Targeting no-bid deals

She claims another influence in this work: Sen. Harry Truman (D) of Missouri, who was spotted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a vice-presidential prospect for his work on war profiteering during World War II. Truman, like Collins, was no grandstander. He said his aim was "heading off scandals before they started." But his conclusions were unambiguous: "The little manufacturer, the little contractor, and the little machine shop have been left entirely out in the cold. The policy seems to be to make the big man bigger and to put the little man completely out of business," Truman said in 1941.

Historian Theodore Wilson wrote in 1975 that the Truman committee is widely viewed as "the most successful congressional investigative effort in United States history." It later evolved into the permanent subcommittee on investigation, now a panel of the Senate Government Affairs Committee that Collins chairs. "Our committee has a legacy of being aggressive in protecting the taxpayer from contracting abuses," she says.

Many of the same Truman-like criticisms are surfacing in the congressional debate over the contracts in Iraq. In all, some $79 billion has already been allocated for war expenses in Iraq, and another $87 billion bill is working its way through Congress - a windfall for companies that can make themselves part of it.

"We're overrelying on large umbrella contracts.... Halliburton has a monopoly on the work in oil, and Bechtel has a monopoly on the reconstruction work," says Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee. "There is no incentive to lower costs," he adds.

No contract has riled critics as much as the first and most lucrative: to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. It started as a 2001 contract for logistical support to the US military, wherever it went, and it was competitively bid. But a decision to expand that contract - from supporting troops to oil-well firefighting, repairing oil systems, and now maintaining and operating oil systems - was not.

"Redefining the contract on a no-bid basis, that's where the Pentagon went awry," says P. W. Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. "All the companies have decided that one way for them to achieve a corporate advantage is to hire former government officials or to make political campaign contributions."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, "The Halliburton contract for oil-field restoration is currently in the process of being recompeted," and that "no new funds are planned to be awarded under the old contract."

The impression of favoritism could be tough to blot out. Recently, a new lobby shop touted its ties to the Bush administration as an asset in helping clients get business in Iraq. New Bridge Strategies, with offices in Washington and Houston, describes itself as "a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the US-led war in Iraq." Its principals include Joe Allbaugh, campaign manager for Bush presidential race in 2000.

"This kind of thing is tawdry and will reinforce the conviction in some quarters that this is all about making bucks and paying off corporate pals," says Andrew Bacevich, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University.

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