Blackwater link costs Halliburton, Army reclaims $20 million charge

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - The Army snatched back $20 million from the giant military contractor Halliburton this week after finding that it had improperly charged taxpayers for security work it subcontracted to North Carolina-based Blackwater USA.
A top Army contracting official revealed the penalty Wednesday in testimony before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on contracting fraud and waste in Iraq.

The day's hearing was based on information from a series of News & Observer stories in 2004 that investigated Blackwater's work in Iraq and the deaths and public mutilation of four of its workers -- Wesley Batalona, Scott Helvenston, Michael Teague and Jerry Zovko.

~snip~

Tina Ballard, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for policy and procurement, denied last fall that Blackwater had done security work under a Halliburton subsidiary -- work that the Army was supposed to have done. She said Wednesday that the Army had new information showing that Blackwater was actually providing security for Halliburton operations beginning around the time the four men died. The $20 million was the Army's estimate of the ultimate cost to the Pentagon of the security work, she said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, had sought for two years to make Blackwater a case study on the problems of the booming and murky world of military contracts. After the Democrats took control of Congress last month, he got the muscle to do it when he was named chairman of the oversight committee.

more:http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/540902.html

[izzie]

1. Murky is hardly the word. Slimy group of people.

I would say they are dealing in people for money, With the OK from the WH and DOD and cash from us taxpayers.

[salin]

2. the fines are penny on the dollar when considered the total $$$ that

Halliburton has hauled in in military contracts. Clearly these fines haven't changed their practices (and fraud) - they probably now just increase the price of expected fines and put it into the $$ amount of the initial contract. :mad:

[izzie]

3. These heading are just painful to turn on.

I knew this was going on as it always does but in such numbers and to see what has going on to Iraq and all our service men makes a person want to cry.

[salin]

4. did you see the alleged comments of bush per the ISG Report?

"Flaming Turd". Things will only get worse until the day he and Cheney are out of office.

[izzie]

7. No I came in at the middle of it.

But heck this is how Bush runs things so who could hope for anything else? Like people seem to drift to wards each other.

[saigon68]

5. More Rose Petal Parades

For these Mercenaries-- like they got in Fallujah

They showed the hanging bodies on the bridge in Fallujah on ABC last night.

"Scum" to describe them, insults real pond scum.

[Rose Siding]

6. Pocket change. Nothing more than the cost of doing crooked business

[sattahipdeep]

8. Interesting Who contractors answer to...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june07/outsourcing_02-07.html

GWEN IFILL: So, Mr. Pelton, you are traveling with these security contractors last year.
What's the difference between -- if I fly to Baghdad tonight, and I am guarded by someone
from a private security force, as opposed to a member of the U.S. military, what's the difference?

ROBERT YOUNG PELTON: Well, the one thing that didn't come out in these hearings, which is
absolutely critical, the entire and full responsibility of a private security company is to
their clients, not to the foreign policy of the U.S., not to any sort of regional or local
peacekeeping or security effort.

And that means, if two security contractors are passing each other, and one poses a threat
to one, they can fire on each other. In other words, the security element of what we're
providing over there is a for-profit, very specific to the client's needs. And that's a
very, very big difference between what the military is doing over there.

GWEN IFILL: Unaccountable to the military?

ROBERT YOUNG PELTON: Absolutely unaccountable to anyone.