The Wall Street Journal reported this morning the Army has settled a billing dispute with Halliburton despite
Why, if the private sector is more efficient than the military in force provisions, can Halliburton not seem capable of keeping track of their war expenditures? I understand the instability of the region will create unforeseen problems, but this is not an excuse for not being able to properly bill your client.
$55 million was held back from the $1.2 billion paid out.
To settle the dining bill, which auditors for the Pentagon had initially been concerned was 40% higher than KBR could make sense of
That makes some sense. I still don’t understand why KBR continued to prepare more food than soldiers. A little overprepared is one thing, but 40% over is bogus. And I wonder what they did with all that uneaten food. I hope it wasn’t trashed. Like the trucks left on the side of the road after their tires get blown out.
In another break, the Army agreed to pay a fixed-price for the majority of the dining bills, instead of a reimbursement for actual expenditures. This increased Halliburton’s profit to 3% from 1%, Army officials said, generating an extra $26 million for the company.
Sweeeet. So $55 million minus $26 million equals $29 million. So did the Army hold back $55 million or $29 million? Did they include this in their report?
Of course not. But it seems that Halliburton will not get hit anyway, as spokesperson Beverly Scippa noted that the $55 million
Well, its a win-win situation for Halliburton. The Army cares more about their war than how much its going to cost, because really, we are paying for it. And as far as the subcontractors go, the ones getting stiffed, I do not claim to know, I am curious… I just wonder if they were doing what everyone was doing, and when the music stopped, they didn’t have a chair, or if these contractors actually did something beyond the pale of others and really deserve to get stiffed. Either way, the change to a fixed-payment is a bonus, so who ever screwed up should get a golden toilet.
As a former military member, this is bullshit. Pure, unadulterated bullshit. Ok, time to quit cursing like the sailor I used to be. This all stems from Dick Cheney’s plans (as SECDEF under Bush 41) to privatise the army. So now, instead of having trained soldiers who happen to be cooks, we have civilians, (making much more money than the soldiers they replaced) that need protection by the soldiers they serve. Instead of soldiers cleaning their own barracks and work spaces we have unarmed civilians that must be protected. “But now, soldiers can focus on their military role, not administrative… Read more »
This subject concerns me too, for many reasons. You are right about Cheney as SECDEF, hiring B&R to form a proposal, then a plan… then they bid on it (as KBR/ Halliburton). To bid on a plan you wrote is, well its akin to insider trading. I will grant that Cheney isn’t all to blame, really. Downsizing the Pentagon was an institutional decision that he carried out, played a large role in, but was certainly not alone. The Revolution in Military Affairs, led by Cold-War hawk and head of the Office of Net Assessments, Andrew Marshall, is built on the… Read more »
[Comment cross-posted at dailykos] Since I don’t have a WSJ subscription, I can’t read their original article. Did it touch on issues relating to any other of the payment disputes that Halliburton/Kellogg Brown & Root have been having with the Pentagon? I’d posted a couple of diaries on these over at dailykos, all under the general heading “Halliburton Watch”: The Money Keeps on Flowing, Feb. 3, 2005 (rescinding a 15% withholding for 65 disputed contracts and work orders) Even the Pentagon Thinks They’re Out of Control, March 14, 2005 (release by Reps. Waxman and Dingell of one audit report for… Read more »
hardy har har reprinted the whole article at dKos. The fuel from Kuwait was not a part of the agreement, only the dining services. It’s also staggering to think how Republicans would be reacting if it was a Democratic administration in the White House with the target company’s former CEO serving as Vice President. Under a different scenario, as I’m sure you know (I have glanced over your diaries – intend to read them fully) Rumsfeld as a member of Congress pushed LBJ hard on his connections to Brown&Root. In August 1966, as a young Republican congressman from Illinois ,… Read more »
I hadn’t seen the reprint of the article over at dKos until after I’d posted my reply. (You’re right, though, that hardy shouldn’t wantonly violate the WSJ copyright, especially since they’re a pay service website.) Thanks for the update. The Halliburton press release contains some of the best language I’ve seen in a long time, particularly “interpretive differences in billing approaches.” Such differences would presumably be large enough to drive a fuel-supply truck through. Without digging around too deeply, it does seem that this new agreement regarding “definitization of 27 outstanding task orders” does relate to the billing dispute I’d… Read more »
I thought you might appreciate that line. It stuck out for me also. Let'[s see how they handle the fuel charges from Kuwait. They seemed to slip through this one; the decision didn’t make me hopeful. They were able to pass the buck onto subcontractors (and this may be warranted, I don’t know, I’m not just ready yet to believe it), and they didn’t really lose any money. They just will not pay the contractors. In addition, they contract change actually made them some money, and they earned bonuses in some places as well (which, again, may be warranted and… Read more »