[Media-watch] Advance planning

[John Meed]

Dear MediaWatch

I came across this in El Pais. Please can anyone let me know if they have
seen this reported in the UK press?

John Meed

El Pais (11 April) reports that on February 2, "two days before the
inspectors requested more time for their work, and 36 days before the US
began the war, the US government requested tenders from American firms to
reconstruct (Iraq) after the devastation they were planning".

The paper reprints a copy of the front page of the ŒSolicitation, offer and
award¹ document issued by US-AID of the Ronald Reagan building in
Pensylvania Avenue, Washington. Tenders were due in by February 27. ŒOn the
second of March, US firms began sounding out Spanish firms about possible
sub-contracting arrangements¹

The US firms approached included Halliburton, Louis Berger, Bechtel and
Parsons. "On March 25 Andrew Natsios of US-AID said that the firms chosen to
rebuild Iraq would be announced by the end of the month. He omitted to add
that he had requested their tenders a month earlier. He also confirmed that
such firms had to be American for legal reasons ­ but that subcontracting
would be open to everyone."

"The scope of the work was wide: reconstruction of ports, airports,
electricity plants, bridges, railways, drinking water, schools and
hospitals: The document would seem a work of altruism were it not from the
fact that the agency planned to reconstruct what its government had decided
secretly to destroy."

Francisco Mercado, El concurso para reconstruir Iraq se hizo un mes antes la
guerra, El Pais, 11/4/03.