and finding it lacking. For example, this author points out the following:

The report basically equates campaign contributions with cronyism -- in other words, there's no direct evidence of wrongdoing, just a claim that campaign contributions contributed to the allocation of reconstruction contracts. What's presented is circumstantial evidence.

Even the circumstantial case is pretty damn weak. Look at the top ten companies in terms of contract amounts (here's the full list) and then look at the size of their campaign contributions since 1990 (here's the full list). If you look at the top ten firms in terms of the size of awarded contracts, you discover that only four of them made contributions greater than $250,000 over the entire twelve-year span. In other words, the majority of the top-ten contractors were actually quite miserly in their campaign contributions.

Is that how the Center for Public Integrity or the media sees it? Nope. Here's the Washington Post paragraph:

The winners of the top 10 contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed about $1 million a year to national political parties, candidates and political action committees since 1990, according to the group, which studies the links between money and politics.

This is mathematically true, but overlooks the fact that the overwhelming majority of these contributions come from only three of the firms on the list -- Bechtel, Dell, and Kellog, Brown & Root (yes, they're the parent company of Hallburton).

Another blogger noticed the following:

Right now we're slugging our way thru the study to see exactly what this charge means and whether anyone should be scandalized by its supporting facts. So far here's what I've found.

First and foremost, this study (of companies who "Reap the Windfalls of Post-war Reconstruction") is written by and for those who're scandalized by capitalism itself.

Second, there are seventy (70!) companies -- some large, some small -- who, as the study says (charges?) "shared in the reconstruction bounty":

Their tasks ranged from rebuilding Iraq's government, police, military and media to providing translators for use in interrogations and psychological operations. There are even contractors to evaluate the contractors.

Presumably we're supposed to be scandalized by this listing of political contributions, but the table provides no links and no breakdowns. I suppose we're seeing total contributions to all parties and all candidates. (Or did GE really contribute $8.8 million to George W. Bush between 1990 and 2002? And, by the way, why is the column titled "contract total?") One naturally wants to know who was the runner-up and what did he get? Did the Clintons, for example, get $450,000?

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