to bin Laden's family, according to a published report.

Bechtel Corp., a private construction firm based in San Francisco, recently was awarded a State Department contract, potentially worth more than $600 million, to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure after the recent U.S.-led war there.

The Bush administration pushed for that war, in part, because it said the regime of Saddam Hussein, former leader of Iraq, had ties to the al Qaeda terror network, headed by bin Laden, the group allegedly responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

According to an article in the May 5 issue of New Yorker magazine, several bin Laden family members -- part of a large, Saudi Arabian family that made a fortune in the construction business -- invested about $10 million in a private equity fund operated by former subsidiary of Bechtel before Sept. 11... [thanks to Infowars for the link]

Saudi Royalists loves them some secular Sunni meat, alright. What Al Qaeda couldn't do to Iraq, the Codpiece Crusader, did. And as soon as Junior fixes this $election, they'll have a go after them pesky Shia with all the depleted uranium the D.o'D. can throw at 'em, too.