Pentagon Warns British Firms

[kskiska]

The Pentagon yesterday warned British firms winning contracts under its $18.4bn (£10bn) Iraqi reconstruction programme that they would be thrown out if they failed to give a minimum 10% of the work to US small businesses.

Mark Lumer, assistant deputy secretary of the US army, said there could be grounds for default if prime contractors failed to meet that criterion. Ideally, the US would like 23% of sub-contracting work handed to American businesses.

"We will be enforcing the terms and clauses of these contracts very strictly," he told a London seminar on federal acquisition rules (FAR) organised by UK Trade & Investment, the government agency.

Mr Lumer and David Nash, the retired US rear admiral running the coalition provisional authority's programme management office (PMO), in Baghdad, said all firms operating in Iraq would have to train Iraqis and offer them senior positions. Their comments came as Parsons, a Pasadena-based company, confirmed it had won a $500m contract for the construction and renovation of public buildings in Iraq.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1179286,00.html

[DulceDecorum]

1. Otra vez, por favor

Say it in Spanish,
what was Aznar supposed to get?

[Old and In the Way]

2. Well, it is our franchise.

The Godfather has spoken. You pay tribute.

[sally343434]

3. More hypocrisy

And here I thought that one of the easiest way to get a republican to pop a vein was to promote anything smacking of a "set aside" or "quota."

Oh, that's right. This is different because it fattens the wallets of contributors (and doesn't fit the real meaning of the code words: "lazy blacks coming after your white daughters.")

Kerry should ask why bush is insisting on set-asides and quotas.

[goforit]

4. Hogging over the Black Gold.........(oink, oink)

What schmucks!

[DulceDecorum]

5. What black gold?

They are pumping oil INTO the wells.

Iraq's problems were well known to the United States before the war. The Energy Infrastructure Planning Group, set up by senior Bush administration officials in September 2002 to plan for the oil industry in the event of war, learned that Iraq was reinjecting crude oil to maintain pressure in the Kirkuk field. "Iraqis acknowledged it was a poor practice," said one administration expert involved with the group, and as the main war wound down, the Iraqis "were unequivocal that that practice had to stop and right away."

But it did not. The amount of oil being reinjected is now 150,000 to 250,000 barrels a day, down from as much as 400,000 barrels a day last summer, said Mr. McKee, but he added that he had never encountered such a practice in his long career in the oil industry. The reinjection of oil was a clear sign of trouble in the underground reservoirs, but the energy planning task force decided not to address them, partly for political reasons, according to participants. "We didn't want to give fuel to the fire of debate that was saying the U.S. was just doing this to steal the oil," an administration official said.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/1130risks.htm

[Trajan]

6. Hey ! ....

THATS what happens when you try to steal Bush's uranium in Mexico ...

INSTANT Karma ! ....

[GoddessOfGuinness]

7. Like hyenas around carrion

that's what these f@#kers are like... :-(

[JoFerret]

12. beautiful pic. where is it?

.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

13. Thanks!

I'm not sure. Maybe Texas, maybe VA or NC in the Blue Ridge mountains.

[Chicago Democrat]

8. A backdoor way to reward Republican contributors...

...by giving them one of those forced 10% tax contracts and the ones who suffer? The Iraqis who get jack squat after all the vultures have picked the bones clean.

[Chicago Democrat]

9. Rumsfelts Management Style- The Mafia

[Eye and Monkey]

10. "Almost evangelically, Parsons carries its message" - Details on CorpoRat.

http://www.hoovers.com/parsons/--ID__43065--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml

Parsons Corporation
100 W. Walnut St.
Pasadena, CA 91124 (Map)
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
http://www.parsons.com

Almost evangelically, Parsons carries its message -- and its engineering, procurement, and construction management services -- worldwide. The company provides design, planning, and construction management through four main operating groups: advanced technologies, commercial technology, infrastructure and technology, and transportation. Among its many projects, Parsons has designed power plants; built dams, resorts, and shopping centers; and provided environmental services such as the cleanup of hazardous nuclear wastes. Parsons has also added improvements to airports and rail systems, bridges, and highways. Customers of the employee-owned company include government agencies and private industries.

[justjones]

11. There's more "warnings" coming from this freakin' misadministration

than there are on prescription labels, usually from the Pentagon.

That's the "management" style of the insecure and cowardly. That's right, Rumsfeld is head of the Pentagon. Figures.

[FlyByNight]

14. So, the Pentagon is now a...

$400 billion per year protection racket now, eh? The organized crime analogies are very apt.

[saigon68]

15. The Message: "Kickbacks for Campaign Contributors"

disgusting