| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"james g. keegan jr." |
| Date: |
01 Sep 2003 09:53:41 PM |
| Object: |
"Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 28, 2003; Page A01
Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President
Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under
Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions
more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, according to newly available documents.
The size and scope of the government contracts awarded to
Halliburton in connection with the war in Iraq are significantly
greater than was previously disclosed and demonstrate the U.S.
military's increasing reliance on for-profit corporations to run
its logistical operations. Independent experts estimate that as
much as one-third of the monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping
U.S. troops in Iraq is going to independent contractors.
Services performed by Halliburton, through its Brown and Root
subsidiary, include building and managing military bases,
logistical support for the 1,200 intelligence officers hunting
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, delivering mail and producing
millions of hot meals. Often dressed in Army fatigues with
civilian patches on their shoulders, Halliburton employees and
contract personnel have become an integral part of Army life in
Iraq.
Spreadsheets drawn up by the Army Joint Munitions Command show
that about $1 billion had been allocated to Brown and Root
Services through mid-August for contracts associated with
Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Pentagon's name for the U.S.-led war
and occupation. In addition, the company has earned about $705
million for an initial round of oil field rehabilitation work for
the Army Corps of Engineers, a corps spokesman said.
Specific work orders assigned to the subsidiary under Operation
Iraqi Freedom include $142 million for base camp operations in
Kuwait, $170 million for logistical support for the Iraqi
reconstruction effort and $28 million for the construction of
prisoner of war camps, the Army spreadsheet shows. The company
was also allocated $39 million for building and operating U.S.
base camps in Jordan, the existence of which the Pentagon has not
previously publicly acknowledged.
Over the past decade, Halliburton, a Houston-based company that
made its name servicing pipelines and oil wells, has positioned
itself to take advantage of an increasing trend by the federal
government to contract out many support operations overseas. It
has emerged as the biggest single government contractor in Iraq,
followed by such companies as Bechtel, a California-based
engineering firm that has won hundreds of millions of dollars in
U.S. Agency for International Development reconstruction
contracts, and Virginia-based DynCorp, which is training the new
Iraqi police force.
The government said the practice has been spurred by cutbacks in
the military budget and a string of wars since the end of the
Cold War that have placed enormous demand on the armed forces.
But, according to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and other
critics, the Iraq war and occupation have provided a handful of
companies with good political connections, particularly
Halliburton, with unprecedented money-making opportunities. "The
amount of money [earned by Halliburton] is quite staggering, far
more than we were originally led to believe," Waxman said. "This
is clearly a trend under this administration, and it concerns me
because often the privatization of government services ends up
costing the taxpayers more money rather than less."
Wendy Hall, a Halliburton spokeswoman, declined to discuss the
details of the company's operations in Iraq, or confirm or deny
estimates of the amounts the company has earned from its
contracting work on behalf of the military. In an e-mail message,
however, she said that suggestions of war profiteering were "an
affront to all hard-working, honorable Halliburton employees."
Hall added that military contracts were awarded "not by
politicians but by government civil servants, under strict
guidelines."
Daniel Carlson, a spokesman for the Army's Joint Munitions
Command, said Brown and Root had won a competitive bidding
process in 2001 to provide a wide range of "contingency" services
to the military in the event of the deployment of U.S. troops
overseas. He said the contract, known as the Logistics Civil
Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, was designed to free uniformed
personnel for combat duties and did not preclude deals with other
contractors.
Carlson said the money earmarked for Brown and Root was an
estimate, and could go "up or down" depending on the work
performed.
The Joint Munitions Command provided The Washington Post with an
updated version of a spreadsheet the Army released to Waxman
earlier this month, giving detailed estimates of money obligated
to Brown and Root under Operation Iraqi Freedom. Estimates of the
company's revenue from Iraq have been increasing steadily since
February, when the Corps of Engineers announced the company had
won a $37.5 million contract for pre-positioning fire equipment
in the region.
In addition to its Iraq contracts, Brown and Root has also earned
$183 million from Operation Enduring Freedom, the military name
for the war on terrorism and combat operations in Afghanistan,
according to the Army's numbers.
Waxman's interest in Halliburton was ignited by a routine Corps
of Engineers announcement in March reporting that the company had
been awarded a no-bid contract, with a $7 billion limit, for
putting out fires at Iraqi oil wells. Corps spokesmen justified
the lack of competition on the grounds that the operation was
part of a classified war plan and the Army did not have time to
secure competitive bids for the work.
