Reply #8: here's another investigation that has never been undertaken

[UpInArms]

and it looks like no one even cares :(

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/2192955.html

Oct. 31, 2003, 8:52AM
Study says firms used insider ties to win contracts

WASHINGTON -- Major U.S. companies, including Houston's Halliburton subsidiary KBR, have used insider contacts and political donations to help snag more than $8 billion in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, a watchdog group said Thursday.

"There is a stench of political favoritism and cronyism surrounding the contracting process in both Iraq and Afghanistan," said Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, which released a study on wartime contracting. "These two wars ... have brought out the Beltway Bandit companies in full force."

But some of the companies and government agencies scrutinized by the study dismissed its findings as flawed, incomplete and misleading.

The 10 largest contracts issued to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan have all gone to companies that employed former high-ranking government officials or people who had close ties with the Bush administration and key members of Congress, the study found.

A prime example was KBR, the single biggest winner of wartime contracts with more than $2.3 billion, Lewis said. Its parent company, Halliburton, was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney before he was chosen as President Bush's running mate.

<snip>

The CPI report found that the top 70 contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan donated more than $500,000 to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, more than the group gave to any other politician in the past 12 years. The top 10 contractors have donated $11 million to candidates, political parties and political action committees since 1990.

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