Boomtime for Bechtel
Corporate Watch News April 24th 2003
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/news/boomtime_for_bechtel.htm

After several weeks of media examination, the privately-owned Bechtel Group Inc. has emerged victorious in the somewhat questionable bidding process to reconstruct Iraq.1 Bechtel has received attention primarily for its close ties with the US government, with former Secretary of State George Schultz as a board member. It is a generous contributor to politicians, providing $1,297,465 to candidates between 1999 and 2002, with 59 percent going to Republicans.2

Although not well-known in the UK, Bechtel is one of the world's largest engineering-construction firms. According to the company's website it provides worldwide 'technical, management, and directly related services to develop, manage, engineer, build, and operate installations.'3 Bechtel has been involved in building the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Channel Tunnel, the Hoover Dam, (Nevada), the Jubail industrial city,( a 360-square-mile industrial city of 370,000 people in Saudi Arabia) , and the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump,(Nevada), and it is part of one of the preferred bidding consortiums for the privatisation of the Tube.

A small selection of the controversies surrounding the company include:

Key Bechtel alumni are:

Such links between Bechtel and the US administration have led to allegations that it was involved in a spate of coups, firstly in Syria in1948, then in Iran in 1956 and later in Indonesia, overthrowing President Sukarno in favour of the notorious Suharto.12

Bechtel is active in West Papua, which is the site of a struggle for independence from Indonesia. The company also helped to build Freeport McMoRan's notorious Grasberg gold mine, which has devastated the nearby rainforest with toxic waste.13

The company has built countless oil and gas pipelines and is involved in the controversial Baku-Ceyhan pipeline14, along with another BP pipeline in Algeria, that haven of stability and human rights.15

There are many more than these examples, which give a good illustration of how Bechtel has positioned itself to benefit from almost any situation. Despite the US administration's excuses that Bechtel is one of the few companies with security clearance and the necessary expertise, there is no reason to believe that its operations in Iraq will not be marked by the incompetence greed which have characterised many of its other projects.

For further information regarding Bechtel see:

Vallejo for Community-Planned Renewal (2002) Straight facts about Bechtel, http://www.vallejocpr.org/bechtel/straight.html

Mccartney, L. (1989) Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story: The Most Secret Corporation and How it Engineered the World, Ballantine Books, New York

Riccio, J. (1989) Incompetence,Wheeling and Dealing: The Real Bechtel , Multinational Monitor, October 1989 http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1989/10/mm1089_08.html

Bechtel Profile, http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/dd/bechtel2.html

The company's website: www.bechtel.com

For the company's UK offices, (in London and Warrington) see http://www.bechtel.com/country.html#uk.


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