Post-War Gravy Train

The contracts for rebuilding postwar Iraq are big — and big money. In the next eighteen months, Washington wants major reconstruction done, right across the sanctions - and war-ravaged country. Rebuilt water systems and ports. Hospitals and schools. Telecoms and electric grids. Fifteen hundred miles of spanking new American-made Iraqi highway. And lots of new barracks, in Iraq, for American soldiers. Well before the war, the Bush administration was putting the word out to the small circle of big American firms with the capacity to deliver distant reconstruction. Now, connections between the administration and those firms, and the all-American line-up of the team, are under global scrutiny. Tonight On Point: big need, big contracts and the spoils of war.

Guests:

Joshua Chaffin, Washington Business Correspondent for the Financial Times

Farhad Manjoo, Reporter for Salon.com and author of "War, Inc" article on Salon.com;Larry Korb, Director of National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Layton McCartney, author of "Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story"