The Center for Public Integrity

KBR, Inc., the global engineering and construction giant, won more than $16 billion in U.S. government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004 to 2006—far more than any other company, according to a new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. In fact, the total dollar value of contracts that went to KBR — which used to be known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root and until April 2007 was a subsidiary of Halliburton—was nearly nine times greater than those awarded to DynCorp International, a private security firm that is No. 2 on the Center's list of the top 100 recipients of Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction funds.

Another private security company, Blackwater USA, whose employees recently killed as many as 17 Iraqi civilians in what the Iraqi government alleges was an unprovoked attack, is 12th on the list of companies and joint ventures, with $485 million in contracts. (On November 14, the New York Times reported that FBI investigators have concluded that 14 of the 17 shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, and that Justice Department prosecutors are weighing whether to seek indictments.) First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, which immediately precedes Blackwater on the Top 100, came under fire in July after a pair of whistleblowers told a House committee that the company essentially "kidnapped" low-paid foreign laborers brought in to help build the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad. First Kuwaiti and the U.S. State Department denied the charges.

Other key findings from the Center's analysis:

• Over the three years studied, more than $20 billion in contracts went to foreign companies whose identities—at least so far—are impossible to determine.

What do "narcoterrorism" in Colombia and Islamist terrorism in the Middle East have in common?

Very little, except that since the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, countries that vow to help the United States fight either one find it easier to attract large amounts of U.S. military training and aid.

In the popular understanding, the Bush administration's "global war on terror" is aimed at hunting down al Qaeda and its allies, the people who "want to attack us again." But the globe includes South America and in it the heavily Roman Catholic Colombia, home to only a tiny number of Muslims and to the world's largest cocaine industry. Colombia's famed drug cartels have spun off both left-wing and right-wing guerrillas who control much of the countryside and spawn endemic corruption, violence and human rights horror stories.

The country's share of U.S. Foreign Military Financing shot up from zero in the three years before 9/11 to more than $100 million in the three years after. Colombia is also the fifth-largest recipient of the Defense Department's new Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP), collecting almost $1.5 million in the three years after 9/11 for the training of the country's military and security forces — which are still routinely implicated in human rights abuses against their own citizens.

The runaway winner of the post-9/11 race for new U.S. military aid dollars is Pakistan, but where did the money go?

Human rights activists, critics of the Pakistani government and members of Congress all want to know, but most of the money — totaling in the billions — came through a Defense Department program subject to virtually no congressional oversight.

That is a major finding of more than a year of investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). U.S. military aid to Pakistan since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks includes almost $5 billion in Coalition Support Funds, a program controlled by the Defense Department to reimburse key allies in the global war on terror. Pentagon reports that ICIJ obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests show that Pakistan is the No. 1 recipient of these funds — receiving more than 10 times the amount that went to the No. 2 recipient, Poland — and that there is scant documentation of how the money was used.

Pakistan also benefited from other funding mechanisms set up in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks. In the three years after the attacks, Pakistan was the third-largest recipient of the Pentagon's new Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program, designed to train foreign forces in counterterrorism techniques. More than $23 million was earmarked for Pakistan in fiscal 2006 for "Improving Counter Terrorism Strike Capabilities" under another new Pentagon program referred to colloquially as Section 1206 training, which allows the Pentagon to use a portion of its annual funding from Congress to train and equip foreign militaries. Pakistan finished first in the race for this new Pentagon-controlled training.

Uzbekistan presents one of the clearest examples of the paradox confronting the United States in its war on terror: As it pursues Islamist extremists around the world, it sides with a repressive despot out of what is perceived as military necessity.

Uzbekistan is a country run by a dictator. Despite that, the Central Asian state, which borders Afghanistan to the south and has a Muslim population of 24 million out of 27 million, was an early ally in the U.S.-led war on terror. The former Soviet state is also a place where a poor human rights record didn't stop the U.S. government from providing it with nearly $100 million in military aid in the three years following September 11, 2001, a 1,000 percent increase over previous U.S. military assistance, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' database of U.S. military aid.

