Call Me a Cynic

In his column in yesterday's New York Times Bobo-in-Chief David Brooks dismisses Democratic criticism of the no-bid Iraqi reconstruction contracts handed to Halliburton by the Bush administration. Disputing a study recently released by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), Brooks writes: The idea that a Bush political appointee can parachute down and persuade a large group of civil servants to risk their careers by steering business to a big donor is the stuff of fantasy novels, not reality. I have my own minor quibbles with some of the conclusions in the CPI report, but Brooks, in spite of himself, neatly encapsulates why these deals don't pass the smell test. In the very next paragraph, he writes: The real story is that the Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, won an open competition to provide the service support for overseas troops. This contract is called the Logcap, and is awarded every few years. KBR won the competition in 1992. It lost to DynCorp in 1997, and it won again in 2001. Let's see. KBR won the contract in 1992, when Dick Cheney was serving as defense secretary under Bush pere. In 1995, Halliburton/KBR hired Dick Cheney as its chairman and CEO. In 1997, during the Clinton administration, KBR lost the contract. But in 2001 ? soon after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney took office ? KBR, somehow, won the "open competition" for the contract again. Then, since they were already "in place" before the war, KBR was awarded a $2 billion, no-bid contract to repair Iraq's oil industry and provide logistical support. What could possibly seem suspicious about that?