WASHINGTON, April 16 (IslamOnline.net) - Iraq is being billed as the biggest reconstruction effort since the Second World War. The cost of reconstruction has been put as high as $100 billion and could last several years. It is assumed that those who are already occupying the country (Americans and Britons) will have “significant” advantage in bidding for future deals, including the exploitation of Iraq's oil industry.

U.S. President George W. Bush cronies are not the only ones gunning for lucrative contracts to rebuild what American warplanes bombed out of existence in Iraq. Not to be left behind in the gold rush is the no-war coalition of France, Russia and Germany that couldn’t prevent the war.

Erik Kirschbaum of Reuters wrote on April 16 that the failure to stop the war hasn’t stopped the three European powers from staking their individual claims to a role in shaping, and profiting from, the new Iraq. Even as war fires raged full throttle, they were moving to build bridges to the United States and Britain to ensure their companies get a share in rebuilding Iraq.

All three have started sounded conciliatory after the war, while saying they want to see the United Nations play the lead role in postwar reconstruction - tactics widely seen as an effort to avoid being locked out of business deals by the United States.

France, which led the drive to prevent a war and threatened to use its veto at the UN Security Council to block any resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, says it wants to be pragmatic. Germany says it is an honest broker because it has no economic interests in Iraq, and Russia says it will consider Washington’s call to forgive some $8 billion in Soviet-era debt.

Such rush to accommodate America is understandable, especially after the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a nonbonding resolution to bar French, Russian and German companies from winning business in Iraq after the war they resisted.

Barthelemy Courmont, researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Relations, told Reuters: “Even before the outbreak of hostilities, we knew we would get nothing.”

But French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin recently warned against a “victor’s spoils” attitude in Iraq. “The idea that Iraq can be a sort of Eldorado, a cake that states can carve up, seems to me contrary to good sense.”

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who opposed an Iraq war in his 2002 reelection campaign, has been out of favor with Bush ever since, is seeking the intercession of his friend, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to repair the damage.

In a remarkable change of tone, Schroeder told Blair in Hanover, “It’s always good for mankind when a dictator is removed,” adding that “No matter what the differences of opinions were before, it goes without saying healthy transatlantic relations are necessary and we’ll work toward that aim in the future.”

Blair, who agrees with Schroeder that the United Nations should play a “key role” in the reconstruction of Iraq, is striving to help undo the damage.

Chirac, who held a 20-minute telephone conversation with Bush, their first contact in two months bridging their deep differences over the war in Iraq, told Bush of “France’s willingness to act in a pragmatic way” on issues relating to the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. In Washington, Bush administration officials have made clear the President will attend a G8 summit of industrialized nations in Evian, France on June 1.

Despite the diplomatic jockeying, Schroeder has ignored calls in Germany to fight for business deals in Iraq. However, German Defense Minister Peter Struck agreed, saying: “It would be absurd to demand Europe help finance reconstruction, then insist that certain European countries are not given contracts.”

The likely scene is that those who opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq may well take a back seat when a new Iraqi government hands out business such as valuable oil contracts, and may be left out of the discussion in future international crises.

Even Saudi businesses, according to Arabic press, are vying for their share of the Iraqi reconstruction pie, after all Saudi Arabia ‘allowed’ the U.S. to use its military facilities.

Such jockeying aside, but the reality is that companies with links to Bush administration are the real winners and others may end up as mere crumb pickers. It was only under pressure from Britain that the Bush administration agreed to open up subcontracting to overseas companies. Britain's concern was once again cited by foreign secretary Jack Straw, who in Qatar, warned the UN Security Council on April 16 not to "play games" with the reconstruction of Iraq.

"This administration is beyond Nixon when it comes to secrecy," Bill Allison, a spokesman for the DC-based Independent Center for Public Integrity told David Teather of The Guardian on April 15.

"There's definitely the potential for the appearance of conflict of interest. They have thrown out the normal procedures and the administration is very close to corporate America. When Halliburton in particular is involved then it raises questions," Allison said.

The contracts awards started as early as February 2003. Washington-based International Resources Group won a $7 million contract to provide personnel support for reconstruction. Stevedoring, a Seattle, WA company, won a $4.8 million contract to manage the port of Umm Qasr.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the invited bidders together contributed almost $3.6m during the current election cycle, mostly to the Republicans.

The amounts, though individually not large, are part of the process of ensuring a seat at the table, said Charles Tiefer, professor of law at Baltimore University and an expert in government contracting.

Kellogg, Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton, the company once run by Vice-President Dick Cheney, is already implementing $7 billion contract for fighting oil fires. KBR built the detention center for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The company did equally well under the U.S. former President Bill Clinton administration. In response to questioning from Capitol Hill, the army said the contract was awarded under an existing deal with KBR signed in December 2001.

This may also indicate that big business had planned for the war much earlier than the belligerence was aired publicly. Also, Ray Hunt, a director of Halliburton, is on the president's intelligence advisory board. Lawrence Eagleburger, secretary of state under the George Bush Senior administration, is also a Halliburton director.

It was not surprising that anti-war protesters in San Francisco, who recently barricaded the gates of Bechtel, the engineering group, set aside the usual rallying cry: the war in Iraq was not all about oil, they noted, it was also about construction.

After all, Bechtel employed the former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, and the former secretary of state George Shultz is on the board. Jack Sheehan, a senior vice-president with Bechtel, is on the defense policy board, a Pentagon advisory group, one of many apparent conflicts among its 30-strong membership.

Kenneth Oscar, the vice-president of Fluor, another of the six bidders, is a former army secretary and oversaw the Pentagon's $35 billion procurement budget. Its board also includes Bobby Inman, a former CIA deputy director, and labor secretary, Elaine Chao, worked on the board of another of the six, Parsons, before joining the government.

It is being widely discussed in the media that contracts worth billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq are already being handed out by the U.S. government, offering huge profits to a few, favored companies, many with high-level contacts in the Bush administration and a history of donations to the Republican party.

The contracts are being awarded exclusively to U.S. firms and, instead of the usual tendering process, are by invitation only. Bechtel is one of six construction firms chosen to bid.

The public outcry had USAID defending its actions saying that it expedited the usual method of tendering for contracts because of the need to get reconstruction under way as quickly as possible as well as for security reasons.