SCHAKOWSKY: BUSH ADMINISTRATIONS MISSTATEMENT OF THE DAY U.S. CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ

Responding to a report by the Center on Public Integrity, which found that President Bush received $500,000 for his 2000 election campaign from contractors now performing work in Iraq, a State Department spokesman said:

"There's a separation, a wall, between them (career civil servants) and political-level questions when they're doing the contracts." (New York Times, 10/31/03)

However, the Center's report stated:

More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years. Those companies contributed more money to the presidential campaign of George W. Bush-more than $500,000-than to any other politician over the last dozen years.

The Associated Press on 10/30/03 also reported:

Some of the firms working in Iraq are huge, politically connected conglomerates like Halliburton - corporate parent of Kellogg, Brown & Root and formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Iraq contractors DynCorp, Bechtel and Halliburton donated more than $2.2 million - mainly to Republican causes like the 2000 Bush presidential campaign - between 1999 and 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In the case of Halliburton, the U.S. government hired the company in Iraq without a competitive bid, after the company recommended itself in a study. Halliburton's Iraq oil services contract, worth $1.59 billion so far, will be extended until December or January. The company reported Wednesday that its government work in Iraq and elsewhere helped boost yearly third-quarter earnings by 39 percent, to $4.14 billion.