New Bridge Strategies, LLC Circa 2003


 

New Bridge Strategies, LLC was an independent consulting company that billed itself as “a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

This was their website.
Content is from the site's 2003 archived pages.

1275 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Tenth Floor
Washington, D.C.,
District of Columbia, 20004
United States

News Articles About New Bridge Strategies

Caught in Amber

By Edblog TalkingPointsMemo
August 25, 2007
Late last week, I returned to one of the my old hobby horses, New Bridge Strategies, the ‘make big money in Iraq’ consultancy that big GOP lobbying outfit Barbour Griffith & Rogers set up with Bush crony and former FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh. BGR, you’ll remember, is now in the news as the outfit that got the contract from Iyad Allawi to help him boot Prime Minster Maliki and take over as Prime Minister again.

As I mentioned yesterday, the New Bridge Strategies website has since disappeared into oblivion. But TPM Reader DR managed to find the last sign of the site at the Way Back Machine Internet library from 2006.

And I just had to reproduce the frontpage intro paragraph which you can read here.

    New Bridge Strategies, LLC is a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Its activities will seek to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of the United States Government. The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that companies seeking to work in that environment must have the very best advice and guidance available. The New Bridge Strategies team has been carefully constructed to fill that need.

It seemed pretty ridiculous when I first checked out the site back in September 2003. But not quite for the same reasons as now. And not quite as jarring.
It’s all there, the hubris, arrogance, the hot house imperialism of the post-9/11 euphoria.

 

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE RECONSTRUCTION; INSIDERS' NEW FIRM CONSULTS ON IRAQ

By DOUGLAS JEHLSEPT. 30, 2003 NYTimes
A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to President Bush, his family and his administration have set up a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects.
The firm, New Bridge Strategies, is headed by Joe M. Allbaugh, Mr. Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until March. Other directors include Edward M. Rogers Jr., vice chairman, and Lanny Griffith, lobbyists who were assistants to the first President George Bush and now have close ties to the White House.

At a time when the administration seeks Congressional approval for $20.3 billion to rebuild Iraq, part of an $87 billion package for military and other spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, the company's Web site, www .newbridgestrategies.com, says, ''The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C., and on the ground in Iraq.''
The site calls attention to the links between the company's directors and the two Bush administrations by noting, for example, that Mr. Allbaugh, the chairman, was ''chief of staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas and was the national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign.''
The president of the company, John Howland, said in a telephone interview that it did not intend to seek any United States government contracts itself, but might be a middleman to advise other companies that seek taxpayer-financed business. The main focus, Mr. Howland said, would be to advise companies that seek opportunities in the private sector in Iraq, including licenses to market products there. The existence of the company was first reported in The Hill, a Congressional newspaper.
Mr. Howland said the company was not trying to promote its political connections. He said that although Mr. Allbaugh, for example, had spent most of his career ''in the political arena, there's a lot of cross-pollination between that world and the one that exists in Iraq today.''
As part of the administration's postwar work in Iraq, the government has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to American businesses. Those contracts, some without competitive bidding, have included more than $500 million to support troops and extinguish oil field fires for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, which Vice President Dick Cheney led from 1995 until 2000.

Of the $3.9 billion a month that the administration is spending on military operations in Iraq, up to one-third may go to contractors who provide food, housing and other services, some military budget experts said. A spokesman for the Pentagon said today that the military could not provide an estimate of the breakdown.
Administration officials, including L. Paul Bremer III, the top American official in Iraq, have said all future contracts will be issued only as a result of competitive bidding. Already, the Web site for the Coalition Provisional Authority, http:// cpa-iraq.org/, lists 36 recent solicitations, including those for contractors who might sell new AK-47 assault rifles, nine-millimeter ammunition and other goods for new army and security forces.
New Bridge Strategies was established in May and recently began full-fledged operations, including opening an office in Iraq, its officials said. They added that a decision by the Governing Council of Iraq to allow foreign companies to establish 100 percent ownership of businesses in Iraq, an unusual arrangement in the Mideast, had added to the attractiveness of the market.

