Under an agreement for logistical support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a Halliburton subsidiary, has received $4.5 billion for activities in Iraq and Kuwait since the invasion, including more than $3 billion to import fuel and repair oil fields.
The full contract may eventually be worth as much as $18 billion. In testimony submitted to members of Congress, one truck driver explained in detail how taxpayers were billed for empty trucks driven up and down Iraq and how $85,000 vehicles were abandoned for lack of spare tires.
A labor foreman said dozens of workers were told to "look busy" while doing virtually no work for salaries of $80,000 a year. An auditor related how the company was spending an average of $100 for every single bag of laundry and $10,000 a month for company employees to stay in five-star hotels.
"We saw very little concern for cost considerations," David Walker, head of the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the Congress, told members of the Congress who attended a hearing at the Government Reform Committee in the House of Representatives. "There are serious problems, they still exist, and they are exacerbated in a wartime climate."
William Reed, director of the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), also released a report to members of Congress that stated: "In our opinion, the contractor's billing system is inadequate in part. We also found system deficiencies resulting in material invoicing misstatements that are not prevented, detected, and/or corrected in a timely manner."
Critics say that the Halliburton's contract with the military has been especially problematic because the company has what is called a "cost-plus" contract, which means the company is repaid for all expenditures, plus a percentage fee and possible bonus on top of that. "While the Bush administration failed to adequately plan for the safety of our troops, [militants],--as proven by its failure to provide sufficient body armor--it made certain that Halliburton would make a killing long before the war began," said Jim Donahue, coordinator for Halliburton Watch, a nonprofit organization based in Washington.
But Republicans say the charges are simply an attempt to muddy the image of , [war criminal], Vice President Dick Cheney, who was previously the chief executive officer of Halliburton.
"Too many Democrats ... have chosen to practice oversight by press release, oversight by leaking draft reports, and confidential briefings," said Congressman Tom Davis, chairman of the government reform committee. "This is a strategy being driven top down by the House democratic leadership."
Davis refused to allow testimony from five former Halliburton employees who had additional evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse. Instead, Henry Waxman, the highest-ranked Democrat on the committee, released their statements to the public.
One statement came from David Wilson, a Halliburton employee charged with delivering supplies by from Camp Cedar II in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda just north of Baghdad between November 2003 and March 2004. He explained that his supervisors didn't care what was being transported, so long as the trucks drove as many times as possible from one end of the country to the other.
"The paperwork I carried had no details about the contents of our cargo - basically all they were looking for was the number of trucks with freight on them (but) a related problem was that KBR would run trucks empty quite often," Wilson said. "Sometimes they would have five empty trucks, sometimes they would have a dozen. One time we ran 28 trucks and only one had anything on it.
There were several times when we had empty trucks both on the way to Anaconda and then on the way back to Cedar II. I don't understand why KBR would have placed our lives in danger that way for no reason."
He also described what appeared to be a complete lack of cost controls and systems to maintain equipment properly. "When I arrived at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait last November, I noticed 50 to 100 brand new trucks sitting there unused," Wilson remembered. "Five months later, when I came home. A large number of trucks were still there, not being used.
These are $85,000 (or more) Mercedes and Volvo trucks. "As every other trucker working on those convoys will tell you, KBR had virtually no facilities in place to do maintenance on these trucks. There were absolutely no oil filters or fuel filters for months on end. I begged for filters but never got any. I was told that oil changes were out of the question.
KBR removed all the spare tires in Kuwait. So when one of our trucks got a flat tire on the highway, we just had to leave it there for the Iraqis to loot, which is just crazy. I remember saying to myself when it happened, 'You just lost yourself an $85,000 truck because of a spare tire. We lost a truck because we didn't have $25 hydraulic line to assist the clutch.'"
Another former Halliburton employee, Mike West, said that prior to Halliburton, he had working as an area manager for Valero Energy with a yearly salary of $70,000. "When I heard about a chance to earn more with Halliburton, I called them up," he said. "After just a few minutes, the woman said I was hired as a labor foreman at a salary of $130,000. I didn't even have to send in a resume."
When he arrived, West explained he was paid despite the fact that he had no work. "I only worked one day out of six in Kuwait," he explained. "That day, a supervisor told me to operate a forklift. I explained that I didn't have a license to operate a forklift or any experience The response was: 'It's easy and no one will know.'"
When West got to Camp Anaconda in southern Iraq, he says that he didn't have any work to do. Nor did most of the other 35 workers.
