Bechtel

President Rafael Correa’s allegations that intelligence services in Ecuador had been infiltrated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have led to a shake-up in the armed forces of unforeseeable consequences.

In 1993 the municipal government began considering contracting out water and sewage services to a private company. Soon after, in 1996 and 1997, the municipality began to receive loans from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, aid that provided crucial funds for improvements, but which also required privatization to take place as soon as possible. International Water Services, a subsidiary of Bechtel, won the concession in 2000 as the only bidding company. The services were transferred to Bechtel’s newly incorporated subsidiary, Interagua, in 2001.

Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.