Mr. Howland is a principal of Crest Investment in Houston and was president of American Rice, once a major exporter to Iraq. Richard Burt, ambassador to Germany in the Reagan administration and a former assistant secretary of state, and Lord Powell, a member of the British House of Lords and an important military and foreign-policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, are among the 10 principals.
Mr. Allbaugh, the chairman, spent most of his career in Texas politics before Mr. Bush appointed him to head the federal disaster agency. Mr. Allbaugh, who now heads his own consulting firm here, did not return calls to his office today.

Mr. Rogers, the vice chairman who was a deputy assistant to the first President Bush and an executive assistant to the White House chief of staff, is also vice chairman of Barbour Griffith & Rogers, one of the best-connected Republican lobbying firms in the capital. Mr. Rogers founded it in 1991 with Haley Barbour, who became chairman of the Republican National Committee and is now running for governor of Mississippi.
Shortly after leaving the White House, Mr. Rogers was publicly rebuked by the first President Bush after he signed a $600,000 contract to represent a Saudi, Sheik Kamal Adham, who was a main figure under scrutiny in a case that involved the Bank of Commerce and Credit International. Mr. Rogers canceled his contract to represent the sheik, former head of Saudi intelligence.

Mr. Griffith, a director of the new company, is chief operating officer of Barbour Griffith & Rogers, which he joined in 1993. He was special assistant for intergovernmental affairs to the first President Bush and later worked under him as an assistant secretary of education.
Until November, Mr. Rogers's wife, Edwina, was associate director of the National Economic Council at the White House. Reached by telephone today, Mr. Rogers said he did not want to speak for the record and referred a reporter to Mr. Howland.
The company Web site says the company was ''created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.''

Correction: October 2, 2003, Thursday Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Tuesday about New Bridge Strategies, a consulting firm with close ties to President Bush that advises companies on doing business in Iraq, misidentified the publication that first reported its formation. The report was in National Journal, a weekly magazine of government and politics, not The Hill, a Congressional newspaper.

 

An update: I was intrigued by the formation of New Bridge Strategies as our firm was investigating opportunities to expand our medical waste disposal services in the Middle East. We read that as the institutions stabilize and offer more medical services, the need for ethical and ecological disposal of biohazardous waste was growing fast and there were very few services that could meet the demand with experienced professionals. We created websites in stable ME countries where medical research was conducted by schools or health care industries. We hired the top SEO consultancy, TNG/Earthling, Inc., headed by Bob Sakayama to gain search credibility and traffic. In the US we handle everything from general medical waste removal from hospitals and research labs, but also on a smaller scale we handle sharps pickup from individual physician's practices. It took a while for my boss to understand the opportunity at hand - he would launch into tirades against what the Bush administration was doing in Iraq. He was outraged at the hubris of these Bush cronies who had created New Bridge Strategies, LLC. in order to make big bucks because of their connections in Iraq. In hindsight their mission to seek to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of the United States Government is what attracted me to this website, but upon closer examination, the risks were too high to get buy in from the directors. New Bridge Strategies LLC is no more but the opportunities still are there for those who can manage the risks.

 



 

New Bridge Strategies has resources around the world including Washington D.C., Baghdad, Kuwait, Houston, Geneva, and Beirut.

 



 

When Iraq is ready to rebuild, we will be there. The Rebuild section of our website will include specific needs by area in Iraq, which will show you the possibilities for reconstructing this new Nation.

If you are interested in getting a jump start with establishing communication with Iraq, or would like to speak to us about our consulting services, please visit our contact page.

 



 

New Bridge Strategies, LLC is a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Its activities will seek to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of United States Government. We have created New Bridge Strategies and brought together the knowledge of American business professionals with over 25 years of experience in Iraq and throughout the Middle East and the political experience of some of the most successful governmental and political professionals in Washington, D.C., and London to provide a complete package of business services offering:

  • Assistance to companies engaging the U.S. Government process to develop post war opportunities

  • Identification of market opportunities and potential partners

  • On-the-ground support in Iraq

  • Legal, technical, cultural and potentially financial support for ventures


New Bridge Strategies maintains a physical presence with staff on the ground in Baghdad, Beirut, Geneva, Kuwait, Houston and Washington, D.C.

New Bridge Strategies principals have years of public policy experience and are particularly well suited to working with international agencies in the Executive Branch, Department of Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the American rebuilding apparatus. Also, because of their long history of work in the Middle East and Iraq, they possess Arabic-language skills and business expertise in fields such as: telecommunications; real estate; food and beverages; energy; oil and gas; manufacturing; high-technology and distribution.