The supervisors told them to walk around and look busy. Then they wentto a camp in Al Asad, where they had only one day of work out of five days. They were told to bill for 12 hours of labor every day. From there, his group was sent Fallujah for six weeks, where once again he had almost no work to do except help with security and follow Iraqi workers around to make sure they cleaned the toilets properly.
"One day, I was ordering some equipment. I asked the camp manager if it was OK to order a drill," West said. "He said to order four. I responded that we didn't need four. He said: 'Don't worry about it. It's a cost-plus contract.' I asked him, 'So basically, this is a blank check?'
The camp manager laughed and said, 'Yeah.' He repeated this over and over again to the employees."
As a Halliburton employee, I was disappointed by all of the company's lies and disorganization. As a taxpayer, I'm disgusted by all of the money spent by Halliburton to pay employees to do nothing."
A third person who submitted testimony to Waxman's office was Marie de Young, who had previously worked for the military for 10 years, rising to the level of captain. De Young, who had also authored two books about women in the military, worked for Halliburton in Kosovo and was hired in December to help oversee Operation Iraqi Freedom contracts in Kuwait.
"I soon discovered that there was not a complete up-to-date list of all of the sub-contracts.. also, the document control department had provided incorrect lists to all of the task order managers from an inaccurate database," she said.
In January and February 2004, a series of articles in the media, especially in the Wall Street Journal, chronicled the overcharging and fraud in Halliburton's operations. In response Halliburton hired what it dubbed the "Tiger Team" to audit and correct problems. De Young worked closely with the team and discovered not only that it did not correct anything, but that the team continued "questionable auditing and administration practices." "When the Tiger Team examined a subcontract, they just checked to make sure that all the forms were in the file," she said. "They didn't assess the reasonableness of the price or consult with site managers.
The team's sole purpose was to close as many subcontracts as possible, under the mistaken assumption that everything that was closed prior to the arrival of the government audit team would be exempt from further scrutiny. For three months, this Tiger Team occupied waterfront villas at the Hilton hotel and shuffled papers, but did nothing to effectively clean up old subcontracts.
"We were instructed to pay invoices without verifying whether services were delivered. I personally told a KBR Tiger Team member not to pay an invoice that I knew was a double billing (but) the long term KBR employee told me I didn't know what I was doing."
De Young says that Halliburton paid the Kuwaiti subcontractor La Nouvelle $100 per bag for laundry services--four times more than they were paying elsewhere. That added up to more than $1 million per month. Another time, the company ordered 37,200 cases of soda at $1.50 a case, but was delivered only 37,200 cans, resulting in charges that were five times the normal wholesale cost for the drinks.
Halliburton housed the Tiger Team at the five-star Kempinski Hotel for $10,000 per employee per month. At the same time, soldiers were required to live in tents at a cost of $1.39 a day. The military requested that Halliburton employees move into the tents, but they refused, De Young said.
"The Halliburton corporate culture is one of intimidation and fear," De Young said. "I had been advised by subcontract administrators who quit the company that employees get moved around when they get too close to the truth. I personally observed and experienced this as a routine company practice. Ironically, other previous managers who tolerated bad practices were promoted to better paying jobs in Iraq or Houston or Jordan."
In an email, Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall told reporters: "We take any charges of improper conduct seriously... We will look into these assertions. If issues arise, we are committed to addressing them forthrightly and openly.
"Halliburton believes its actions in Iraq are designed to deliver the best quality products and services on the best terms available as called for in our contract. We will work with the committee to assist them in fulfilling their important oversight functions.''
Meanwhile, top executives of Halliburton have been asked to testify next month before another congressional committee investigating potential favoritism and waste in Iraq reconstruction contracts. CorpWatch.
By Pratap Chatterjee posted 10 August 04
Alexander Downer guilty of war crimes
The agreement for going to war on Iraq carried with it and incentive and that was free trade with the US. The Howard Government knew about it and went along with it with the US under the guise of Iraq's WMDs. In criminal law this is commonly know as collusion to commit a crime.
John Howard's war crimes blameworthy
General Peter Gration is the spokesman for a group of 43 ex-military leaders, diplomats and departmental heads who have criticised the Government, saying involvement in Iraq has put Australia at greater risk of a terrorist attack.
Human Rights Watch slams Iraq war attacks
Human Rights Watch has condemned the 'wanton' targeting of civilians by 'armed militants', in Iraq. Then what about the Coalition of the Killing?
Genocide and Torture in Iraq: Justice in the balance?
No one is more vulnerable than a prisoner held beyond the reach of the law. So the grim picture of life as a US detainee, [prisoner], held without charge or trial, set out in the Guardian yesterday by three Britons should come as no surprise.
