VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY'S "FORMER" COMPANY
Halliburton's Iraq deals called contract abuse

From Reuters via the Houston Chronicle:

A top Army procurement official said today Halliburton's deals in Iraq were the worst example of contract abuse she had seen as Pentagon auditors flagged over $1 billion of potential overcharges by the Texas-based firm.

Bunny Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting official-turned whistle-blower, said in testimony at a hearing by Democrats on Capitol Hill that "every aspect" of Halliburton's oil contract in Iraq had been under the control of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

"I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR (Kellogg Brown and Root) represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career," said Greenhouse, a procurement veteran of more than 20 years.

Her blistering criticism came as the Democrats released a new report including Pentagon audits that identified more than $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq.

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This is another old story that the press seems to be revisiting, and it's about time, I say. The whole Pentagon no-bid give-away to the company in which our Vice President still owns stock stinks like a sewage treatment plant. The brush-off right-wing rationalizations - that only Halliburton has these specific capabilities - rang hollow two years ago, and they ring hollow now. Make no mistake: this overbilling isn't simply an oversight; it's crony capitalism of the worst sort, and Halliburton is milking it's government cow for all it's worth. But then, on many levels, that's what this whole damned war has been about, enriching Bush and Cheney's oil buddies at the taxpayer's expense. Hell, that's what their whole administration has been about.

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