Challiburton Raping Taxpayers Again

[JohnnyBz00LS]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,224777,00.html

Iraq Reconstruction Audit Reports High Spending on Administrative Costs
Wednesday, October 25, 2006

WASHINGTON — Administrative costs for a handful of reconstruction projects in Iraq ate up 11 percent to 55 percent of the total costs and were not monitored well by officials there, according to a U.S. government audit.

The audit, done by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, looked at a number of contracts and detailed five totaling $1.3 billion (euro1.04 billion). It found that more than $460 million (euro366.8 million) was spent on overhead costs, including transportation, mobilization, administration, personnel support and security.

The report suggested that some of the costs may be underestimated because the government did not consistently track the administrative amounts or require companies to report them in the same way. The U.S. Congress has approved $18.4 billion (euro14.67 billion) in reconstruction money for Iraq.

The administrative costs largely occurred between the date the contractors arrived in Iraq to begin the project and the time when substantial work began. Often, the companies were in Iraq for months before they were actually able to begin work on their reconstruction project, said Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the reconstruction oversight agency.

Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root accrued the highest percentage of overhead costs — billing the government for $163 million (euro129.97 million), or 55 percent of its total contract cost, the audit found. Parsons Iraq Joint Venture, a second company, had overhead costs equaling nearly $134 million (euro106.85 million), or 43 percent of its total project cost.

Parsons Delaware, in two different projects, received 35 percent and 17 percent in administrative costs, or $108 million (euro86.12 million) and $41.6 million (euro33.17 million) respectively. The fifth project detailed in the audit was with Lucent, which received nearly $15 million (euro11.96 million) in overhead costs, or 11 percent of the total project amount.

Poor planning by the government contributed to the KBR costs, the audit said. And it also noted that the 11 percent figure for Lucent was probably underestimated.

The Iraq reconstruction audits have routinely found significant problems with the contracting and building in the war-torn country, ranging from alleged fraud to lack of oversight. They have also noted that contractors often face significant obstacles and other business problems, particularly with security, in Iraq.

The audit recommended that more specific reporting requirements be adopted for the reconstruction project that would detail the administrative costs and that contractors are monitored better. It also recommended that the government plan better to reduce the amount of time contractors spend mobilized for the work before they are actually able to begin the project.

Why is this not suprising? Over 1/2 of our tax dollars given to Halliburton has done NOTHING to physically rebuild Iraq. Only "Challibutron" could get away with that, and only w/ BuSh in office and the GOP at the reigns.

 

[Calabrio]

...don't mind the fact that Halliburton is a century old and I'm even aware of it being contracted by the LBJ administration...

They have also noted that contractors often face significant obstacles and other business problems, particularly with security, in Iraq.

Other than your raging desire to indict the Bush administration for anything, try reading and understanding the article and then put it into the context of the region.

 

[fossten]

I think I've figured out how to think like Johnny. If you just think "Bush=evil" and "Cheney=evil" 500 times a day, and say it in front of the mirror 150 times a day, after 5 years you will automatically associate (like McCarthy) anything relating to Bush or Cheney as evil.

Never mind that there aren't any other companies out there qualified to do half the stuff Halliburton does; No, no, if you can do six degrees of separation from Cheney or Bu$hitler, then it's evil.

Of course, that would mean the Texas Rangers are evil, too, right?

 

[Calabrio]

It just seems unreasonably simple minded to not understand that security risks in the Middle East could cause cost over runs. So, YES, much of the money spent isn't used to buy infastructure, it's paid to protect supplies and people. Everything costs more to get.

It's one of the realities that make redevelopment in both Afghanistan and Iraq infinitely more difficult and expensive.

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

...don't mind the fact that Halliburton is a century old and I'm even aware of it being contracted by the LBJ administration...

They have also noted that contractors often face significant obstacles and other business problems, particularly with security, in Iraq.

Other than your raging desire to indict the Bush administration for anything, try reading and understanding the article and then put it into the context of the region.

Hey, I can understand the difficulties of their job in that environment. I can understand those difficulties resulting in inflated administrative costs. But 55%?? When the next most inefficient contractor is only 43%?? Don't be blinded by your allegiance to everything BuSh. Why is the GAO not up KBR's ass for this? Do you actually feel that if the name of the company was "Heinz, Brown and Root" that our government would (or should) look the other way too?

 

[MAC1]

Why is this not suprising? Over 1/2 of our tax dollars given to Halliburton has done NOTHING to physically rebuild Iraq. Only "Challibutron" could get away with that, and only w/ BuSh in office and the GOP at the reigns.