The corps said the oil rehabilitation deal was an offshoot of the
LOGCAP contract, a one-year agreement renewable for 10 years.
Individual work orders assigned under LOGCAP do not have to be
competitively bid. But Waxman and other critics maintain that the
oil work has nothing to do with the logistics operation.
The practice of delegating a vast array of logistics operations
to a single contractor dates to the aftermath of the 1991 Persian
Gulf War and a study commissioned by Cheney, then defense
secretary, on military outsourcing. The Pentagon chose Brown and
Root to carry out the study and subsequently selected the company
to implement its own plan. Cheney served as chief executive of
Brown and Root's parent company, Halliburton, from 1995 to 2000,
when he resigned to run for the vice presidency.
At the time, said P.W. Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar
and author of "Corporate Warriors," it was impossible to predict
how lucrative the military contracting business would become. He
estimates the number of contract workers in Iraq at 20,000, or
about one for every 10 soldiers. During the Gulf War, the
proportion was about one in 100.
Brown and Root's revenue from Operation Iraqi Freedom is already
rivaling its earnings from its contracts in the Balkans, and is a
major factor in increasing the value of Halliburton shares by 50
percent over the past year, according to industry analysts. The
company reported a net profit of $26 million in the second
quarter of this year, in contrast to a $498 million loss in the
same period last year.
Waxman aides said they have been told by the General Accounting
Office that Brown and Root is likely to earn "several hundred
million more dollars" from the no-bid Corps of Engineers contract
to rehabilitate Iraqi oil fields. Waxman, the ranking minority
member on the House Government Reform Committee, had asked the
GAO to investigate the corps' decision not to bid out the
contract.
After a round of unfavorable publicity, the corps explained that
the sole award to Brown and Root would be replaced by a
competitively bid contract. But the deadline for announcing the
results of the competition has slipped from August to October,
causing rival companies to complain that little work will be left
for anybody else. Bechtel, one of Halliburton's main competitors,
announced this month that it would not bid for the corps contract
and would instead focus on securing work from the Iraqi oil
ministry.
In addition to the Army contracts, Halliburton has profited from
other government-related work in Iraq and the war on terrorism,
and has a $300 million contract with the Navy structured along
similar lines to LOGCAP.
Pentagon officials said the increasing reliance on contractors is
inevitable, given the multiple demands on the military,
particularly since Sept. 11, 2001. Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld is a champion of "outsourcing," writing in The Post in
May that "more than 300,000 uniformed personnel" were doing jobs
that civilians could do.
Independent experts said the trend toward outsourcing logistic
operations has resulted in new problems, such as a lack of
accountability and transparency on the part of private military
firms and sometimes questionable billing practices.
A major problem in Iraq, Singer said, has been the phenomenon of
"no-shows" caused by the inhospitable security environment,
including the killing of contract workers, including a
Halliburton mail delivery employee earlier this month.
"At the end of the day, neither these companies nor their
employees are bound by military justice, and it is up to them
whether to show up or not," Singer said. "The result is that
there have been delays in setting up showers for soldiers,
getting them cooked meals and so on."
A related concern is the rising cost of hiring contract workers
because of skyrocketing insurance premiums. Singer estimates that
premiums have increased by 300 percent to 400 percent this year,
costs that are passed on to the taxpayer under the cost-plus-
award fee system that is the basis for most contracts.
The LOGCAP contract awarded to Brown and Root in 2001 was the
third, and potentially most lucrative, super-contract awarded by
the Army. Brown and Root won the first five-year contract in
1992, but lost the second to rival DynCorp in 1997 after the GAO
criticized the Army for not adequately controlling contracting
costs in Bosnia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56429-
2003Aug27.html
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| User: "Dingleberry" |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
02 Sep 2003 12:52:44 PM |
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"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message news:<Xns93E9E8E48219Bkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4>...
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
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| User: "james g. keegan jr." |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
02 Sep 2003 12:58:25 PM |
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(Dingleberry) wrote in
news:377dfa5a.0309020952.1959116@posting.google.com:
"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:<Xns93E9E8E48219Bkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4>...
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
thus speaketh the gop
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| User: "Omphalos" |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
02 Sep 2003 03:58:59 PM |
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On Tue 02 Sep 2003 01:58:25p, "james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com>
wrote in news:Xns93EA8E248679Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
dingleberry@subdimension.com (Dingleberry) wrote in
news:377dfa5a.0309020952.1959116@posting.google.com:
"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:<Xns93E9E8E48219Bkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4>...
