GAO: No-Bid Contracts in Iraq Appear Legal

[PfcHammer]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040428/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_investigations_1

GAO: No-Bid Contracts in Iraq Appear Legal

By KEN GUGGENHEIM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials met legal guidelines in awarding billions of dollars in new contracts for Iraq (news - web sites) reconstruction to a Halliburton subsidiary and other companies without seeking competitive bids, congressional investigators say in a draft report.

But the government often appeared to go beyond the rules when it ordered new work under older, existing contracts, the General Accounting Office (news - web sites) said in its review of 25 reconstruction contracts. The contracts represented almost all of the $3.7 billion committed for reconstruction through September.

The draft report, which has been submitted to federal agencies for comment and to Congress, was obtained by The Associated Press.

Democratic lawmakers have accused the Bush administration of showing favoritism to companies such as Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s former company, that were major contributors or had close ties to the Bush administration.

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[aquart]

1. Then change the laws.

[mulethree]

2. legal because they have a monopoly?

Ok give them the contract because they are the only ones who could handle it? Would it not be better to break the contract down to pieces that could be competed on?

Or prevent them from merging with their biggest competitor in the first place? on anti-trust grounds? I suppose they must have competitors on a global basis but they somehow got excluded since they didn't join the coalition?