IRAQ

Guardian: Cheney firm's rival is forced to drop oil bid

One of the main bidders for the lucrative contract to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry has dropped out of the race, amid concerns that the tender process unfairly favours Halliburton, the company with close ties to the US vice-president, Dick Cheney.
The construction giant Bechtel, one of the biggest engineering companies in the world, now plans to sidestep Washington and apply directly to the Iraqi oil ministry for work.

The growing disquiet over cronyism in George Bush's administration was further stirred yesterday when it emerged that a friend of the president who helped his election campaign had been hired as the director of private development in Iraq.

Thomas Foley, 51, befriended Mr Bush when they attended Harvard. He will be in charge of 200 state-owned enterprises including mining, chemical, cement and tobacco production, and report directly to the top US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer.

A Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, was quietly awarded a contract without tendering in the spring to perform immediate repairs to Iraq's oil infrastructure, and extinguish oil fires. The Army Corps of Engineers said the work, which could be worth up to $7bn (£4.3bn), was part of a wider contract signed last year.