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
thus speaketh the gop
You Dems are talking about it like it actually matters.
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| User: "james g. keegan jr." |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
02 Sep 2003 07:45:01 PM |
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Omphalos <omphalos@wp.pl> wrote in
news:c1d2bf0d863b0f4af4c3e7f8d712d84c@news.teranews.com:
On Tue 02 Sep 2003 01:58:25p, "james g. keegan jr."
<keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:Xns93EA8E248679Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
dingleberry@subdimension.com (Dingleberry) wrote in
news:377dfa5a.0309020952.1959116@posting.google.com:
"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:<Xns93E9E8E48219Bkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4>...
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
thus speaketh the gop
You Dems are talking about it like it actually matters.
it is no surprise to see a gop-type reference the murder of
thousands of innocent civilians as something that doesn't matter.
.
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| User: "Omphalos" |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
02 Sep 2003 08:01:56 PM |
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On Tue 02 Sep 2003 08:45:01p, "james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com>
wrote in news:Xns93EAD31402C95keegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
Omphalos <omphalos@wp.pl> wrote in
news:c1d2bf0d863b0f4af4c3e7f8d712d84c@news.teranews.com:
On Tue 02 Sep 2003 01:58:25p, "james g. keegan jr."
<keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:Xns93EA8E248679Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
dingleberry@subdimension.com (Dingleberry) wrote in
news:377dfa5a.0309020952.1959116@posting.google.com:
"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:<Xns93E9E8E48219Bkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4>...
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
thus speaketh the gop
You Dems are talking about it like it actually matters.
it is no surprise to see a gop-type reference the murder of
thousands of innocent civilians as something that doesn't matter.
Yes, Saddam Hussein murdered thousands of innocent civilians.
.
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| User: "james g. keegan jr." |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
02 Sep 2003 08:11:03 PM |
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Omphalos <omphalos@wp.pl> wrote in
news:be9e64cf4d359417e9788f3101e981c3@news.teranews.com:
On Tue 02 Sep 2003 08:45:01p, "james g. keegan jr."
<keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:Xns93EAD31402C95keegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
Omphalos <omphalos@wp.pl> wrote in
news:c1d2bf0d863b0f4af4c3e7f8d712d84c@news.teranews.com:
On Tue 02 Sep 2003 01:58:25p, "james g. keegan jr."
<keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:Xns93EA8E248679Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
dingleberry@subdimension.com (Dingleberry) wrote in
news:377dfa5a.0309020952.1959116@posting.google.com:
"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
message
news:<Xns93E9E8E48219Bkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4>...
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
thus speaketh the gop
You Dems are talking about it like it actually matters.
it is no surprise to see a gop-type reference the murder of
thousands of innocent civilians as something that doesn't
matter.
Yes
exactly.
[...]
.
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| User: "Bob SD" |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
03 Sep 2003 09:57:32 AM |
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Omphalos <omphalos@wp.pl> wrote in news:be9e64cf4d359417e9788f3101e981c3
@news.teranews.com:
On Tue 02 Sep 2003 08:45:01p, "james g. keegan jr."
<keegan@nycap.rr.com>
wrote in news:Xns93EAD31402C95keegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
Omphalos <omphalos@wp.pl> wrote in
news:c1d2bf0d863b0f4af4c3e7f8d712d84c@news.teranews.com:
On Tue 02 Sep 2003 01:58:25p, "james g. keegan jr."
<keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:Xns93EA8E248679Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:
dingleberry@subdimension.com (Dingleberry) wrote in
news:377dfa5a.0309020952.1959116@posting.google.com:
"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:<Xns93E9E8E48219Bkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4>...
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
thus speaketh the gop
You Dems are talking about it like it actually matters.
it is no surprise to see a gop-type reference the murder of
thousands of innocent civilians as something that doesn't matter.
Yes, Saddam Hussein murdered thousands of innocent civilians.
Idiot. You Bush bootlickers and lapdogs don't really give a damn about
the thousands of innocent people killed in Iraq because of the lies and
deceit perpetrated by the current U.S. administration. The truth will
eventually win out and we must leave it for history to judge.
.
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| User: "Ray Fischer" |
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| Title: Re: "Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought" |
02 Sep 2003 11:13:17 PM |
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Dingleberry <dingleberry@subdimension.com> wrote:
"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com>
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought
So what.
So what if our tax dollars are used to make Halliburton execs and
stockholders richer. Welfare is only bad when used on poor Americans.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
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