Rumsfeld Denies Contractor Made Overpayments in Iraq

I guess we know where some of that extra money is going, eh? Expect this investigation to take long enough that everyone just forgets about it.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is denying the Pentagon paid too much for work performed by a company in Iraq that has political connections to the White House. His comments follow a Defense Department audit, which found a subsidiary of the Halliburton oil services company may have overcharged the government by more than $60 million for fuel delivered to Iraq.
A preliminary audit has found Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root may have overcharged the government by as much as $61 million for fuel delivered to Iraq from Kuwait. Another $67 million in extra charges was found on bills for food services to troops. But the audit found those discrepancies before the bills were paid by the military.

Halliburton denies any overcharge, and on Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "there was no overpayment."

Military officials say the Pentagon is now seeking additional information from the company in order to resolve the dispute.

"What you're reading about in the paper is not an overpayment at all. It may be a disagreement between the company and the Department of Defense, and possibly between the company and subcontractors," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Military officials say the overcharge may have originated with a fuel supplier in Kuwait.

Read on....
www.voanews.com...

And the coverup is underway. I'm sure he's right. Manufactured evidence won't show a thing.

On Friday, Rumsfeld tried to downplay questions about reports of Halliburton price gouging on its no-bid fuel contract in Iraq. The question was raised at the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting in Washington. It was a Minnesota state senator � not a journalist � who asked about reports that Halliburton overcharged the defense department up to $61 million for fuel delivered to Iraq.
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Rumsfeld�s response? No biggie. It is a �fairly normal process,� he said, assuring that evidence will show there was no overcharge.

www.qctimes.com...,1021663

[Edited on 12-13-2003 by Satyr]

Funny, Rummy may deny, but Shrub is skeptical. Could there be a crack in the armor?

Reminds me of those 20,000 dollar tiolet seats...."No biggie. It is a �fairly normal process,�



regards
seekerof

If nobody really saw something like this coming as soon as we started paying contractors to go work in Iraq, then WWIII is closer than we originally thought, since we're all to stupid to think anyways.

Fact of the matter is I was just waiting for something like this, the same as all you should have been.

Well, billions of my kids' futures down the drain, I suppose...

Nothing to see here, people! Move along!