High Payments to Halliburton for Fuel in Iraq

Originally posted by Valhall
All links and press releases containing the facts of the situations your original post have been supplied here. In addition, my feelings concerning people who refuse to read, refuse to seek the truth, and refuse to come out of the darkness of ignorance and IV-fed coma, have also been included here.

From Argus Hamilton today: Do you know what they call adults who still believe in Santa?

Democrats...

What I would normally find so funny, if it didn't make me so damned sick, is that you people seem to think you can "create" a conspiracy when you can't find the one you want.

Saying it doesn't it make it so...but repeating it in the face of facts sure makes you something.

Dissappointing, I thought better of you, my mistake.
I'll not speak on the subject to your denial further, but I would remind you of the "non-pit" forum thingy.....we can let Springer, Thomas & Russian drink all the Kool-Aid they want there. Try to up the game here - you are beter than that.

Deferred dividends = broken up over years
Deferred comp = broken up over years
when the above is guranteed, yes, he's making bank.

Remember, I'm anti-republican, not a Democrat.

Okay, update on stock.

For the time being I'm moving to a HOLD.

I think things may get interesting and beneficial over this one!

oops...forgot link

www.msnbc.com...



[Edited on 12-12-2003 by Valhall]

oop! lookie here...a more "untwisted" side to the story!

www.cnn.com...

This is going to turn out to be just like the SEC audit back during the Enron/WorldCom period...another attempt by the Dummie-crats to find something that's not there. These type allegations will continue through until the election, waste immense amount of government funds, and come up with nothing but that screwed but never kissed feeling for the American taxpayers.

Oh well....like I said. HOLD!

Halliburton retorts it�s the firm for job
By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Under assault once again for the price it has been charging to import gasoline into Iraq, Houston-based Halliburton Co. said Wednesday it is still doing the work because "other organizations have not been able to handle the mission."

In a spirited defense of its work in Iraq, which has been criticized by Congressional Democrats as overpriced, Halliburton said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has tried unsuccessfully "several times" over the last few months to turn over responsibility for fuel distribution to various Iraqi groups.

But each time, Halliburton subsidiary KBR "was called upon to step in at a moment's notice, remobilize trucks and drivers and bridge the gap" between what other organizations were able to import and what Iraq's urgent domestic needs were, company spokeswoman Wendy Hall said.

House Democrats, who have long been critical of Halliburton's contract with the Pentagon to repair Iraq's energy infrastructure, were on the attack again Wednesday, complaining that Halliburton was charging $2.64 a gallon to import fuel from Kuwait into Iraq, more than twice what others have been paid.

In a letter to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said Halliburton is collecting about 26 cents per gallon in markups and 2 cents in "other" charges -- for each gallon trucked in from Kuwait.

But Halliburton's actual role in the importation of the fuel is limited, the lawmakers said.

"Essentially, Halliburton's function is to hire an `integrator' as a subcontractor to purchase the gasoline in Kuwait and transport it into Iraq. It is difficult to understand how this justifies an additional 26 cents per gallon charge on millions of gallons of gasoline."

And those costs may be on the rise. In recent weeks, the lawmakers calculate, the company has been paying $3.06 per gallon.

Costs of importing fuel from Turkey, meanwhile, have been only $1.24 a gallon. That figure included only 11 cents per gallons in markups and 2 cents for other charges.

The lawmakers wondered why trucking in fuel from Kuwait, a major oil exporter and "the nation whose territory we fought to liberate from Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War," is so much more costly than from Turkey, itself a net crude importer.

Halliburton officials say security is a large part of the reason. While the military has been able to ensure that fuel moves regularly from the north, escorted convoys in the south have become "erratic." The company's subcontractor has had one driver killed, nine workers injured and 20 trucks damaged.

They're so frickin busted. I saw Lou Dobbs crapping himself yesterday about this on CNN.

Yeah, we'll see.

We both have to agree to say "I'm screwed, blued, and tattooed." When the final word comes in and one of us is found wrong.

practice so you don't bite your tongue when you have to say it.

I think it's worth observing that to argue 'pro' in the Haliburton case is to falsely acknowledge that there are no other globe hopping powerhouses in the same market niche. Sure, 'giving it to local companies' has the drop off in services that has them running back to Haliburton, but that's a stacked process from the get go.

If we have allies & global trading partners on all else we do, why, when it is a fully tax payer funded expense, do we not open it to these same trading partners and significantly reduce our costs?
I think blatant cronyism & political ideology driven policy voids out the pressumed business saavy of our first "MBA President", no?
Even sticking with the Haliburton option, there has been no push for a closed contract driven by SLA's; hence work that could have been a closed contract at $500M has balooned up to $1.7B because it's an open ended per service format.

