Pentagon Auditors Set to Clear Halliburton (surprise!)

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=19&u=/nm/20040107/ts_nm/iraq_halliburton_dc

Pentagon Auditors Set to Clear Halliburton
Wed Jan 7, 6:33 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pentagon (news - web sites) auditors said on Wednesday they expected soon to receive documents from the Army that Halliburton paid fair prices for fuel brought into Iraq, squashing price-gouging allegations against Vice President Dick Cheney's former company.

The Defense Contract Audit Agency said Army Corps of Engineers officials overseeing the oil contract had promised a "business case" that showed prices billed by Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root for fuel delivered by a subcontractor were "fair and reasonable" and the issue would then be closed.

"Once DCAA receives this business case stating that the contracting officer has concluded the subcontract fuel prices are fair and reasonable, that will conclude the DCAA audit work on this issue," said a statement from DCAA Executive Officer Dan Tucciarone.

"The (Army Corps) contracting officer's decision precludes any further pursuit by DCAA of the issue, in as much as the contracting officer is the deciding authority for the Government on such matters," he added. <snip>

Asked whether that meant price-gouging claims would be dropped against the company if the Army Corps document said pricing was fair, a defense official said that was the case. <snip>

[salin]

1. Ah - so that is where the former top execs of Anderson went to work....

instant okayed books! Let's all celebrate the legitimzation of our gouging by Haliburton.

[KissMyAsscroft]

2. Phew! I feel better!..

Now if they can "investigate" one of the other ten million crimes that company has perpetrated on the American people...

[DBoon]

3. Were they threatened with outsourcing?

Or maybe the public disclosure of sensitive personal information via a right wing pundit?

I hope some disgruntled auditor leaks the truth...

[NewGuy]

4. This is one I predicted the day the story broke

Not becuase I think there is a cover up going on but because I have a fair amount of experience with government contracting from both sides of the issue. Govt people do not understand costs the way that contractors do. This is because the commander of a unit in the military does not control his own transportation or manpower budget. Seperate units are formed to deal with these issues. Personnel and vehicles are simply handed to him.

The two largest costs involved in the fuel transfer game in a combat zone (or unsecure area) are going to be transport and personnel. The fuel itself is a fairly small part of the overall cost. I also understand that one of the fuel supplieers was gouging KBR but they could not get all required fuel from the Turkey source and had no choice.

Though KBR was certainly not selected properly for this contract, they probably are not overcharging. There reall is no need to overcharge in this type of contract. The reward for having it is being allowed to tack a small overhead and a small profit on top of a huge volume of business. If you get 3% profit and 2% overhead on half a billion in sales you make 25,000,000.

[Moderator]

5. Old news

I believe it's also a duplicate...