by Sally Denton
It was widely reported that the only thing Shultz and Weinberger ever agreed upon was that the Iran-Contra affair was misguided, and both opposed sending arms to Iran. Both men “thought that if it ever became [public], it would look like we were trading arms for hostages,” Reagan later said. Cannon, President Reagan, 590. But neither took any action or threatened to resign. In its obituary of Weinberger, the Economist referred to a lie Weinberger had told regarding the magazine. He “always said, with great charm, that he had also been an occasional correspondent for the Economist. Embarrassingly, this was a claim that our records could not corroborate.” Ibid.
“Regulators and the regulated”: Coll, Private Empire, 4.
“enjoyed access to the administration”: Ibid., 68.
“help preserve the peace”: www.bechtel.com.
“as part of an ambitious”: www.bechtel.com/1998-04-03.html.
“In a world increasingly long” . . . “powerful competitive tools”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-7.html.
“Don’t just build things”: King and McCoy, “Bechtel’s Power Outage.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: GLOBAL REACH WITH A LOCAL TOUCH
“Leading the Way to Change” . . . “Building a Century”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-7.html.
“Global Reach with a Local Touch”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-8.html.
“world-class ownership” . . . “USGen took off”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-7.html.
“were eager” . . . “zealously guarded”: King and McCoy, “Bechtel’s Power Outage.”
“does not release”: Jude P. Laspa, quoted in ibid.
“The family reputation”: Ibid.
“Staffed by MBA hotshots”: Ibid.
“invest in privatization” . . . “renowned for its financial designs”: Lubove, “Piece of the Action.”
“Ownership is private”: Jane Mayer, “The Contractors,” New Yorker, May 5, 2003.
“It’s a long way”: Lubove, “Piece of the Action.”
“Enough of this waiting around”: ibid.
“It’s been so successful”: Unruh, quoted in ibid.
“dot-com-era folly” . . . “He was seen as the Einstein” . . . “Red flags” . . . “Telecoms and dot-coms”: King and McCoy, “Bechtel’s Power Outage.”
“Someone wasn’t telling”: Dennis Connell, quoted in ibid.
“As vexing” . . . “fled the nation” . . . “World Bank–controlled”: Raphael Lewis and Sean P. Murphy, “Building a Reputation: Bechtel Has Never Shied Away from Big Construction Projects, but Worldwide Achievements Are Accompanied by Controversy,” Boston Globe, February 28, 2003.
“expropriated assets”: Jim Shultz, “Riley Bechtel.”
“The fact that a World Bank”: U.S. Newswire, “Three Hundred Citizen Groups Call on Secret World Bank Trade Court to Open Up Bechtel Case Against Bolivia,” August 29, 2002. A wide range of groups joined in the demand to open up the legal case for public scrutiny, including labor, environmental groups, research and consumer organizations, and religious institutions. Among those joining were the Canadian Labour Congress, Public Services International, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Transnational Institute, the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, and the American Friends Service Committee. The Cochabamba case was explored in the 2003 documentary film The Corporation and in the 2010 Spanish film Even the Rain.
“For Bechtel Enterprises”: Jim Shultz, “Riley Bechtel.”
“marriage between”: Vallette, Kretzmann, and Wysham, Crude Vision, 14.
“In Bolivia”: Jim Shultz, quoted in Lewis and Murphy, “Building a Reputation.”
“controls water rates”: Jeff Berger, quoted ibid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: A LICENSE TO MAKE MONEY
“economic equivalent”: Klein, Shock Doctrine, 343.
“the world’s biggest”: New York Times, quoted in ibid., 347.
“worth a fraction” . . . “In late 2001” . . . “gave coal-fired plants” . . . “We knew Bechtel” . . . “One of the most tightly”: King and McCoy, “Bechtel’s Power Outage.”
“If this were a public company”: Riley Bechtel, quoted in ibid.
“No one on the engineering”: Bechtel partner Dennis Connell, quoted in ibid.
“fiendishly hardworking” . . . “Their big reward” . . . “The old boy is asking”: Ibid.
“Seemingly innocent disclosures”: Adrian Zaccaria, quoted in ibid.
“twin themes”: Russ Hoyle, Going to War: How Misinformation, Disinformation, and Arrogance Led America into Iraq (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008), 26.
“The same men”: Vallette, Kretzmann, and Wysham, Crude Vision, 2.
