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No bid contract given to KBR/Haliburton

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Bloomberg
KBR to Get No-Bid Army Work as U.S. Alleges Kickbacks (Update1)
May 06, 2010, 11:27 AM EDT

(Updates with General Casey’s comment in 10th and 11th paragraphs, McCaskill comment in third paragraph from end.)

By Tony Capaccio

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- KBR Inc. was selected for a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through 2011 for military support services in Iraq, the Army said.

The Army announced its decision yesterday only hours after the Justice Department said it will pursue a lawsuit accusing the Houston-based company of taking kickbacks from two subcontractors on Iraq-related work. The Army also awarded the work to KBR over objections from members of Congress, who have pushed the Pentagon to seek bids for further logistics contracts.

The Justice Department said the government will join a suit filed by whistleblowers alleging that two freight-forwarding firms gave KBR transportation department employees kickbacks in the form of meals, drinks, sports tickets and golf outings.

“Defense contractors cannot take advantage of the ongoing war effort by accepting unlawful kickbacks,” Assistant Attorney General Tony West said in a statement.

KBR, the Army’s largest contractor in Iraq, will review the litigation when it is received and “will continue to cooperate with the government,” company spokeswoman Heather Browne said in an e-mail. “Gifts of dinners, baseball tickets and similar items would violate KBR policies and KBR was not aware of these violations.”

KBR will continue to provide services in Iraq such as housing, meals, laundry, showers, water purification and bathroom cleaning under the new order, which was placed under a military contract KBR won in late 2001, shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.

‘Appropriate Safeguards’

The Army has “reviewed the government’s notice to intervene” in the whistleblower lawsuit, Army spokesman Dan Carlson said. “We feel we have appropriate safeguards in place” to protect the government’s interests.

The no-bid work order is unusual because the Army, at the insistence of Congress, has since April 2008 put all logistics orders to bid, pitting KBR against Falls Church, Virginia-based DynCorp International Inc. and Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corp.

The Army didn’t put this work out for bids because U.S. commanders in Iraq advised against it, saying that enlisting a new company would be too disruptive as the U.S withdraws, Army program director Lee Thompson said in an interview before the Justice Department action was announced.

Odierno’s View

The view of General Ray Odierno, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, was crucial to the decision, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey told reporters today.

“Odierno said, ‘I’ve got three million pieces of equipment I’ve got to get out of Iraq, I’ve got 100 or so bases to close, I’ve got to move 80,000-plus people out of here and you want me to change horses in the middle of the stream?’” Casey recounted.

The U.S. force in Iraq is scheduled to shrink from 94,000 troops today to 50,000 by August, with a complete withdrawal by December 2011.

The Army, in its statement yesterday, said putting to bid an order for 18 months’ work and making the transition to a new contractor would cost at least $77 million. The KBR work order will be awarded by Aug. 31, said Mike Hutchison, deputy director of Army logistics contracting.

Earlier U.S. Lawsuit

The lawsuit is the second government action this year against KBR. The U.S. sued the company on April 1, alleging that it used private armed security guards in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 in violation of its Army contract and then improperly billed for their services.

Before yesterday’s Justice Department announcement, the Army had said in an e-mailed statement that it was aware of the April lawsuit and would use “additional oversight measures to ensure only reasonable, allowable costs are paid” under the new work order.

The new lawsuit, filed in a Texas federal court, was based on information from two whistleblowers who work in the air cargo industry, the Justice Department statement said. The whistleblowers can get a portion of any money the Justice Department obtains in the case.

Senate Objections

KBR’s no-bid work order drew criticism from two U.S. senators even before it was announced.

Senator Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who heads a subcommittee that oversees military contracting, and the panel’s ranking Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates on April 30 urging the Army against “continued reliance” on KBR in light of the Justice Department’s April lawsuit.

“The Army has a big burden to demonstrate that a decision to not compete is in the best interest of the military and American taxpayers,” McCaskill said in a statement last night. “We will hold their feet to the fire and continue to demand accountability on this decision.”

Under the new competitive-bid approach, KBR on March 2 won a one-year, $571 million contract with four option years that, if exercised, could be worth as much as $2.77 billion.

That contract calls for KBR to provide services including transportation and postal operations. DynCorp initially protested the award and then dropped its objections.

--Editors: Bill Schmick, Ann Hughey.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
So- do you now think the many years of NO-BID- Halliburton, KBR, etal contracts in Iraq- or that were let in the name of "wartime" were OKAY DOKAY and now only these you question :???:

I questioned many of these years ago- but then it was called "Bush bashing" and "unpatriotic"-- and I think a time or two even called a "traitor" because I was told we should put every dime into what turned out to be "Bush's War"........

I listened to a program on the local radio today- and it made me believe I'm not far off from the feelings of the locals when it quoted one of my favorite statements ( that most "Bomb Bomb Bomb everyone Rightwingers probably run, cringe and hide from):

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
President Dwight D Eisenhower
Jan. 17, 1961

To me- old Ike was the last "statesman" President we had- that looked at both sides of the steet-- and since then the whole works of the cultist followers have been sold out one way or the other as totally "partisan".....
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
I don't question them at all, OT. But I was wondering about the Dems. not bringing this up and denouncing it?

Aren't you just a little annoyed that you didn't get the "change" you voted for?
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
B & R had a lot going in Nam when the Dems held us over. Lots of finger pointing at LBJ. Doesn't surprise me that K B R has their fingers in the cookie jar.

Google B & R along with LBJ and you can find a lot of dirt with the Dems. Halliburton and Cheney are pretty much the same.

Here's one:

Current criticism over Halliburton's lucrative Iraq contracts has some historians drawing parallels to a similar controversy involving the company during Lyndon B. Johnson's administration.

Nearly 40 years ago, Halliburton faced almost identical charges over its work for the U.S. government in Vietnam — allegations of overcharging, sweetheart contracts from the White House and war profiteering. Back then, the company's close ties to President Johnson became a liability. Today — as NPR's John Burnett reports in the last of a three-part series — Halliburton seems to be distancing itself from its former chief executive officer, Vice President Dick Cheney.

The story of Halliburton's ties to the White House dates back to the 1940s, when a Texas firm called Brown & Root constructed a massive dam project near Austin. The company's founders, Herman and George Brown, won the contract to build Mansfield Dam thanks to the efforts of Johnson, who was then a Texas congressman.

After Johnson took over the Oval Office, Brown & Root won contracts for huge construction projects for the federal government. By the mid-1960s, newspaper columnists and the Republican minority in Congress began to suggest that the company's good luck was tied to its sizable contributions to Johnson's political campaign.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1569483
 

MsSage

Well-known member
OT please post where you were called a traitor ......I never remember anyone saying that.

My question is since I was against it then and am still against it now why are'nt you? What has changed?
All your doing is attacking hypo for posting this NOT the act of the no bid.
 
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