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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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almarst2003 - 08:59pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11344 of 11500)

The Bush Administration has awarded the San Francisco-based Bechtel Group the first part of a massive contract to oversee the rebuilding of Iraq, involving everything from airports, schools, roads, bridges and railroads to its power grids, water systems and sewers. - http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/18/1050172758425.html

The $US680 million ($1.1 billion) contract gives the company a flying start in one of the most lucrative building programs in decades and further solidifies the US's imprint on postwar Iraq.

"This has never been done before - an American corporation rebuilding an entire foreign country," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Washington DC-based Project on Government Oversight.

The US Government said Bechtel would initially get $US34.6 million under the contract, which provides for up to $US680 million during the next 18 months. Officials from USAID, the government aid agency, said the total will be far higher.

Experts say it will cost tens of billions of dollars to fulfil the agency's goal of creating "the fundamental structures for democracy and economic growth".

Bechtel, the oldest, biggest and best-known US contracting firm, said it had already started working with USAID to "prioritise and detail" what needs to be done.

The company's next step is to find subcontractors. Bechtel will be responsible for co-ordinating construction work by dozens of subcontractors. "It will be a full and open and international bidding process," said Bechtel spokesman Mike Kidder.

But that did not happen in the first round, which aroused criticism in the US Congress and overseas. Bechtel was one of six bidders, all with strong political connections, handpicked by the Bush Administration to bid in a largely secret process. Only US companies were considered.

"A troubling pattern is starting to emerge," said a Democrat senator, Ron Wyden. "We're seeing some of the country's most powerful business interests showing up and getting these contracts."

Senator Wyden is co-sponsoring a bill to force public disclosure of Iraq contracts awarded without open, competitive bidding. Congress's investigative arm, the General Accounting Office, has also launched an investigation.

Bechtel was founded in 1898 and built the Hoover Dam in the early 1930s.

Like many companies that work extensively with the government, it has been a large political contributor: $US1.3 million to federal campaigns and candidates over the past three years, according to the Federal Election Commission. Fifty-nine per cent of the money went to Republicans and the rest to Democrats, records show.

George Shultz, president Richard Nixon's treasury secretary, stepped down in 1974 to become president of Bechtel. In 1982 Mr Shultz became president Ronald Reagan's secretary of state. He is now a member of Bechtel's board.

Caspar Weinberger was a Bechtel director, vice-president and general counsel before becoming Mr Reagan's secretary of defence in 1981.

almarst2003 - 09:02pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11345 of 11500)

Media and the Politics of Empathy - http://www.fair.org/media-beat/030417.html

lchic - 09:18pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11346 of 11500)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

How BRAVE

Outspoken

and strong

'The Mice'

now Sad' the

Tyrant's

G O N E !

dR3

almarst2003 - 09:19pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11347 of 11500)

Poland and the US underlined their friendship yesterday by signing an agreement on the biggest military package in Europe in years - and the most substantial ever in former communist eastern Europe. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,939684,00.html

THE PEACE DIVIDENT, FINALY:)

almarst2003 - 09:21pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11348 of 11500)

Could the "Mice" be too fast as some pretty hungry "Cats" are sneaking?

lchic - 09:26pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11349 of 11500)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

20 million blind mice! See, how they run!

They all ran after the Mullah - that's nice,

Who cut out their brains with a carving knife!

Did you ever see such a sight in your life?

20 million blind mice!

dR3

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