A U.S. law firm with close ties to the Bush administration has been tapped to set up Iraq’s legal system. This according to a report in the London Observer.

Among other things the firm, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, will advise on how to privatize former government-held industries and to develop a tax structure.

In 2000 the firm donated $41,000 to Bush’s election campaign. One of the firm’s partners Ronald James now serves as personnel chief of the new Department of Homeland Security. James also used to work for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and during the Nixon administration he shared an officve with Vice President Dick Cheney.