The price gouging issue is simply one of crony capitalism, featherbedding and ripping off ordinary American taxpayers.

Who cares about stock prices in that scenario, really, except captive shareholders waiting for a decent return year after year?

well-dee-well-dee-well-dee...

U.S. Officials May Have Steered
Halliburton to Kuwaiti Supplier


By CHIP CUMMINS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


U.S. and Kuwaiti government officials may have tried to steer Halliburton Co. and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue working with a Kuwaiti subcontractor that Pentagon officials point to as the source of potential overcharging in Iraq, according to documents and a person familiar with the situation.

The new information injects uncertainty into whether Halliburton is to blame for possible cost overruns in a $1.2 billion program to supply Iraq with emergency gasoline supplies. While much is still unclear about the role played by Kuwaiti and U.S. aides, Pentagon officials said last week that initial findings of a routine audit showed that Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit may have overcharged the government as much as $61 million for gasoline imports from Kuwait to Iraq.

webreprints.djreprints.com...

Wonder why the dra-media hasn't presented this???

In a communique from Dave Lesar, CEO of Halliburton:

"The Army Corps of Engineers directed KBR to buy and deliver fuel from Kuwait. KBR was told to find a fuel source in Kuwait that met stringent requirements. The company sought and received bids from four suppliers. Only one subcontractor met the Corps' specifications, and that was the one selected.
�
Last week�s story suggesting wrongdoing by KBR in Iraq was based on politically-motivated leaks and incomplete reporting. The facts are now beginning to catch up with the story. Once again the facts show what we have known all along: KBR has acted honorably and professionally. "

Fire up the cookers! Someone's having crow tonight!!!

HOLD!

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"The story about Halliburton's strangely expensive gasoline imports into Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. High-priced gasoline was purchased from a supplier whose name is unfamiliar to industry experts, but that appears to be run by a prominent Kuwaiti family (no doubt still grateful for the 1991 liberation). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documents seen by The Wall Street Journal refer to "political pressures" from Kuwait's government and the U.S. embassy in Kuwait to deal only with that firm. I wonder where that trail leads.

Meanwhile, NBC News has obtained Pentagon inspection reports of unsanitary conditions at mess halls run by Halliburton in Iraq: "Blood all over the floors of refrigerators, dirty pans, dirty grills, dirty salad bars, rotting meat and vegetables." An October report complains that Halliburton had promised to fix the problem but didn't.

[ Reported by your friend, Bout Time, here www.abovetopsecret.com... ]

And more detail has been emerging about Bechtel's much-touted school repairs. Again, a Pentagon report found "horrible" work: dangerous debris left in playground areas, sloppy paint jobs and broken toilets.

Are these isolated bad examples, or part of a pattern? It's impossible to be sure without a broad, scrupulously independent investigation. Yet such an inquiry is hard to imagine in the current political environment � which is precisely why one can't help suspecting the worst.

Let's be clear: worries about profiteering aren't a left-right issue. Conservatives have long warned that regulatory agencies tend to be "captured" by the industries they regulate; the same must be true of agencies that hand out contracts. Halliburton, Bechtel and other major contractors in Iraq have invested heavily in political influence, not just through campaign contributions, but by enriching people they believe might be helpful. Dick Cheney is part of a long if not exactly proud tradition: Brown & Root, which later became the Halliburton subsidiary doing those dubious deals in Iraq, profited handsomely from its early support of a young politician named Lyndon Johnson.

So is there any reason to think that things are worse now? Yes.

The biggest curb on profiteering in government contracts is the threat of exposure: sunshine is the best disinfectant. Yet it's hard to think of a time when U.S. government dealings have been less subject to scrutiny.

First of all, we have one-party rule � and it's a highly disciplined, follow-your-orders party. There are members of Congress eager and willing to take on the profiteers, but they don't have the power to issue subpoenas.

And getting information without subpoena power has become much harder because, as a new report in U.S. News & World Report puts it, the Bush administration has "dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government." Since 9/11, the administration has invoked national security to justify this secrecy, but it actually began the day President Bush took office.

To top it all off, after 9/11 the U.S. media � which eagerly played up the merest hint of scandal during the Clinton years � became highly protective of the majesty of the office. As the stories I've cited indicate, they have become more searching lately. But even now, compare British and U.S. coverage of the Neil Bush saga.

The point is that we've had an environment in which officials inclined to do favors for their business friends, and contractors inclined to pad their bills or do shoddy work, didn't have to worry much about being exposed. Human nature being what it is, then, the odds are that the troubling stories that have come to light aren't isolated examples."


www.nytimes.com...