May 4, 2004

Greetings,

Paul Krugman's column in Tuesday's New York Times discusses privatization of government work in the Iraq war. He makes the case that Iraq is being used to set a precedent for privatizing other government jobs, such as ours.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/opinion/04KRUG.html

You should be able to access the entire column free through Monday. (You must register for this site; registration is free.) If you don't want to register go to the FDIC Intranet* and check out the New York Times.  Some highlights:

"... it's the reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by government workers that has really come back to haunt us.

... after the 2002 elections, George Bush announced plans to privatize up to 850,000 federal jobs. At home, wary of a public backlash, he has moved slowly on that goal. But in Iraq, where there is little public or Congressional oversight, the administration has privatized everything in sight.

For example, the Pentagon has a well-established procurement office for gasoline. In Iraq, however, that job was subcontracted to Halliburton. The U.S. government has many experts in economic development and reform. But in Iraq, economic planning has been subcontracted — after a highly questionable bidding procedure — to BearingPoint, a consulting firm with close ties to Jeb Bush.

What's truly shocking in Iraq, however, is the privatization of purely military functions. ...why privatize key military functions?... I suspect that the purpose is to set a precedent."

* - An especially alert member has pointed out that the Krugman column can be accessed through Factiva. This is reached through the FDIC site. Its advantage over going to the New York Times site is that there is no registration and you may view the column for longer than a week. One way to reach Factiva is:

·         home page

·         news and reference (over on the right under quick search)

·         news and other information

·         Factiva, today's news

·         scroll down to the New York Times

·         select the date (in this case, Tuesday, May 4)

·         select opinion

·         select the Krugman column (titled "Battlefield of Dreams")