American largesse helped secure access to a crucial former Soviet air base, Karshi-Khanabad, or "K2," from which the U.S. military could support its forces deployed in Afghanistan.

The strange tale of U.S.-Uzbek cooperation began just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, when a U.S.-Uzbek "status of forces" agreement was signed on October 7, 2001. That same day, the air campaign against Afghanistan began. Through the agreement, the U.S. was formally allowed to place troops on the ground in Uzbekistan and to use the K2 air base in the eastern part of the country for combat and humanitarian missions.

Despite an offer of $6 billion in cash from the United States in the weeks leading up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, the Turkish Parliament voted against allowing U.S. troops to use Turkish territory as a base for launching a northern front against Iraq.

With that rejection, the United States quickly learned that Turkey was no longer the predictable NATO ally of the Cold War years. Many in Washington were outraged, including then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who later blamed Ankara's lack of cooperation for some of the subsequent U.S. misfortunes in Iraq.

The grant resulted in part from an aggressive lobbying campaign headed by a former speaker of the House of Representatives, Louisiana Republican Bob Livingston, whose lobbying firm has represented the Turkish government since 2000 for an annual retainer of $1.8 million, Department of Justice records show. However, that didn't slow down the Washington lobbyists for the Turkish government, and it certainly didn't stop the flow of U.S. funds to a country with a long history of human rights abuses. In 2003 Congress appropriated a $1 billion grant to Turkey as a disincentive, in part, for Ankara to unilaterally invade northern Iraq, where Turkey has fought its own war against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for many years.

As war preparations were under way, many in Congress were disappointed that Turkey was unwilling to let the United States use Turkey as a staging ground for an invasion of Iraq. Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican now serving time in prison for an unrelated bribery conviction, introduced an amendment that would have deleted the proposed $1 billion Economic Support Fund grant to Turkey from the 2003 war supplemental bill.

TEL AVIV, Israel — One of Israel's most controversial anti-terrorism tactics has been its policy of targeted killings of suspects believed to be planning attacks. Since the start of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the fall of 2000, dozens of members of the Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Islamic Jihad have been assassinated by Israeli military and security forces. As American intelligence and armed forces continue to employ many Israeli counterterrorism and interrogation techniques, the question of whether targeted killings have become another arrow in the American quiver looms large.

Jordan, according to a U.S. State Department request that Congress appropriate the country nearly $500 million in 2007 military aid, continues "to lead the way as a regional model for democracy, good governance, economic reform, and tolerance."

Jordan, according to the State Department's 2005 Country Report on Human Rights Practices, has police and security forces that "allegedly abused detainees during detention and interrogation and reportedly also used torture." The U.N. special rapporteur on torture said in June 2006 that torture is "systematically practiced" at prisons run by the Jordanian intelligence agency.

Jordan, according to Amnesty International, is a "key hub" in the United States' secret program of "extraordinary rendition," in which terrorism suspects are kidnapped and flown to secret prisons or to countries known for torture.

The Kingdom of Jordan, long a U.S. ally, is a tangle of internal contradictions — and since 9/11, U.S.-Jordan counterterrorism efforts have made the tangle even knottier.

A major ingredient of this foreign policy stew is Jordan's strategic placement on the world map: It shares borders with both Iraq and Israel, as well as with Syria and Saudi Arabia. Another major ingredient is Jordan's historically consistent pro-U.S. foreign policy.

ICIJ's database of U.S. military assistance, compiled from data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, shows that in the three years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Jordan received $2.7 billion in military aid from the U.S. government, a 170 percent increase from the roughly $1 billion it received in the three years prior to the attacks; it is now the fourth-largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel, Egypt and Pakistan. Jordan was also one of the countries that the United States reimbursed, with little congressional oversight, for its help in Iraq and Afghanistan.