Johnny,

I’m not sure I understand your point. However, don’t forget that President Clinton went out of his way to swing contracts towards Halliburton. He used Halliburton almost exclusively. So, I fail to see why Halliburton should suddenly be considered part of a Bush/Cheney conspiracy or somehow show they are in cahoots in some way. Also, don’t forget that the Bush administration already made Halliburton reimburse the government for overcharges.

If Halliburton is again overcharging then once again it should be made to reimburse the overcharges. Also, it's not like it's the first time some government contractor has overcharged for services. It's something the government must always watch out for.

 

[fossten]

Hey, I can understand the difficulties of their job in that environment. I can understand those difficulties resulting in inflated administrative costs. But 55%?? When the next most inefficient contractor is only 43%?? Don't be blinded by your allegiance to everything BuSh. Why is the GAO not up KBR's ass for this? Do you actually feel that if the name of the company was "Heinz, Brown and Root" that our government would (or should) look the other way too?

And don't YOU be blinded by your abject hatred for anything and everything that is associated with Bush and Cheney. The FACT is that the article said "11 to 55 percent." That's a RANGE. That means it may not be 55%, and it may not be 11%. Your automatic leap to 55% is instructive of your personal lack of objectivity. Furthermore, if the name of the company was Heinz, Brown and Root you'd be saying the cost overruns were closer to 11%.

So get off your high horse.

 

[Marcus]

The real issue here is why we are paying private compnaies to do things that could be done by the miltary or by Iraqis instead. For instance, why is Halliburton given a contract to provide logistics support (i.e., food, laundry, fuel), when the military has been perfectly able to handle it in the past? Which is more cost-effective to tax-payers, a private FOR-PROFIT corporation, or our own military people who have no incentive to jack up costs or cut corners? It's freaking ridculous.

As for re-construction of Iraqi infrastructure, we used to have one hell of a talented bunch of people called the Army Corp of Engineers. What ever happened to them? Granted, there are certain pieces of equipment that can only be manufactured by large corporations (GE for instance), and it does take skill to coordinate these projects, but why are we having the actual labor done by American companies? Which brings me to my final point...

Once we thought we had Iraq "secured", the first thing our people did was disband the Iraqi army and police, throw out everyone from the government ("de-Bathifcation"), and bring in all the American companies to rebuild what we had destroyed. Besides the general absurdity in that, the immediate consequence was that we put hundreds of thousands of people out of work. With their jobs gone, no way to feed their families, and nowhere else to turn, you have a population ripe for an insurgency.

I remember reading an article several years ago (I can't locate it now) written by an Iraqi, who talked about how, after the first Gulf War, the people managed to rebuild the infrastructure using what little they had to work with in the face of sanctions. One example was a bridge over the Tigris that had been destroyed. No one thought that it could be rebuilt, but they managed to do it on a short amount of time. It was considered one of their proudest achievements. During the 2003 assault, that very same bridge was damaged, but not destroyed. Local Iraqi contractors estimated the cost of repairs at a couple hundred-thousand dollars. But they were not permitted to bid on it. The contract was awarded to an American company, who declared it unrepairable and gave an estimate of several MILLION dollars to rebuild it from scratch.

Unfortunately, over a million Iraqis have fled the country, and I'd bet they're mostly the ones who had the skills and education to rebuild their country. After all they're the ones who would have the means (money) to leave. Meanwhile, they're being replaced by the Jihadists who are flooding into the country, whose only intent is to kill Americans and each other.

The biggest mistake of this war (besides starting it) was putting all of those people out of work. The fact that their jobs were given to American corporations only makes it that much more sour for them.

The hiring of American companies to do work that could be done cheaper and better by locals or the military is wrong--morally, fiscally, and practically--and raises questions about some of the very reasons we are there in the first place.

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

And don't YOU be blinded by your abject hatred for anything and everything that is associated with Bush and Cheney. The FACT is that the article said "11 to 55 percent." That's a RANGE. That means it may not be 55%, and it may not be 11%. Your automatic leap to 55% is instructive of your personal lack of objectivity. Furthermore, if the name of the company was Heinz, Brown and Root you'd be saying the cost overruns were closer to 11%.

So get off your high horse.

You ignorance is exposed. You didn't even read the whole article, otherwise you've seen this:

Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root accrued the highest percentage of overhead costs — billing the government for $163 million (euro129.97 million), or 55 percent of its total contract cost, the audit found. Parsons Iraq Joint Venture, a second company, had overhead costs equaling nearly $134 million (euro106.85 million), or 43 percent of its total project cost.

