The Passion of the Handover:

"With the so-called handover of power to Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority only a few months away, the CPA is going back to the PR well, awarding a $5.8 million contract to the British public relations firm Bell Pottinger Public Affairs 'to promote the establishment of democracy as the country recovers from war,' the Holmes Report recently announced.

Led by company founder Lord Tim Bell, who according to The Independent, 'masterminded Margaret Thatcher's rise to power in 1979,' Bell Pottinger -- one of the largest public relations companies in the United Kingdom, and one of 14 companies operating within the public relations division of Chime Communications PLC -- will lead a consortium that includes the Dubai-based advertising agency Bates PanGulf and the media services company Balloch & Roe, which already has offices in Baghdad. Corporate Watch reported in 1999 that Lord Bell 'can also boast on his CV the following illustrious clients: South Africa's National Party; the Coal Board during the 1984 miners' strike; post-Dayton, Milosevic-led Yugoslavia.'"