The Washington Post is reporting that Halliburton has now received contracts worth more than $1.7 billion in Iraq and stands to make hundreds of millions more in no-bid contracts.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California said “The amount of money is quite staggering, far more than we were originally led to believe.” Halliburton was run by Vice President Dick Cheney before he ran for office in 2000.
The Post estimates that of the $4 billion the U.S. is spending per month in Iraq, about one third is going to independent contractors. Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. government has increased the size of Bechtel’s reconstruction cost in Iraq by 50 percent. Bechtel will receive an additional $350 million in addition to the previously announced contract of $680 million.