WASHINGTON - December 11 - WILLIAM HARTUNG, hartung@newschool.edu, http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms

Hartung is director of the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute and author of "How Much Are You Making on the War Daddy? -- A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the Bush Administration." He said today: "The Bush administration's decision to exclude companies from countries that opposed its misguided march to war in Iraq from bidding on reconstruction contracts is not only questionable on legal and diplomatic grounds, but it could prove extremely costly financially. Paul Wolfowitz's corollary to President Bush's doctrine of 'you're either with us or against us' is great news for Halliburton and Bechtel, but it's terrible news for U.S. taxpayers. Keeping qualified French, German, Canadian and Russian firms out of the bidding on the next round of reconstruction contracts, worth $18.6 billion, will make it that much harder to eliminate rampant price gouging by companies like Halliburton."

RANIA MASRI, rania@nc.rr.com, http://www.southernstudies.org

Masri's articles include "Reconstructing or Deconstructing Iraq?" She said today: "Wolfowitz's decree yesterday forces us all to ask the question again: Are these reconstruction contracts for the benefit of Iraq, or are they political rewards, handed out to 'friends'? Is the reconstruction of Iraq the main objective at all? Weeks into the occupation of Iraq, while the Iraqi infrastructure was still in ruins, Paul Bremer removed all tariffs and trade restrictions -- thus directly devastating the Iraqi textile and poultry industries. Bremer has also imposed a 15 percent flat tax, and allowed 100 percent foreign ownership of (almost all) Iraqi industries and 100 percent removal of profits out of Iraq 'without delay.' These economic structural changes, that are being imposed on the Iraqi population in violation of international law (namely, the Hague Regulation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions), reveal -- as did Wolfowitz's announcement -- that real reconstruction of Iraq is not the objective; transforming the Iraqi economy for foreign ownership and foreign plunder is the main goal." Masri is co-director of the Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers and End the Corporate Invasion of Iraq at the Institute for Southern Studies.

PHYLLIS BENNIS, Pbennis2@cs.com, http://www.ips-dc.org/projects/newinternat.htm

A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis is author of the book "Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis." She said today: "The reconstruction of Iraq should be for the benefit of Iraqis, not a reward for any corporations. Reconstruction funds from the U.S. should be used to build up the devastated Iraqi economy -- meaning that Iraqi firms and workers should be hired to rebuild the country, not U.S. or international firms."

DAVID BACON, dbacon@igc.org, http://www.igc.org/dbacon

An independent labor analyst, Bacon was recently in Iraq. He said today: "U.S. occupation forces in Iraq escalated their efforts to paralyze Iraq's new labor unions with a series of arrests this weekend. On Saturday, a convoy of ten Humvees and personnel carriers descended on the old headquarters building of the Transport and Communications Workers union, in Baghdad's central bus station, which has been used since June as the office of the Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions. Twenty soldiers jumped out, stormed into the building, put handcuffs on eight members of the Federation's executive board, and took them into detention."