“I would be surprised” . . . “Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein”: Shultz, quoted in Hoyle, Going to War, 83.
“committed to moving”: Bob Herbert, “Ask Bechtel What War Is Good For: A License to Make Money,” International Herald Tribune, April 22, 2003.
“People will say there will be chaos”: Weinberger, quoted in George Packer, The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 53.
“The more we gave Saddam”: Gary Milhollin, “Building Saddam Hussein’s Bomb: They Are Pouring Concrete as We Speak,” New York Times, March 8, 1992.
“a license to make money” . . . “Bechtel in the driver’s seat”: Herbert, “Ask Bechtel What War Is Good For.”
“The Danger Is Immediate” . . . “if there is a rattlesnake”: Shultz in the Washington Post, September 6, 2002.
“Since his role was at arm’s length”: Klein, Shock Doctrine, 403.
“remove the remains”: John Broder, “In Storm’s Ruins, a Rush to Rebuild and Reopen for Business,” New York Times, September 10, 2005.
CHAPTER THIRTY: MORE POWERFUL THAN THE US ARMY
“Every so often Bechtel emerges a little”: Economist.
“mother contract”: Dan Baum, “Nation Builders for Hire,” New York Times, June 22, 2003.
“of the billing”: Tom Engelhardt, “Everything’s Private,” Mother Jones, November 4, 2003.
“The rush to secure contracts”: Joshua Chaffin and Andrew Hill, “The Rush to Secure Contracts to Rebuild Iraq and the Awarding of the First Wave of Deals Is Causing as Much Debate as the Decision to Wage War,” Financial Times, April 28, 2003.
“competitive”: Project on Government Oversight.
“incentive for corporations”: Public Citizen, 14.
“It’s a relatively small club”: Baum, “Nation Builders for Hire.”
“that the government seems”: Michael Liedtke, “D.C. Ties Help Bechtel Tie Up Iraqi Reconstruction Work,” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 19, 2003.
“I ran the Big Dig” . . . “It is charged”: Koppel, “Assistance for Iraq,” Nightline, ABC News, April 23, 2003.
“in charge of the biggest”: Brian, quoted in David Streitfeld and Mark Fineman, “U.S. Engineers Working Under the Gun in Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2003.
“Only a handful” . . . “So we went”: Koppel, “Assistance for Iraq.”
“I think some senators”: Henriques, “Which Companies.”
“Perhaps Bechtel’s institutional”: Crogan, “The Dishonor Role.”
“legitimate commercial”: Benjamin Pimentel, “Iraq Got Bay Area Boost in ’80s,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 26, 2003.
“conventional weapons”: UN report, excerpted in Corpwatch.
“relative routineness”: Davis, “It’s a Bechtel World.”
“once party central” . . . “to a squadron”: Cox and Strauss, “Iraq Work Puts Bechtel in Spotlight.”
“Rumsfeld has sat”: Rep. Marcy Kaptur, quoted in “Old Men’s Oil Wars.”
“A motley assortment”: T. Christian Miller, Blood Money (New York: Little, Brown, 2006), 4.
“We should have a separation”: Jim Vallette, quoted in Liedtke, “D.C. Ties Help Bechtel.”
“The U.S. comes in” . . . “I mean, Becht
el”: Baker, October 3, 2003.
“Within hours”: Davis, “It’s a Bechtel World.”
“the corporate invasion”: Streitfeld, “Quiet Ambition at Work.”
“Also vocal” . . . “Vulture! Vulture!”: Cox and Strauss, “Iraq Work Puts Bechtel in Spotlight.”
“We are a tiny”: Illich, quoted in Streitfeld, “Quiet Ambition at Work.”
“Executives forcefully reject”: Ibid.
“Everyone says Iraq is a gravy train”: Bechtel vice president Jim Illich, quoted in ibid.
“Even for Bechtel”: Ibid.
“If a project goes financially wrong”: Hirst, “World’s at Bechtel’s Beck and Call.”
“eliminates the substantial”: Bechtel, 160.
“More powerful than the U.S. Army”: St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army.”
“maintained a cloak of secrecy”: Taylor, “Secretive Construction Giant.”
“I don’t know that Bechtel”: Shultz, quoted in Bob Herbert, “War Hawks Are Circling In,” Oakland Tribune, April 13, 2003.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: THE HYDRA-HEADED AMERICAN GIANT
“Bechtel arrived in Iraq quietly”: Public Citizen, 2.
