Let's bring the efficiency of American public works projects to Iraq.

Daddy Warbucks Is Alive and Well Fareed Zakaria has argued persuasively in Newsweek that our true interest lies in making all assistance to Iraq "multilateral," since this would "take some of the economic and military burden off the United States" and help remove the stigma of U.S. occupation in Iraqi eyes. The White House and the Pentagon, however, have rejected that eminently sensible advice, supposedly for geopolitical and strategic reasons—as well as to punish those who tried to thwart the drive to war. There’s another obvious downside to multilateralism: American corporations would have to share with their competitors in Europe and Japan.

Sharing the spoils might not trouble the ordinary taxpayer, who must contemplate spending additional tens of billions from Washington’s depleted treasury on Iraq’s reconstruction while domestic needs go unmet. Unfortunately, the ordinary taxpayer has little influence over the federal government’s dealings in Iraq, where enormous deals made in great haste will surely result in appalling waste.

Last week, the U.S. Agency for International Development awarded a contract worth $680 billion for the reconstruction of roads, bridges and other facilities to Bechtel, the San Francisco– based construction conglomerate whose Republican connections are comparable to those of Enron and the Carlyle Group.

Bechtel’s former president is George Shultz, who served as Secretary of State during the Reagan administration, tutored George W. Bush in foreign policy during the 2000 campaign and fervently advocated invading Iraq. The company’s current C.E.O., Riley Bechtel, was recently appointed to serve on the President’s Export Council.

The most startling coincidence is that the official responsible for overseeing the award of the A.I.D. contract to Bechtel is Andrew Natsios. A protégé of White House chief of staff Andrew Card, the A.I.D. chief knows the San Francisco company very well, indeed. Prior to joining the Bush administration, Mr. Natsios oversaw Boston’s Big Dig highway scheme, the largest and most scandalously inefficient building project in American history—whose chief contractor was none other than Bechtel.