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L.A. Times editorial: Halliburton, far and away the largest recipient of Iraq reconstruction dollars with about $18 billion in contracts, has seen revenues increase by 80% in the first quarter of 2004 compared with the same quarter of 2003, according to the Financial Times. These revenues reflect "steep profits from their Iraq operations."
Helping to boost these bottom lines are rules put into place by L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Bush administration's now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Among them are "orders" that ensure that none of the profits made by contractors have to be reinvested in the fledging Iraqi economy or in helping with reconstruction. Instead, every last penny can be sent back to the United States. The orders also make it difficult, come January, for an elected Iraqi government to overturn such rules. Not surprisingly, some of the profits generated by the war in Iraq appear to be making their way into Republican Party coffers. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, each of these corporations is among the leaders in its industry in 2003-2004 election-cycle contributions, with most of the donations going to Republicans. Halliburton funneled 85% of its $165,949 in contributions to Republicans. ChevronTexaco donated 83% of $367,731 in political contributions to Republicans. Lockheed, whose contribution total of $1,397,132 is more than the contributions of the other three corporations combined, gave 59% to Republicans, and Bechtel, 53% of $199,847. http://bigpath.net/politics/NewsLink/index.html
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