Auditor Generals damning war report
The Defence Department computer system upgrade has cost Australia tens of millions of dollars in a gigantic bungle, according to the Federal Opposition. The Commonwealth auditor-general has issued a damning report into the project.
Truck drivers working for US face death: resistance
A lot has been written about Insurgents they're all over the place these days especially in Iraq and the term means "Rebel" so all the Rebel's once they've been locked up and "tortured" become "Enemy Combatants" without any "rights". Can someone explain to me what is going on?
Ancient Babylon ruined by foreign troops: Iraqi minister
Iraq: Foreign forces in Iraq have caused severe damage to the site of ancient Babylon, one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures, and need to leave the area as soon as possible, Iraq's Culture Minister Mofeed al-Jazaeri said.
UK report propaganda
Damaged basic services, cover up of key intelligence and prisoner abuse........They got that right but they got the remedy of the report wrong. Sure as hell they're using this as serious "propaganda".
Iraqis accuse British troops of war crimes.........
British troops committed "war crimes" in post-war Iraq, unlawfully killing civilians and beating and torturing prisoners in their custody, lawyers for the victims have alleged. Soldiers played cruel "games" with prisoners, forcing them to recite lists of English or Dutch footballers and beating them if they failed, Phil Shiner, a British lawyer leading six test cases in the High Court this week, said.
Fifteen "enemies" killed in Iraq shootout
The US military said insurgents opened fire on Iraqi security forces as they provided security for the 1st Infantry Division during a raid in a nearby farming area.
US:Military Draft expected
US: There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately.
US accused of butting into Australian election
The Prime Minister, war criminal, John Howard couldn't win an election this year if he hired the cheerleaders of the US Super Bowl. Howard the coward has accused the Opposition leader of hypocrisy in his response to the, war criminal. Bush administration's criticism of Labor's Iraq policy.
Whatcha Gonna Do, When They Come For You? Bad boy!
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a threat and sought to possess weapons of mass destruction, United States President, [war criminal], George W Bush reaffirmed when asked why no such weapons had been discovered in Iraq.
Saddam trial US propaganda
Saddam will be handed over to Iraqi, [puppet], justice on Wednesday, two days after the country allegedly regained sovereignty from Washington, but US militants will still guard him to ensure he does not escape.
US liars warn against 'fortress Australia'
The US and Australia could lose the war on terror, [the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], if they adopted a fortress mentality and failed to go after the terrorists, [scapegoats and patsies], in their global strongholds, US ambassador to Australia Tom Schieffer warned yesterday.
Fahrenheit 9/11: Cannes ends in controversy
Moore's film - about the, [war criminal], George Bush presidency and its response to, [US reichstag, call to arms, false flag], 9/11 and the subsequent, [resource], wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - pulls no punches in depicting George W. as a duplicitous buffoon.
George Bush never looked into Nick's eyes
My son, Nick, was my teacher and my hero. He was the kindest, gentlest man I know; no, the kindest, gentlest human being I have ever known. He quit the Boy Scouts of America because they wanted to teach him to fire a handgun. Nick, too, poured into me the strength I needed, and still need, to tell the world about him.
IRAQ: CPT Colleagues Describe Massacre in Fallujah
What is portrayed in the US mass media as a grand and heroic firefight is,in reality, the crassest, goriest, and basest single incident of massacre of innocents by US troops in recent memory.
Lose the Occupation and Win the War on Liberty!
Friendly allies do pull militants out of illegal battles, believe it or not, under the heading, lose the battle and win the war. In this case it's lose the Occupation and Win the War on Liberty.
Spain demands 'radical change' in Iraq strategy
Spain's prime minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has demanded a "radical change" in the post-war strategy in Iraq otherwise he would withdraw Spanish militants from the country.
'FACTOPHOBIA' HOWARD, BLAIR AND BUSH
Well think about this! Australia's intelligence agencies, [fear mongering, propaganda agencies], look set to receive a substantial funding boost in this year's Federal Budget, with the Prime Minister saying it is an obvious step to take.
US to increase Iraq border security in Iraq
Just plain rubbish, the USA are the terrorists and are dividing and conquering Iraq, by attacking the Shiite Muslims and blaming it on someone else another "A" typical false flag operation.
Halliburton's Ancient Scandals
In the world of corporate scandals, the story breaks, there is a frenzy of reportage, a culprit in the lower levels of upper management is thrown to the SEC and then, slowly, the story dies.