“amateurish and vainglorious”: Maureen Dowd, “Jeb Bush’s Brainless Trust,” New York Times, February 22, 2015.
“policy engine” . . . “Bechtel has positioned itself”: Public Citizen, 12.
Three months after the invasion, Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed in a gunfight with US forces, and Saddam was placed at the top of the US list of most-wanted Iraqis. Bremer announced his capture in December 2003 during the American assault Operation Red Dawn, presented video footage of the Iraqi leader wearing a full beard and long hair, and reported plans to put him on trial.
“not solely by controlling”: Stephen C. Pelletiere, “A War Crime or an Act of War?” New York Times, January 31, 2003.
“has two rivers”: Antonia Juhasz, “Bechtel Bails on Iraq,” AlterNet, November 13, 2006.
For the estimated percentage of subcontracts awarded by Bechtel, see Diana B. Henriques, “Bechtel Set to Rely on Iraqi Labor,” International Herald Tribune, April 21, 2003.
“hydra-headed” . . . “golden keys”: Baum, “Nation Builders for Hire.”
“every businessman’s” . . . “institutional strengthening”: Betool Khedairi, “Meeting Mr. Bechtel,” Guardian (Manchester, UK), September 2, 2003.
“God-invoking Bushies”: Michael Hirsh, “Paul Bremer Was Just Following Instructions,” Washington Monthly, March 2006.
“The Iraqi public”: Ed Harriman, “Cronyism and Kickbacks,” London Review of Books, January 26, 2006, www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n02/ed-harriman/cronyism-and-kickbacks.
“military hardmen, diplomats”: Neil Mackay, “Gulf War 2 Part Three: Carving Up the New Iraq,” Sunday Herald (Glasgow, UK), April 13, 2003.
“new Gilded Age”: Engelhardt, “Everything’s Private.”
“on an urgent basis” . . . “insufficient fuel”: Ed Harriman, “The Least Accountable Regime in the Middle East,” London Review of Books, November 2, 2006, www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n21/ed-harriman/the-least-accountable-regime-in-the-middle-east.
“task and delivery”: Project on Government Oversight.
“clearly met” . . . “support costs” . . . “a large miscellaneous” . . . “Other”: SIGIR, quoted in Ed Harriman, “Burn Rate: Ed Harriman Writes About Making Money and Losing Ground in Iraq,” London Review of Books, September 7, 2007. Bechtel disagreed with the SIGIR findings, with Bechtel spokesman Jonathan Marshall telling NBC News that “there is almost nothing in the audit that is critical of Bechtel’s performance,” and blaming USAID. See Aram Roston, “Federal Audit Rips Iraqi Reconstruction,” NBC Nightly News, July 25, 2007.
“Pity the poor Iraqis”: Harriman, “Burn Rate.”
“battalions of earth-moving”: Klein, Shock Doctrine, 526.
“USAID had cooked the books”: Harriman, “Burn Rate.”
“undeserved reputation”: Cox and Strauss, “Iraq Work Puts Bechtel in Spotlight.”
“Had Iraq been”: Baker, “Bechtel Pulling Out.”
“corporate-friendly”: Juhasz, “Bechtel Bails on Iraq.”
“drew from an insurgency”: Dowd, “Jeb Bush’s Brainless Trust.”
“Iraqi companies”: Juhasz, “Bechtel Bails on Iraq.”
“If you’re going to Iraq”: Cox and Strauss, “Iraq Work Puts Bechtel in Spotlight.”
“hero culture” . . . “Eat Dirt”: Streitfeld, “Quiet Ambition at Work.”
“Resembling over-wide”: Streitfeld and Fineman, “U.S. Engineers.”
“Bechtel—which charged”: Baker, “Bechtel Pulling Out.”
“the pretexts” . . . “complex chain” . . . “tricky politically”: James Glanz, “U.S. Ousts Iraq Hospital Contractor: Cost Overruns and Delays Under Bechtel Doomed Project,” New York Times, July 29, 2006.
“legacy of waste”: Liz Sly, “A U.S. ‘Legacy of Waste’ in Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 2010.
“opened”: Van Buren, We Meant Well, 214.
“It is a simple fact”: Barlett and Steele.
“parallel disaster economy”: Klein, Shock Doctrine, 526.
“The world is a messy place”: Rice, quoted in ibid., 431. See also n. 1, 645.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: PROFITING FROM DESTRUCTION
“there too early”: Laton McCartney, quoted in David Whelan, “San Francisco Contractor Bechtel Is No Stranger to Iraq,” Knight Ridder Tribune News Service, June 4, 2003.