Parsons Delaware, in two different projects, received 35 percent and 17 percent in administrative costs, or $108 million (euro86.12 million) and $41.6 million (euro33.17 million) respectively. The fifth project detailed in the audit was with Lucent, which received nearly $15 million (euro11.96 million) in overhead costs, or 11 percent of the total project amount.

*owned*

5 projects were laid out in detail in the report. The WORST of them ALL (by a margin over the 2nd worst - 12% - which is greater than the BEST of the 5 - 11%) was Halliburton's KBR project. I really don't care about the "Challiburton" connection, all I know is if any company was that poorly run trying to do buisness in the free market, even if they were mining coal in hell, they'd be out of buisness in less than 2 years. 55% of their contract, 5 TIMES WORSE than Lucent, going to ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS is inexecusable.

I'll be patientently awaiting the congressional investigation into this fiasco.

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

The biggest mistake of this war (besides starting it) was putting all of those people out of work. The fact that their jobs were given to American corporations only makes it that much more sour for them.

The hiring of American companies to do work that could be done cheaper and better by locals or the military is wrong--morally, fiscally, and practically--and raises questions about some of the very reasons we are there in the first place.

Yes. Lets not even mention that several new construction projects by these American companies were so shoddy in workmanship that they've had to be torn down and rebuilt. Yet our leaders continue feeding these shmucks our tax money in exchange for waste and does NOTHING for helping the Iraqi people.

 

[Calabrio]

The real issue here is why we are paying private compnaies to do things that could be done by the miltary or by Iraqis instead.

Because the military underwent staggering cuts during the 1990s. George HW Bush cut the military some. And Clinton decimated it.

We have to outsource this stuff because the military isn't capable of doing all these things. Historically, some things were ALWAYS outsourced, now adays, more things need to be.

You're implication is that we are throwing this easy-money contracts to private industry while we have all of these army guys standing around with nothing to do. Not the case.

You also imply that it costs more to outsource it than to do it within the military. Also not true. If these things were going to be done federally, there's no guessing how much more it would cost. And the idea of an actually accurate audit would be even more ridiculous to expect.

As for re-construction of Iraqi infrastructure, we used to have one hell of a talented bunch of people called the Army Corp of Engineers. What ever happened to them?

How many of them do you think there were? And were they set up to bring Pepsi-Cola into the middle of Arabia while at the same time fixing sabotaged oil wells?

The biggest mistake of this war (besides starting it) was putting all of those people out of work. The fact that their jobs were given to American corporations only makes it that much more sour for them.

Are you implying that the Iraqi gov't and public works sector was efficient? That in a country that had failing energy and water supply, that had antiquated infastructure, and that had political cronies in place, that those people would be better situated to rebuild the country than a company like Haliburton?

The hiring of American companies to do work that could be done cheaper and better by locals or the military is wrong--morally, fiscally, and practically--and raises questions about some of the very reasons we are there in the first place.

No. The hiring of massive American companies was a necessity, and not a decision unique to the Iraqi invasion.

If you want to lay blame, lay it on the Iranians who are now funding terrorism and the domestic terrorist within the country who are destorying the infastructure, scaring away international investment, and causing the cost of reconstruction to inflate.

The debathification did result in some problems, but not "unemployment." Incase you didn't know, unemployment is rapidly declining below prewar levels within Iraq.

 

[Joeychgo]

I think I've figured out how to think like Johnny. If you just think "Bush=evil" and "Cheney=evil" 500 times a day, and say it in front of the mirror 150 times a day, after 5 years you will automatically associate (like McCarthy) anything relating to Bush or Cheney as evil.

Never mind that there aren't any other companies out there qualified to do half the stuff Halliburton does; No, no, if you can do six degrees of separation from Cheney or Bu$hitler, then it's evil.

Of course, that would mean the Texas Rangers are evil, too, right?

You already do - except its Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Democrats, etc.

 

[fossten]

You already do - except its Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Democrats, etc.

This from a guy who's got a nasty, mean-spirited, inaccurate caricature of George W. Bush, our President, as his avatar.

What a hypocrite.

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,225985,00.html?sPage=fnc.world/iraq

Report: Halliburton Subsidiary Hid Contract Details, Abused Regulations
Friday, October 27, 2006

WASHINGTON — The Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter and other logistics to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan exploited federal regulations to hide details on its contract performance, according to a report released Friday.

The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found that Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root Services routinely marked all information it gave to the government as proprietary, whether it was or not. The government promises not to disclose proprietary data so a company's most valuable information is not divulged to its competitors.

By marking all information proprietary — including such normally releasable data as labor rates — the company abused federal regulations, the report says.

