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By DAVID PHINNEY
The front lines of humanitarian assistance were already on
the ground as
U.S.
troops took their first steps into
Iraq
last week.
Sixty federal civilian emergency-response experts are
marching with
U.S.
forces into
Iraq
to assist Iraqi civilians with immediate needs for
food, water and shelter. The aid workers represent the
Agency for International Development (AID), the State
Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees,
and the Health and Human Services Department’s Public
Health Service. And they are carrying open checkbooks to
approve grants and funding in the field.
All are working under the leadership of retired Army Lt.
Gen. Jay Garner, who was appointed by President Bush on Jan.
20 to head the new Defense Department Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.
Garner arrived in
Kuwait
on March 17 to begin laying the groundwork for a
reconstruction program on the eve of war. He is expected to
take the reins as civil administrator of
Iraq
and will report to Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who will
oversee the military occupation after the war.
The former president of missile-defense contractor SY
Coleman, Garner refrains from on-the-record interviews, but
those who served in similar roles say he faces the daunting
tasks of rebuilding a nation ravaged by decades of tyranny
and successive wars and establishing a democratic
government.
Garner and his team will have to install an infrastructure
to provide care and feeding to the Iraqi population, which
has been long neglected by its long-time dictator Saddam
Hussein, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Gus Pagonis, who led
reconstruction efforts in
Kuwait
after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Further, reconstruction plans will need to include the
rebuilding of major population centers that likely will be
destroyed by the
United States
in the war.
“Even smart bombs blow up buildings. . . . The devastation
of this will be tremendous,” said Pagonis, who also
directed humanitarian relief for the Kurds in
Northern Iraq
11 years ago. “I don’t think the public
understands how massive this will be.”
Rebuilding
Iraq
may differ from the cleanup after the 1991 Persian
Gulf War because
Kuwait
hired and paid many of the contractors to repair the
extensive damage - sabotaged oil wells and destroyed
infrastructure - wrought by invading Iraqi troops.
The Bush administration has declined to estimate the cost of
its post-war plans, but preliminary steps and contract
offers point to the final tab being in the billions of
dollars. One estimate by a bipartisan think tank, the
Council on Foreign Relations, projects that reconstruction
and military occupation may cost $20 billion a year.
Other agencies pitching in on the long-term rebuilding
effort include the Education, Agriculture and Energy
departments.
Contracting Process Criticized
Meanwhile, in
Washington
, AID is in the final stage of awarding a 21-month,
$600 million capital construction contract to a major
U.S.
engineering firm selected from a small pool of select
candidates, AID spokeswoman Ellen Yant said March 20.
The candidates competing for that contract reportedly
include Bechtel; Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of
Houston-based Halliburton; Louis Berger Group Inc.; Parsons
Corp.; Fluor Corp.; and Perini. All were selected because of
their abilities to handle large construction contracts and
the “urgent circumstances that required an expedited”
review, Yant said.
The quiet bidding process has ignited howls from critics in
Congress and internationally because a number of the
contending companies enjoy close relations with the Bush
administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who
served as head of Halliburton before quitting to be Bush’s
running mate.
AID defends limiting the competition to a handful of
companies, claiming time restraints, complex circumstances
and national security override a more open and thorough
bidding process.
The selected company will be expected to immediately pitch
in on emergency repairs to
Iraq
’s infrastructure, including water, sanitation and
power.
AID also is poised to award eight other large contracts in
the same quiet, expedited review process. Each is reported
to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Those additional contracts are for the reconstruction of
seaports, airports, schools, hospitals, local government
facilities and other infrastructure.
“In terms of the total dollar amount, I don’t have
it,” said Yant, adding that AID is confident it can manage
numerous large contracts simultaneously. “We regularly
procure $2.5 billion in contracts each year.”
The only Iraq-related contract AID had awarded by mid-March
was a $7.1 million agreement with a Washington-headquartered
consulting company, International Resource Group. The
12-month deal calls for opening a project office in
Iraq
to support reconstruction work and humanitarian
assistance.
Also, the Army Corps of Engineers plans to award five
contracts worth up to $100 million apiece for a full range
of design, construction and renovation services.
“The requests are written broadly to support a number of
potential scenarios,” said Joan Kibler, spokeswoman for
the Corps’ TransAtlantic program center in
Winchester
,
Va.
“They could be used for
U.S.
military, agencies or friendly foreign governments.”
The Corps is managing similar projects in
Afghanistan
, such as a $98 million agreement signed in October
with Kontract International and Perini to rebuild barracks
and other base facilities for the Afghan National Army,
Kibler said.
Administration officials have been slow in commenting on
these agreements, something that has drawn criticism from
lawmakers and nongovernmental relief organizations.
Lack of Information Decried
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Sen. Dick
Lugar, R-Ind., blasted DoD’s Garner and other
administration officials for failing to testify on March 11
on Iraq’s reconstruction after agreeing to do so. It was a
“missed opportunity” to lay out the plans for Congress
and “also the American people, whose long-term support
will be a necessity,” he said.
Eric Schwartz, former special assistant to the president for
multilateral and humanitarian affairs during the
Clinton
administration, said Bush administration officials
should be more open about their plans.
“If they don’t share information, there is a real risk
of misperception,” Schwartz said. “They are facing a
huge challenge, and the lack of transparency with these very
large contracts is creating a good deal of concern among
other governments and nongovernmental organizations.”
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