In addition to this core mission, New Bridge Strategies also will be able to provide risk-management and financial services in Iraq through its affiliate Diligence, LLC a premier global risk-consulting, corporate intelligence, due diligence and investigative research company staffed by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other intelligence agency personnel which is based in Miami, London and Washington, D.C.

The events unfolding in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East following the fall of the Hussein regime are giving rise to unprecedented opportunities for government and private enterprise to partner in the massive undertaking of rebuilding Iraq. The U.S. Government in Washington, D.C., as well as the postwar government in Iraq will need to rely on the economic strength and willingness of large, international companies and companies in neighboring countries to participate in the new Iraqi economy. New Bridge Strategies is providing the flexible and complete solutions as well as entrepreneurial ability necessary for companies seeking to open a path to these unique opportunities and engage in both long and short-term Iraqi business projects.

 



 

Although New Bridge Strategies is a new company, the principals of our company are seasoned veterans in dealing with foreign countries and commerce. A listing of people who make New Bridge Strategies your bridge to success in Iraq is below.

Joe M. Allbaugh, Chairman and Director
Joe M. Allbaugh is the CEO of The Allbaugh Company, LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based corporate strategy and counsel firm. A native of Oklahoma, Joe served as the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under President George Bush until March 2003. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C., he was Chief of Staff to then-Governor Bush of Texas and was the National Campaign Manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign.
 



Ed Rogers, Vice Chairman and Director
Ed Rogers is Vice Chairman of Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc., the firm he founded with Haley Barbour in 1991. From January of 1989 until August of 1991, Ed served as the Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States and Executive Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff. Additionally, Ed was the Senior Deputy to Bush-Quayle Campaign Manager Lee Atwater, from February of 1987, through the general election in 1988. Ed also worked in the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Reagan Administration.

 



John Howland, President, CEO and Director
Prior to becoming President of New Bridge Strategies, John Howland was Executive Vice President of Crest Investment Company, of which he is a Principal. He has worked with Middle Eastern governments and companies, including Iraq (prior to 1989), for over twenty-five years in many areas including food distribution, transportation and oil and gas. John knows the politics of the Middle East and is very knowledgeable about Iraq and its future potential. During the years encompassing the Iran-Iraq war, he worked closely with the U.S. Government, providing food aid and logistical support to the Iraqi government.

 



Jamal Daniel, Advisory Board Member
Jamal Daniel is a Principal with Crest Investment Company, which invests in a wide-range of business ventures and is based in Houston. Prior to his work with Crest Investment, Jamal was a Director of the Uniteg Investment Company, Inc., providing U.S. and international investors with comprehensive real estate services ranging from acquisition and construction to financing and sales. Additionally, Jamal has extensive experience in structuring investing in energy and oil and gas projects throughout the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.

 



Lanny Griffith, Director
Lanny Griffith is Chief Operating Officer at Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc. and joined the firm as partner in 1993. Previously, Lanny served former President George Bush as Assistant Secretary of Education for Intergovernmental and Interagency Affairs from November 1991 until January 1993. Lanny also served in the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and was the Southern Political Director for the 1988 Bush-Quayle presidential campaign.

 



L. Leigh Gribble, Managing Director, Kuwait
Prior to joining New Bridge Strategies, Leigh Gribble founded and managed Blackthorne Rhino, Lp., a firm dedicated to providing technical consulting, liaison, and management services to multinational companies pursuing business opportunities in the defense, industrial, financial, and commercial sectors in the Middle East with emphasis on the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council Region. Leigh is a retired naval officer with over a decade of military, diplomatic, and commercial experience in the Middle East providing advice and support to key decision makers in the military, government, business and industry on wide variety of issues, topics and projects. Leigh currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the American Business Council of the Gulf Countries, and is a past-President of the American Business Council of Kuwait.

 



NEWS

8/22/03
MCT Corp. Announces Bid for Iraq Mobile Telecom Networks
MCT Corp., an Alexandria, Virginia based company announces the submission of its bid for a license to operate a GSM cellular telephone network in Iraq. MCT is leading an American/Iraq consortium in its bid for this license to develop advanced communications solutions that meet the needs of the Iraqi people as rapidly as possible.

 

NewBridgeStrategies.com