There really is no delicate way to put this: Britain helped the United States in the Iraq war and now we want our financial reward.
Such words are not for the squeamish. They will feed the prejudices of the peaceniks and appal the sensibilities of the chattering classes. Only behind the most solidly shut of closed doors do even the most fervent capitalists concur with each other that justice demands that a share of the contracts for rebuilding Iraq should come Britain’s way.
So one must have some sympathy for Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, one of the growing number of ministers who have achieved office without having to go through the tedious business of persuading the electorate to vote in their favour. The baroness’s brief is international trade and investment and so her colleagues have decided that she should battle for Britain’s slice of the new round of Iraqi action.
Yesterday, she boarded a plane for Washington where she is due to meet those responsible for doling out the US Agency for International Development’s (USAid’s) billions. So far, hardly a cent has come the UK’s way and it cannot be said that our war allies show the slightest hint of a guilty conscience about this. Nor do they seem in the least abashed that some of the early winners in the contracts war have apparent links with the White House. So extensive is the President’s network of entrepreneurial friends, it was perhaps inevitable that among them would be some who were ideally suited to make a fortune restoring Iraq’s infrastructure.
Nevertheless, not everyone on the ground in Iraq thought that Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) was the best choice to take over the vital task of running the country’s largest port at Umm Qasr. Since the invasion, it has been kept open by the British Army and Air Marshal Brian Burridge, Britain’s chief military officer in Iraq, indicated that he would have hoped that when his men handed over control it might have been to Iraqis.
Honourable sentiments, no doubt, but not what Lady Symons should be saying. Instead, she should demand to know why SSA had been favoured at the expense of P&O, which has proven expertise at running ports around the world and is laden with Middle East expertise. Diplomacy might deter her from mentioning the hefty personal donations that SSA’s president has made to the Republican Party: British government ministers know that such embarrassing coincidences have a habit of occurring. But while P&O has maintained an elegant silence over the $4.6 million contract that did not come its way, the Government need not be so restrained.
Lady Symons will have to recall her years as a trade union leader and assume a suitably aggressive stance. Gordon Brown has had to find an extra £4 billion to fund the cost of the war when his sums were already beginning to look rather less healthy than he had hoped. No matter how just we may believe the cause to have been, we should leave the United States in no doubt that we would now like some of that cash back.
It would be very British for us just to stay at home, hoping that our friends across the Atlantic would not forget the support we gave them. We might even venture to say “please” but it would be at the risk of having desert sand kicked in our faces. As Digby Jones, the pugilistic Director-General of the CBI, puts it: “This is the time to be very un-British, very forceful.”
The Americans have been adamant that since it is USAid that is handing out the work, it will go straight to US companies and how they choose to subcontract will be up to them. But when the initial contract to Bechtel is for a whopping $600 million, the Government ought to be able to exert a little influence over how the business is shared out. So far, Bechtel has delivered only a couple of tiny contracts to British companies. It may be that the privilege of providing security services to Bechtel people as they went fact-finding in Iraq was not something that appealed to many, which could explain why brave Olive Security of the UK has the job.
Other governments have shown little reticence in charging into Washington demanding a share of the work. The Norwegians, for instance, have apparently pointed out their important role as part of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and listed what they would like in return. Lady Symons is on stronger ground. Should she have any qualms about the morality of attempting to profit from the war, she should quickly try to persuade herself of the top-quality job that British companies would do.
And on her return to Britain, she might also mention that to Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary. Poor Mr Hoon is currently wrestling with an issue that the men from the ministry have chosen to duck: the awarding of a £1.5 billion contract for the British Army’s tank corps. Should it go to a consortium of US and British companies or to Thales, the French company in which the French Government has a hefty stake?
One can almost hear the bureaucrats whispering “Don’t mention the war”, but the men in the Army have probably not yet forgotten the attitude of Jacques Chirac towards the conflict with Iraq. No matter that virtually half the Thales workforce is in Britain, the profits the company makes go to France.
In the United States, there would be no head-scratching over who should win the contract, no matter if the French bid did look slightly cheaper. When governments do business, they need to remember who their friends are. If Mr Hoon should favour the French rather than the US-British bid, not only would he risk being made the laughing-stock of the tabloids, he could render Lady Symons’s trip to Washington a waste of time.
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