Friends in High Places

16 June 2004



Pentagon Says Halliburton Has Mismanaged Iraqi Money

When the conquest of Iraq finished, it was inevitable that US firms would receive US tax dollars to fix the things the US military broke while toppling the Saddamite regime. Almost as inevitable was the participation of oil services company Halliburton, of which Vice President Cheney used to be top dog. However, the Pentagon has said Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root division's weak accounting has led to "significant" overcharging. That was not inevitable.

The company also has some whistleblowers coming forward now claiming that subcontractors have charged $100 for doing about 15 pounds of laundry, and that $85,000 trucks have been abandoned because of flat tires. Marie de Young, a logistics expert with the company, informed Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) that her superiors told her that she was giving the Pentagon auditors too much information.

Mr. Waxman has also suggested that the Vice President's senior staff, including chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had been briefed twice by the Pentagon on the contract Halliburton received to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry. The problem is that Mr. Cheney has said there were no such briefings and that his office was unaware of the Halliburton "no-bid" contract before it was announced.

Even if there is absolutely no wrong-doing in Halliburton's Iraq-Washington business, which appears to stretch credulity to the breaking point, there is a definite appearance of impropriety. No-bid contracts are not the norm at the Pentagon, and rebuilding the Iraqi oil industry is a big job. The company's got a lot of questions to answer. So does the vice president. It would be better if the answers came out before rather than after the election. Don't count on it.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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