Missile defence program 'will lead to arms race'
A group of Australian doctors opposed to war is warning national security will be compromised by any proposed involvement in the United States' missile defence program 'Son of a bitch'..
Pope calls for sanctions on leaders who violate rights
Leader of the child molesters, Pope John Paul II has called for political leaders who violate human rights to be punished, in a World Day of Peace message released amid worldwide debate over how Saddam Hussein should be brought to justice.
War criminals should be tried: Human Rights
The UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague should try George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard for their part in the coalition of the killing for crimes against humanity.
Who cares wins? Those who inflict or those who endure?
When occupation means war then who cares wins? Not those who can inflict the most, but those who can endure the most, I would have thought.
Coalition of the Killing's alliance against law 'the wrong way'
Australia and Britain [and the Coalition of the Killing], could have agreed that the [resource], wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and liberty, the proliferation of Security Housing Units, and Detention Centres, can be addressed unilaterally - a trend in the US that is feared all over the world - but must be faced collectively.
A STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTS: PRISONS & IMPERIALIST WAR
After a war waged by the U.S. military against Vietnam which took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and more than 58,000 GIs, the U.S. finally withdrew in 1975. It had suffered its first official major military defeat by a united people struggle led by the Vietnamese, along with a mass U.S. anti-war movement.
Police surround protesters outside US Embassy
Thousands of protesters have marched to the Lodge to protest against [war criminal], US President George W Bush's visit. The protesters had rallied outside Parliament House, booing when the president arrived this morning and chanting "go home Bush you war criminal".
David Burchell: Paradox of anti-Americanism
[War criminal] President George W. Bush's trip to our shores today has focused attention on a striking fact - the apparently irresistible rise in hostility among many Australians towards the US.
Pilger said White House knew Saddam was no threat
Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them.
Illegal and degrading war crimes: Society on the New World Order (OWN)! While Australia and the US are very distinctive societies war criminal, Prime Minister John Howard and war criminal, President George Bush share core values.
Thousands march for peace! But does that mean no war?
THOUSANDS of people took to the streets around the country yesterday to march against the war in Iraq and for world peace.
US disturbed over 'biased' reporting in Arab media! But the US lies to the world! How could anyone describe pre-emptive strikes on a sovereign nation, occupation, genocide, torture, and human rights abuse by the Coalition of the Killing in a positive light?
Coalition force 'surprised' by stiff resistance for food aid
About 4,000-5,000 allied forces have launched what they vowed would be an all-out blitz. "We're going straight through that city," a US Marine officer, who asked not to be named, said. "It will be a Hail Mary with guns ablazing."
Explosions rock Baghdad, jets overhead Iraq
BAGHDAD, March 20 [Rooters] A handful of explosions rocked Baghdad at dawn today as jets roared overhead, Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries opened up and air raid sirens sounded.
Bin Laden calls? CIA blind man's bluff!
A [US propaganda, fear-mongering] taped message purportedly from Osama bin Laden has warned Arab nations against supporting a war against Iraq but has branded Saddam Hussein an infidel.
U.S. AMBASSADOR WARNED TO STOP MEDDLING:
The Australian Federal Opposition and Labor Party Leader, Simon Crean, has again warned the U.S. ambassador to stop meddling in Australian politics.
War: Part one The human cost
On the road to Basra, ITV was filming wild dogs as they tore at the corpses of the Iraqi dead. Every few seconds a ravenous beast would rip off a decaying arm and make off with it over the desert in front of us, dead fingers trailing through the sand, the remains of the burned military sleeve flapping in the wind. "Just for the record,'' the cameraman said to me. Of course. Because ITV would never show such footage.
Mandela speaks out against Bush, Blair
Former South African leader Nelson Mandela has lashed out at US President George W Bush's stance on Iraq, saying the US leader has no foresight, and cannot think properly.
All the way with (LPK) Love Peace and Kindness: Dalai Lama
Communication is a two way street. Threats and punishment solve nothing and serve none. In fact it is against the law in most countries to threaten or punish a person.
Pleas for peace ring the globe
Anti-war demonstrators turned out in their hundreds of thousands around the world on Saturday to protest against United States military preparations for an invasion of Iraq.
Not too late for Iraq peace, Blix says
But we all know that's rubbish now. The Coalition of the Killing were not seeking WMD in Iraq, they were there for their resource wars. So who gave the 'UN' and Blix the wrong information back then? War criminals!
George Bush's other poodle
John Howard, Australia's PM, is the mouse that roars for America, whipping his country into war fever and paranoia about terrorism within.
