Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Bullwinkle]

PH,

I am just getting in and have not read the board yet today, so I hope this has not been posted yet...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/special_packages/iraq/5444640.htm

War to profit U.S. firms
Posted on Fri, Mar. 21, 2003

After destruction will come reconstruction, and Americans will pay
MARK FINEMAN
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - Amid the opening salvos of destruction Thursday, the Bush administration unveiled a blueprint for Iraq's reconstruction, calling it America's most massive rebuilding project since the Marshall Plan.

In the coming days, a handful of American companies will win huge contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- billions, some say -- to repair some of what the U.S. war destroys and what Saddam Hussein already has ruined, according to Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The AID contracts cover everything from rebuilding Iraq's roads, hospitals, schools, airports, seaports, power plants and water and sewage systems to creating local governments, managing public health and feeding Iraq's 23 million people, Natsios told reporters Thursday.

In addition, more than half of the largest AID disaster-response team ever created already has taken up positions with U.S. combat troops in Kuwait. Its members will facilitate and contract for the distribution of food, shelter, water and emergency-medical kits on the ground as U.S. forces move in and secure Iraq.

And late Thursday, AID and Agriculture Department officials announced the administration would release 500,000 tons of food from the U.S. strategic wheat reserve for the Iraqi people.

All told, Natsios said, it would be the largest undertaking in AID's history. "I am not aware of anything of this scale since the Marshall Plan," he said, referring to America's reconstruction of post-World War II Europe.

For now, the operation is being funded with $304 million in AID's general appropriations. The rest will be in a mammoth supplemental spending bill for the war and homeland security that the White House is expected to submit to Congress next week.

The AID contracts do not include some of the most potentially costly -- and lucrative -- reconstruction work: billions of dollars to rebuild and run Iraq's oil industry, put out oil fires and reform the Iraqi army and police.

Those contracts, Natsios said, will be awarded separately by the Pentagon. Citing national security and other government restrictions, Natsios said that only U.S. companies were being asked to bid on the prime AID contracts in Iraq. But he stressed that he signed a waiver allowing the prime contractors to subcontract work to companies from "any country in the free world."

At the moment, though, that waiver would not allow subcontracts with companies in Iraq, which is on the list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

Natsios said he expects Iraq will be taken off the list if its regime falls, paving the way for some of the vast reconstruction sums to move into the Iraqi economy.

But, as the first of the bombs and missiles fell on Iraq and reports of Iraqi oil fires spread, he and other AID officials made it clear that no one knows how much reconstruction will cost because no one knows the extent of the destruction that lies ahead. And much of that depends on the length of the war.

"We have absolutely no idea if this will go very quickly," said Tim Beans, AID's head of procurement. Even the yet-undisclosed price caps included in contract solicitations that went to selected U.S. companies last week, he said, are just estimates.

The first substantial contracts, which will determine the future management of Iraq's international airports and seaports, will be awarded later Friday, he said.

Candidates for the largest of the contracts, a $600 million commitment to rebuild much of Iraq's civilian infrastructure, have been narrowed down to two companies from an original seven. That will be awarded next week, Beans said.


I implemented the BOLD edit of this articles last paragraph

Happy Trading,
Bullwinkle

PS- I picked up some HAL on Friday (small position), basically a bet that they get a nice (insider?) contract and is then bought on the news. The stock has been range bound between $18-21 since December...This is in no way a solicitation to buy, but anyones input/opinion is welcome.