WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will bar companies from France, Germany, Russia and other countries that opposed the war in Iraq from bidding on $18.6 billion in prime contracts for reconstruction of the country, according to a memo released Tuesday.
The memo, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, says that "for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States," only companies from the United States, Iraq and the countries that joined the coalition against Saddam Hussein will be allowed to bid on the 26 contracts to be announced soon.
The order did not come as a great surprise to the war's opponents, diplomats in Washington said, because Bush administration officials have long said that coalition members would receive special preference in any rebuilding efforts.
Nevertheless, the move is the most serious retaliation yet against the dissenters, and it comes as the Bush administration is trying to restore relations with European allies.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement Tuesday that the action was a "totally gratuitous slap that does nothing to protect our security interests and everything to alienate countries we need with us in Iraq."
Biden said that even as the Bush administration is asking for support from NATO members for peacekeeping efforts in Iraq, "we stick a finger in the eye of those whose help we have been seeking."
The policy also came up at Tuesday's debate among the Democratic presidential candidates. Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts denounced it, saying, "I can't think of anything dumber or more insulting or more inviting ... to the disdain of [other] countries and potential failure of our policy" in Iraq.
Although the ban on prime contracts covers more than 100 nations, all countries will be eligible to bid for subcontracts, defense officials noted.
Wolfowitz's three-page memo said that limiting competition for the lucrative prime contracts "will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq, and in future efforts." It also will "encourage the continued cooperation of coalition members," it said.
U.S. officials have been under pressure to produce a payoff for the countries that provided troops and other military and economic assistance to the war effort. There have been widespread public complaints in such countries as Britain, Denmark, Poland and Portugal that U.S. giants Bechtel Corp. and Halliburton Co. have won reconstruction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars but the United States has not given similar opportunities to companies from allied nations.
