House chair takes on critics of Iraq reconstruction contracts

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., is challenging the suggestion that more transparency is needed in picking contractors for the postwar reconstruction effort in Iraq.

"America stands for fairness," said Hunter in an interview late last week with National Journal's Technology Daily. It would be an "insult," he said, to suggest that a firm like Halliburton, with strong ties to Vice President Dick Cheney, be eliminated from competing just because of those ties.

"How are we going to eliminate the biggest oil-field supplier in the world, which is an American company, with thousands of American jobs and workers?" he said. "What fairness is there in wiping them off the slate and not allowing them [to participate]?" Hunter compared that to excluding other oil firms like Chevron, Exxon and Mobil from all bidding just because each of them "has had somebody who's been in government at one time or another."

Hunter offered support for the Pentagon's temporary office of reconstruction, which was established to oversee the delivery of aid to Iraqis in lieu of civilian aid agencies doing the work, and he left open the possibility that the office could become permanent.

The military has to deliver the aid now, Hunter said, because it helps protect the troops. When Iraqis who have suffered the loss of family or friends at the hands of U.S. forces see the same uniformed people inoculating children, for instance, he said it might lessen the Iraqis' urge for revenge.

"At least for now, the [Defense Department] should be doing this, plus they are logistically the only ones who really have the expertise," Hunter said, adding that in Afghanistan the independent agencies went to areas that weakened support for the fledgling government.

Hunter also said he prefers a "Buy American" approach to building and maintaining the U.S. defense establishment because Americans typically pay $1,000 per year for the defense function of government. He said it is "only equitable that the average American who pays for the defense force in the free world gets to build it."