Buying American.(postwar Iraq reconstruction contracts)

Is America monopolizing the business of rebuilding Iraq? In recent weeks Washington has handed out initial contracts for fighting oil fires and reconstructing roads, bridges and waterways--all to American firms, which could end up earning millions or even billions for their efforts. The Bush administration has justified the "Buy American" approach by saying U.S. firms have the necessary experience in war zones--and the security clearances to work alongside U.S. troops. So the contracts have gone to U.S. firms that include Bechtel and Halliburton, which was once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. The Texas oil firefighters of Boots & Coots are already at work in their orange suits in the southern Iraqi oilfields of Rumailah, all of which alarms American allies, who are suffering an acute case of deja vu. "The concern is that the U.S. has all the contracts sewn up," says Colin Adams, head of the British Consultants and Construction Bureau, a trade body representing more than 300 U.K. firms.

After the first gulf war, many foreign firms lost out to American counterparts, who took the lion's share of reconstruction contracts in Kuwait. This time the job is expected to be much larger and more lucrative, worth upwards of $100 billion. In Europe, politicians who opposed going to war are doubly angry to be left out of postwar reconstruction; British Eurocrat Chris Patten recently called the Buy American aspects of the Bush plan "exceptionally maladroit." Still hoping to land a piece of the action, most European businesses are much less outspoken, but in private they are quick to challenge the prospect of an American monopoly.

European business leaders point out that they have sent hundreds of firms to war zones all over the world, and even to the United States. The British construction firm AMEC helped rebuild energy-supply lines in Bosnia and Kosovo, and worked on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center site after 9-11. From France, Alcatel rebuilt phone networks in Kosovo, and Technip-Coflexip has partnered with both Halliburton and Bechtel on energy projects in the Middle East. Siemens of Germany is currently rebuilding Afghanistan's decrepit fixed-line phone system, and clearly has the experience to do the same in Baghdad.

Europeans say Americans can hardly claim special knowledge of Iraq, either. Many European firms have done recent work in Iraq under the United Nations' Oil-for-Food Program. Adams says more than 50 BCCB members have experience in Iraq. French construction firms like Bouyges nabbed scores of Iraqi building contracts through the '70s and '80s. Alcatel and Siemens helped build Iraqi power and ...