Bechtel is the world’s #1 nuclear profiteer and a leading beneficiary of the Iraq war and corporate globalization policies in general.

Bechtel "connects the dots" for the anti-war, anti-nuke and global justice movements. Through its sordid corporate history and 100 years of revolving-door relationships with government, Bechtel illustrates the connections between profiteering and war, between nuclear power and nuclear weapons proliferation, between “free trade” and the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and between corporate power-brokers and decision-makers at the highest levels of government.

Here are just a few examples:

1. Bechtel built the petrochemical plants that allowed Iraq to make the chemical weapons used against Iran. When Saddam Hussein dashed Bechtel’s hopes to build an oil pipeline through Iraq, Bechtel lobbied for war (through the auspices of such figures as George Shultz, former president of Bechtel, Reagan’s Secretary of State and co-founder of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq). Now Bechtel is receiving $2.8 billion to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure that it helped to destroy, and it is laying the groundwork for more lucrative deals through Iraq’s water privatization.
2. Bechtel was originally contracted to build Iran’s first nuclear power plant, before the fall of the Shah’s regime, under U.S. President Jimmy Carter. As was the case with Hussein, Iran’s government is still standing in the way of unfettered investment by U.S. corporations. Iran, the only remaining Middle Eastern oil-rich country that isn’t likely to capitulate to the Bush Administration’s plans for a Middle East FreeTrade Area, is now being threatened by the U.S., just as Iraq was three years ago.
3. Bechtel had a hand in developing the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now it’s receiving over $20 billion to help manage National Nuclear Security Administration facilities, including the Nevada Test Site, the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Kwajalein missile range off the Marshal Islands, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in Pittsburgh.
4. Bechtel has built the majority of nuclear power plants in the U.S. and around the world (sometimes violating safety guidelines while doing so). Now it is “double-dipping” by earning billions of dollars to clean up the radioactive waste itsplants are generating. One example is Bechtel’s $1.9 billion contract to build the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository on lands belonging to the Western Shoshone, who rightfully worry that the waste will contaminate their groundwater (which, incidentally, Bechtel earlier polluted through its gold-mining operations ). Now Bechtel is poised to rake in even more money as the Bush administration paves the way for the construction of more nuclear power plants, at the further expense of the environment and indiginous peoples.

To get more informed (and fired up to protest!) check out these articles and reports about Bechtel and related issues:

Bechtel in the United States

• Bechtel Fact Sheet. From the Arms Trade Resource Center, prepared by Frida Berrigan, based on research by Dena Montague.
• Info on Bechtel Corp. and Bechtel Nevada Bechtel Nevada is one of Bechtel's most important projects in the United States. The article discusses Bechtel Nevada's missions and its role in local water privatisation.
• Feds Pull Out of Los Alamos -- Privatization movement marks mileston Los Alamos, one of America's pioneering and most important nuclear laboratories, was transferred in ownership from the Federal Government to a team of private corperations which included Bechtel.
• Privatizing the Apocalypse Frida Berrigan's expose of the privatization of the nuclear weapons industry and the potential nightmares that can result.
• Bechtel's Friends in High Places Bechtel benefits, especially financially, from high-up friends in both the federal and state governments and from both Democrats and Republicans.
• The Spin Doctor Is In: Examining Corporate PR at Bechtel Bechtel uses a three-pronged approach to manipulate the media in order to weave a rosy story for the public and investors.
• Big Dig Yields Big Bucks Bechtel, despite making extremely costly errors in Boston's "Big Dig" project, has made large profits from their involvement in the project.
• Woman Killed when Part of Ceiling Falls in Big Dig Tunnel Though supposedly finished, Bechtel's Boston project to transplant a major highway underground turns deadly when it collapses on a 38 year old woman in her car and kills her.
  
• Gov. Romney says big trouble with Big Dig Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney has declared that none of the tunnel's ceiling bolts that used epoxy could be considered safe.
  
• Hanford's High-Level Waste Vitrification Plant: New Management Needed. A report from the Heart of America Northwest that details serious problems with the Department of Energy and Bechtel's management of the Hanford radioactive waste cleanup. (Bechtel has been fined twice for mismanagement).
• Estimated cost of Hanford's vitrification plant may increase The estimated price of Hanford's vitrification plant could increase to $13.2 billion after the Army Corps of Engineers completes a study of the project.
  

Bechtel in Iraq

• Bechtel's Dry Run: Iraqi's Suffer Water Crisis A 21 page report by the Public Citizens Water for All Campaign about Bechtel's involvement in the Iraqi water shortage.
• Bechtel Fails Reconstruction of Iraq's Schools Bechtel's 'humanitarian' work in Iraq falls short of what is truely needed in their educational system: buildings, teachers, and materials.
• Bechtel Planned to Evade Iraq "Genocide" Sanctions in 1988 Bechtel threatened to use non-U.S. suppliers in Iraq as to avoid the economic sanctions on their infrastructure repair work.

Bechtel in Bolivia

• Alert and Armed: Bechtel Goes to Water Bechtel's role in the water privatisation crisis in Boliva, their suit against the people of Bolivia, and the happy settlement of that suit against Bechtel.
• Bechtel Drops $50 Million Claim to Settle Bolivian Water Dispute Public pressure and civic chaos and strikes helped bring Bechtel down in Bolivia.
• Bechtel Vs. Bolivia - Time to Open up Secret Trade Courts Before Bechtel dropped the suit against the people of Bolivia, corporate secrecy in the trial is impeding the citizen's ability to protest.

General Information

• Bechtel: Profiting from Destruction A 39 page report by the Public Citizens Global Exchange CorpWatch about Bechtel's history in Iraq, its role in global water privatisation, nuclear nightmares, taxpayer abuses, and their "Friends in High Places".
• Report Exposes Bechtel as Threat to Iraqi Environment, Human Rights, and Basic Services Response to above report: Public Interest groups say that taxpayer money is funds Corporate War Profiteering and Cronyism
• Incompetence, Wheeling & Dealing: The Real Bechtel (Multinational Monitor, 1989) History of personal leadership and initial projects of Bechtel, especially regarding American interests.
• Bechtel: The Biggest War Profiteer Brief summaries on the company history, involvement in Iraq, foreign and domestic scandals, and political connections.
• Bechtel's Nuclear Nightmares Report on some of the humanitarian rights abuses and environmental costs of a few of Bechtel's projects, both domestic and abroad.
  
• Bechtel's Official Website

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