Largest Iraq contract rife with errors (KBR bills $110m for services on shut down bases)

[Barrett808]

Source: USA Today

Largest Iraq contract rife with errors
By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

Government auditors discovered something odd last year when they reviewed KBR Inc.'s annual cost estimate to provide support services for U.S. troops in Iraq. The contractor proposed charging $110 million for housing, food, water, laundry and other services on bases that had been shut down.

KBR got a contract extension for $3.7 billion, but it agreed to drop the proposed $110 million spending on closed bases and an additional $50 million of duplicate charges and math errors, according to Defense Department records obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

Linda Theis of the Army Sustainment Command, the agency that oversees KBR's troop-support contract, downplayed the errors. They amount to just 4.3% of the contract amount, she said. "This percentage does not indicate a systemic weakness in business systems."

The errors occurred because KBR developed the proposal under a tight schedule, said company spokeswoman Heather Browne. The contract-review process, she said, worked as intended.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-07-16-iraq-auditors_N.htm

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See also:

Pentagon approves disputed Iraq costs
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2920407

[earthboundmisfit]

1. "Errors", my ass!

Try attempted F-R-A-U-D.

[reprobate]

2. Gov't contracting fraud in time of war is TREASON! IMO, anyhow.

KBR should face a corporate death penalty. And Cheney should face a REAL death penalty.

[acmavm]

3. What happened to the country pulling together and everybody

sacrificing during war time? Oh wait, that's right.

Line 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em. The did that to Eddie Slovik during WWII, and he did nothing. He just wouldn't kill. This is outright treason.

edit: spelling

[SpiralHawk]

4. "Smirk, sneer, smirk." - Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney

"*Smirk, sneer, smirk. You really have to be a republicon crony to see the beauty of this."

- Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney

[stressfulreality]

5. our tax dollars hard at work!... now when are they gonna fix those potholes? n/t

[leQ]

6. the fleecing of America - does anybody really give a damn any more? (n/t)

[EVDebs]

7. "War" on waste was lost long long ago

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

""According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Minnery, a former Marine turned whistle-blower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency's balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records"

They've already blown though my $8,000 on the fiascoes in the Middle East in war-for-oil when the money could have been better spent AVOIDING war altogether, dontcha think ?