03 June 2008

Dennis Washington: War Profiteer?

Geez, we all knew Dennis Washington of Missoula, Montana, made money coming and going from mining and minewaste in the Butte area. But looks like he's much more than that. This is quoted from A-Infos:

Iraq and Afghanistan

Washington Group International become one of five companies invited by the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to participate in a
"secret bidding" process for contracts to help rebuild Iraq. In April 2003,
the secret bids made international news, with England's Sunday Herald
reporting, "All the American firms to get Iraqi reconstruction contracts
have bankrolled George Bush and the Republican Party, or have direct links
to USAID."


The Herald went on to note that Washington Group International "gave
$438,700 to the Republicans," placing it in the same select group as
Halliburton,
the company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Halliburton, has attracted most of the press attention for its Iraq-related
contracts, it is hardly the whole story. All companies sharing Iraqi pie are
tightly connected, for example executive vice president and CFO of WGI,
George H. Juetten previously was senior vice president and CFO for Dresser
Industries, a subsidiary of Halliburton Inc.


On March 12, 2004, the Program Management Office awarded the company a
contract with a ceiling of $500,000,000 for "electrical power distribution
and transmission" in the northern region of Iraq. A joint venture with Black
& Veatch Joint Venture was awarded a contract with a maximum value of
$600,000,000 for work in the public works and water sector. The joint
venture also holds a contract worth $33 million for electrical work. In
Afghanistan, contracts won by Washington Group International, along with
Fluor Continental and Perini, will cover rebuilding damaged roads and
replacing a destroyed bridge in Afghanistan as part of their individual
contracts to support U.S. military's Central Command (CENTCOM). Those
contracts have a minimum value of $500,000 and a maximum of $500 million.
Whatever the final result of Dubya's adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq may
be, WGI has put itself firmly in the camp of the final winners.


Additional sources:

Iraq and Afghanistan:

Windfalls of War (by the Center for Public Integrity)
http://www.public-i.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=65

Dennis Washington, Missoula's Iraq connection (by Missoula Independent)
http://www.missoulanews.com/News/News.asp?no=3591

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