“Cost plus” basis huh?
Iraq rebuilding contracts awarded
Halliburton, Stevedoring Services of America get government contracts for early relief work.
By Mark Gongloff for CNN/Money.

The Army Corps of Engineers told CNN Tuesday that Halliburton would be paid on a “cost plus” basis, meaning it would be reimbursed for the costs of its work and would get a certain percentage of those costs as a fee.
Since it’s still unknown how much damage has been or will be done to Iraqi oil fields in the war, it’s difficult to estimate the contract’s eventual dollar value.
But its biggest value could be that it puts Halliburton in a prime position to handle the complete refurbishment of Iraq’s long-neglected oil infrastructure, which will be a plum job.
Getting Iraq’s oil fields to pre-1991 production levels will take at least 18 months and cost about $5 billion initially, with $3 billion more in annual operating expenses, according to a recent study by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, named for the first President Bush’s secretary of state during the first Gulf War.
“Certainly Halliburton would have the lead [in the competition for that job], even absent this contract, given the size and scope of their current operations,” said Pierre Conner, an analyst with Hibernia Southcoast Capital. “But there’s no question they’ll start with some footprint there. It clearly puts them in the position where they will know more about the situation and have a bit of an operation there.”
Though none of the potential administrators of such a contract — including the Defense Department, the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations — have claimed responsibility for handing out the job, Monday’s award and Bush’s request for funding seem to indicate the U.S. government will be in charge.

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