In effect, Kellogg, Brown & Root turned the regulations "into a mechanism to prevent the government from releasing normally transparent information, thus potentially hindering competition and oversight."

Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann said that since the current contract is being reviewed and may be divided among several contractors, "It is clearly appropriate to mark data as proprietary that could potentially be used for competitive purposes" as would be the case in any new contract.

She said such proprietary markings have been used on a majority of the data for at least the last decade, and the company will work with the military on matters outlined in the interim report as the final audit is completed.

The Iraq reconstruction audits have routinely found significant problems with contracting and rebuilding in the country, ranging from high costs for security and overhead to alleged fraud and lack of oversight.

Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, said that in 13 oversight hearings on the war in Iraq the committee found more than $1 billion in waste, fraud, abuse and what it called "shoddy work" by contractors.

"I'm convinced that this is the most significant waste, fraud and abuse in the history of this country," Dorgan said.

If the Democrats take control of the Senate, he said, they will launch oversight hearings on war matters ranging from faulty intelligence leading up to the war to wrongdoing by contractors.

You mean that the GOP led Congress will look the other way and ignore KBR's shenanagans?

 

[Calabrio]

She said such proprietary markings have been used on a majority of the data for at least the last decade, and the company will work with the military on matters outlined in the interim report as the final audit is completed.

At least the last decade.... So let me think, Bush was elected in 2001. That was six years ago. At least the decade means at least ten years... so that would be BEFORE Bush/Cheney.

"At least" means "more than a decade but saying that would make Byron Dorgan look bad." But if you go back 12 years, you'll then find a Democrat President, House of Representatives, and Senate.

So, what we have here is a business policy that the Democrats have suddenly decided to take issue with to make opportunistic political points prior to an election.

In case you didn't know it: HALIBURTON IS NOT A POLITICAL COMPANY. They do a lot of government work. For Republicans, for Democrats. It doesn't matter. They don't care if Bush is President, Clinton was President, or Lyndon Johnson. Regardless who, they're going to be contracted.

In fact, the WORSE thing to happen to Haliburton was the election of Cheney. That resulted them being pulled into the political realm by dishonest or confused Democrats. Prior, they'd been working behind the scenes, with no notice from the public.

You mean that the GOP led Congress will look the other way and ignore KBR's shenanagans?

No, I'm saying the dishonest, democrats apparently looked the otherway for DECADES and now are going over things with a fine tooth comb.

I'm all for greater efficiency on the federal level. However, were the Democrats to return to power, there is NO reason to think they will oversee spending any better. We have a half-century of failure to refer to.

 

[Marcus]

Going back to the issue of putting thousands of Iraqis out of work, I'd suggest taking a look at this PBS' Frontline from Oct 17th, "The Lost Year in Iraq" It takes a look at the decisions that were made in 2003 that arguably led to the insurgency. It's split up into chapters so you don't have to watch the whole thing. I'd suggest starting with "First Days on the Job".

 

[Calabrio]

Going back to the issue of putting thousands of Iraqis out of work, I'd suggest taking a look at this PBS' Frontline from Oct 17th, "The Lost Year in Iraq" It takes a look at the decisions that were made in 2003 that arguably led to the insurgency. It's split up into chapters so you don't have to watch the whole thing. I'd suggest starting with "First Days on the Job".

I'm not seeing your connection though.

The de-baathification put gov't workers and military types out of work. Later, many were rehired. But I remember the complaint in this thread being that we were hiring Haliburton to do work while Iraqis were unemployed.

Those aren't the same issue. They didn't debaathify carpenters and masons.

 

[Marcus]

The infrastructure was government-run. Their oil industry was government-run. Manufacturing was government-run. They had a Ministry for everything. People who knew the system. People who had no particular loyalty to Saddam except for their desire for a paycheck. And we told them all to take a hike. Granted, those who DID have deep ties to Saddam's inner circle shouldn't have been kept. But to simply dismiss all those people in one broad stroke (on Bremer's first day!) was a huge mistake and cost us untold amounts of cash in lost expertise and in lost time. American companies like Halliburton benefitted directly from this purge, all on the American taxpayers' dime. And remember that these contracts were drawn up long before the invasion.

Meanwhile, many of those people who were put out of work turned to the only alternative they could see: expel the occupiers. One of the ways they chose to fight was to sabotage and destroy any work that did go on. So the promise of the reconstruction "paying for itself" went down the drain.

I don't know how many people were rehired, but it was too little too late. By the time any of that had started, Americans had already been tagged as the enemy, and the insurgency was in full swing. Those that did choose to work for the Americans were labelled traitors and their lives constantly threatened.