In an earlier interview, Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said the process proceeded without bidding to ensure speed and discretion in the months leading up to the war. He said the final decision to award the reconstruction contract to Halliburton was made by the Army Corps of Engineers.
According to Waxman, the new disclosures were made Tuesday during a Pentagon briefing from Democratic and Republican staff of the Government Reform Committee, where Waxman is the ranking Democrat. Rep. Thomas M. Davis (R-Va.), the committee chairman, could not be reached.
At that meeting, Waxman said, political appointee Michael Mobbs -- a special assistant to Feith -- said that in the summer of 2002, he was put in charge of the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group, whose job was to create a plan for the reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry in case of war. Mobbs did not return calls for comment.
Mobbs told Waxman's staff that he soon realized that he needed outside experts to do the planning. He said he held "informal" discussions inside and outside the industry to determine who could draw up such plans.
By the fall of 2002, Mobbs had decided that three companies could do the planning: Halliburton, San Francisco-based Bechtel Group and Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp.
Contracting experts said that the determination of which companies are able to compete for a contract is usually made by career civil servants to avoid any appearance of political influence in the outcome. "The suggestion that political appointees would be directing that type of investigation does not seem consistent with maintaining the appearance of propriety," said Steven L. Schooner, a government contracting expert at George Washington University's Law School.
Mobbs reportedly told Waxman's staff that his group -- not contracting officers -- had chosen Halliburton to do the work since the company was already working with the military under a separate, multibillion-dollar contract to provide housing, food and logistical support.
Mobbs said an Army lawyer objected to using the logistics contract to conduct planning for the oil industry, saying that it was beyond its scope. A Defense Department lawyer working with Mobbs' task force, however, overruled the Army lawyer to allow Halliburton to conduct the planning.
The General Accounting Office, in a draft report expected to be released this week, concluded that the Defense Department lawyer had made a mistake.