“disaster capitalism”: Klein, Shock Doctrine, 6.
“grand guru”: Ibid., 5.
“waiting for a major crisis”: Ibid., 7.
“Within weeks”: Ibid., 519.
“indefinite delivery”: Sheila Carapico, “Forecasting Mass Destruction, from Gulf to Gulf,” Middle East Report, September 29, 2005.
“Baghdad’s Green Zone”: Klein, Shock Doctrine, 519.
“hollowed out”: Chideya, Griff Witte interview. “The outsourcing of government began in earnest really in the Clinton administration with the reinventing government initiatives of Vice President Al Gore. That was a major initiative of the Clinton administration. It was something that they took great pride in, that they were reducing the number of overall federal employees, that they were giving work to the private sector where it was warranted.” Ibid.
“rushing to cash in”: Broder, “In Storm’s Ruins.”
“They are throwing”: James Albertine, quoted in ibid.
“working under an informal” . . . “as well as mess halls”: Ibid.
“Political contributions”: Menaker, quoted in ibid.
“This landmark public-private” . . . “This partnership”: Riley Bechtel, quoted in PR Newswire, “Business Roundtable Announces Initiative to Spur Construction Training and Bring Jobs to Thousands of Gulf Region Residents,” July 28, 2006.
“the first line of defense”: Richard Lardner: “Auditors Go Easy on Contractors,” Huffington Post, December 11, 2008.
“We cannot allow greed”: “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Hurricane Katrina Contracts,” U.S. House of Representatives, Prepared for Committee on Government Reform—Minority Staff Special Investigations Division, August 2006.
“the slowest responding” . . . “ ‘chronic failure’ to provide”: Richard Lardner, “Auditors Go Easy.”
“ballooned from approximately” . . . “mismanagement” . . . “wasteful spending”: “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.”
PART FOUR: FROM MULESKINNER TO SOVEREIGN STATE, 2009–2015
The case of Wen Ho Lee has been thoroughly reported in news reports—in the US and abroad—and in books, papers, audiovisual accounts, congressional and legal hearings, and investigation documents. Among the most insightful was the work of Hugh Gusterson, the anthropologist who calls himself “the Margaret Mead of the Weapons Labs.” Also important is A Convenient Spy by Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman.
In the case of the
laid off employees against LLNS, I watched the entire first jury trial in Alameda County court in Oakland, California, and perused thousands of pages of motions, depositions, and court filings. I also interviewed five of the 140 plaintiffs represented by attorney J. Gary Gwilliam.
From Muleskinner to Sovereign State: Dowie, “Bechtel File,” 37.
“When the modern corporation”: John Kenneth Gailbraith, from an address delivered in Toronto, December 29, 1972, and published in American Economic Review, March 1973. Quoted in Richard J. Barnet, Roots of War (New York: Atheneum, 1972), 6.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: A CONVENIENT SPY
“egged on the hapless endeavor” . . . “triangular relationship”: Gusterson, “Assault on Los Alamos.”
“plowing much”: Gusterson, “Assault on Los Alamos.”
“the Margaret Mead of the weapons labs”: Ibid.
“China Stole”: James Risen and Jeff Gerth, “China Stole Nuclear Secrets for Bombs, US Aides Say,” New York Times, March 6, 1999.
“hoping for a glimpse” . . . “Convoys of FBI” . . . “FBI agents descended”: Gusterson, “Assault on Los Alamos.”
“Reporters and congressmen”: Stober and Hoffman, Convenient Spy, 209.
“I am truly sorry” . . . “As a member”: James Parker, quoted in Wen Ho Lee, My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused of Being a Spy (New York: Hachette, 2002), 2.
“convenient spy”: Stober and Hoffman, Convenient Spy, book title.
“Wen Ho Lee was an invented crisis”: Author interview with Greg Mello.
“The way he was hung”: Hecker, quoted in Stober and Hoffman, Convenient Spy, 347.
“Regardless of Lee’s motives”: Stober and Hoffman, Convenient Spy, 347.
review recommendations: Broad, “California Is Surprise Winner.”
“quite confident”: D’Agostino, quoted in ibid.
“fortified, forested”: Ibid.
“The greatest irony”: Kennette Benedict, “The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex Needs a New Role,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 10, 2014.
