Who's keeping track of this stuff anyway. http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/2005-06-27-halliburton-usat_x.htm .
Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Congress and government auditors have conducted nearly a dozen reports on Halliburton and that the panel "monitors very closely" the activities of the main U.S. contractor in Iraq. Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann called Democrats' statements "false" and noted that while every contractor faces audit questions, her company has been unfairly singled out. Only the political rhetoric has been inflated, she said in an e-mail, calling the figures a "gross mischaracterization." Susan Collins it seems..
Boy, I really trust Haliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann. Wouldn't you like to have a complete accounting of the $300 billion spent on this venture? .
" Whistle-blower testimony and a previously undisclosed Army audit found Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) inflated cost estimates, billed for unnecessary equipment and personnel, submitted millions of dollars in duplicate charges and was repeatedly given preferential treatment over other contractors. The report cited these examples of inflated costs: • $617,000 for double-billed soft drinks. • $1 million in excessive laundry charges. • More than $560,000 for unneeded heavy equipment, including tractors and trailers. • $2.2 million for cargo aircraft and $7.6 million for freight costs that "appeared to be duplicate." • $1.4 million to pay 146 workers at a facility that had only 62. The Army audit blamed lax Defense Department oversight, saying Pentagon officials often discarded lower government cost estimates in favor of the contractor's inflated ones. While the government estimated it would take $1.9 million to run Baghdad's airport, Halliburton charged $12.8 million. A contract to run Camp Arifjan in Kuwait cost $10.8 million instead of the government $2.8 million estimate. A separate Defense Contract Audit Agency review revealed $219 million in questioned charges related to fuel imports by Halliburton."
Such good-hearted people at KBR: "In addition, Rory Mayberry, a former KBR food manager at Camp Anaconda in Iraq, testified on videotape from Baghdad that the company charged for twice the number of meals it provided and served food beyond its expiration date. He said managers ordered workers to pick bullets and shrapnel out of food shipments that had been damaged by gunfire or bombings and serve it to troops. Mayberry said managers threatened to send workers who talked to auditors to more dangerous parts of Iraq. "
Man, I can think back to a time when people got all bent out of shape for the gov buying 100 dollar screws or spending exhorbitant amounts to study the flight patterns of bumblebees. Those were mild in comparison yet now you have people lining up to defend spending in the billions without question. People are strange.
I was thinking about that too. Those complaints were popular in the late 70s and 80s. Today, no one seems to care anymore. There used to be a big clock in NY that would tally up the national debt. They took it down near the end of the Clinton era, as if all that $8 trillion in accumulated debt disappeared just because we ran a surplus for a year or two. .
Yeh, well what do you expect, this company funds the ruling party and the preisdent, this means that they can screw the government and the polititians will do nothing. Welcome to capitalism.
