Halliburton to Lose Iraq Oil Project

[Maeve]

Thought y'all could use a little good news...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20031231/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/halliburton
WASHINGTON - Just weeks after Pentagon (news - web sites) auditors said Halliburton may have overcharged taxpayers to import oil to Iraq (news - web sites), the Defense Department is removing the Army Corps of Engineers from its role in supervising the program.



The Defense Energy Support Center, which buys fuel for the military throughout the world, will supervise the shipments and choose new contractors to replace Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s former company.


"We're taking over the mission," the center's spokeswoman, Lynette Ebberts, said Tuesday.

[underpants]

1. This, of course, should in no way means they did anything wrong

Just because the Pentgon did an audit and did indeed find that they were price gouging the American people and war profiteering but that has nothing to do with the contract being yanked from right under their feet. Nope nothing at all.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. And just because Cheney is still being remunerated by them,

in no way means that he is connected to them.

[underpants]

6. Oh no definitely not

That is just crazy liberal analysis which we all know W will never see as he doesn't read the paper 'cause he doesn't need to see any criticism, they tell him what he needs to know.

[Democrats unite]

2. They must have found a bigger contract for them...

Somplace else.

[Buzz Clik]

4. DOE is now supervising?

This is NOT good news. Any potential for serious oversight is now gone.

Halliburton will be asking for more money before the end of the fiscal year, and they'll get it. After all, a billion or two dollars just doesn't go very far in a place like Iraq.

[booksenkatz]

5. Just because you pull the rapist off the victim

does not mitigate the damage that has been done! Where is the punishment? Where are the reparations? Sheesh. Maybe 2004 will get me back thru the goddam looking glass... I'm done with 2003.

[Maeve]

7. This is true, however

I find it interesting the number of "late, but at last" stories we're seeing right now--Halliburton loses a contract, beef industry rules tighten, ephedra banned, Ashcroft recuses...could be a corner, could just be more twists in the road.

[hippiechick]

8. Unfortunately, it's a set up for W to have a record to run on....

We're going to see some potentially 'progressive' things from these fools over the next few months, IMO, so that they have something admirable to run on in the General Election Campaign. Then if they do swindle their way back in, lookout 'cause we'll all be royally farked by them for the next 3 1/2 years.


And I wouldn't be surprised if it was a Halliburton subsidiary or front company that gets the 'new' Iraq contract. Same crooks wearing different suits.

:hippie:

[Mountainman]

9. I am baffled too. I don't really know what to think. I don't trust them

I can't see that the administration would do anything that wasn't in their own, wealth building, self-interests. So I doubt that this is in anyway doing the right thing.

I feel that before I ever trust the government again, there will have to be a thorough sanitizing of all branches and departments.

[AlGore-08.com]

10. Hippiechick is right, they're cleaning house prior to the election

This is Smirk's MO - - he does all the divisive, extremely partisan stuff in the first half of his term, then spends the second half on fluffy photo ops with puppies and appearing to sign bills that folks actually want. Anybody who could be a political embarrassment is shoved into the back of the closet or told to take a hike and come back after the election.

Another reason they are doing this now is that the Dem primaries are literally right around the corner. And although the primaries may not get a lot of national coverage, there is still the potential for semi-decent state and local coverage. Smirk is trying to take away all the ammunition from the Dems, so that if one of them charges Smirk with aiding and abetting Haliburton's looting of America, Smirk can protest that he didn't know what was going on, and when he found out, Haliburton was out the door. Most people who are getting their news from the corporate media have probably never even heard of Haliburton until recently. So Smirk's claim that he knew nothing will seem reasonable.

In 2000, when Smirk was running as a "compassionate conservative" and "a different kind of republican", his team made very sure that folks like Tom Delay and Dick Army stayed out of the national spotlight. Cutting off Haliburton and having AshKKKroft recuse himself from the Plume affair is more of the same. And if Smirk gets legitimately elected this time (or illegitimately re-selected), expect the exact same thing in 2006, unless Smirk really, really, really hates whoever is the GOP front runner. Then all bets are off.

[waywest]

13. Haliburton is "out the door", but

NOT behind bars?
The likes of Cheney and Ken Lay deserve a little more negative reinforcement than the loss of a job.

[goforit]

19. Yes that is an interesting point.

:think:

[TeeYiYi]

16. I think I'll make that my New Years mantra . . .

"Maybe 2004 will get me back thru the goddam looking glass... I'm done with 2003."

That really says it all for me. I've been feeling like I live in some bizarro alternate reality. Your comment tells me that I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Cheers, :toast: and here's to getting back through the "goddam" looking glass. :hi:

TYY

[salin]

11. My question - will it be more or less transparent - in terms of oversight

from the "Defense Energy Support Center" than from the Army Corps of Engineers? At least with the Army Corps of Engineers we were able to get info and learn the amounts spent - and compare it and SEE the level of gouging.

I have no idea about this other group. Since it buys for services across the world - will Iraq contracts and amounts spent be blurred in a bigger pool? Or perhaps there are more systems of control and they are really doing this because the publicity is so bad that they are forced to do the right thing. I don't feel I have enough information to know what the significance of the change of who oversees the program is.

However, I take careful note that in this piece the significant emphasis isn't on Haliburton (except as an example of why oversight is being moved to another entity) - but on the move itself. Suggests that there is significance in the move... but what is it?

[rasputin1952]

12. They are gone...

according to MSNBC. Dept of Defense terminated contract. Defense Energy Agency to take over fuel requirements.

This is GREAT news!!!!

:bounce:

[Danieljay]

14. not so fast...only the oil contracts

I too was excited about the news..actually posting a similar headline last night. That being said.. I caught this beauty when reading the article..

"Halliburton got its contract to rebuild Iraq's dilapidated oil industry as an outgrowth of a contract with the Army to provide emergency logistical help for situations such as the Iraq war. The Army Corps of Engineers opened the oil rebuilding process to competitive bidding earlier this year and was preparing to award up to $2 billion in replacement contracts."


"Those contracts will still be awarded for the rebuilding of Iraq's oil industry, but will no longer include oil imports, the Corps said."

You can bet your sweet Pa-toot that Haliburton will still make a killing with other contracts. They just got nailed on this one. Makes a good case for audits and oversights. My congrats to those who kept up the pressure!

[hippiechick]

15. Got nailed or maybe did a cost/benefit analysis

.. and realized that there isn't gazillions and gazillions of dollars worth of oil under that desert ... or that the cost of holding off the resistance to get said oil would make Halliburton's profitable interest in the Defense Contracts a zero sum game.

There's gotta be some reason beneficial to Halliburton, why they're off the job, or else they wouldn't be.


:hippie:

[Danieljay]

17. good point, hippiechick..

I personally think that its just a gimmick to make the administration appear that its addressing the conflict of interest it has in awarding the Haliburton contract in the first place. That being said, at this point I'll count my blessings that it even made the news in the first place. I wonder if they have repayed the 67 million dollar "oversight" for dining halls in Iraq yet? Oversight? ya right.

Happy New year!

[SoCalDem]

18. Show me the money...

I would like to see proof that they returned the "overcharge $" and a complete accounting of jobs they have done on for the US government for that last 3 years.. If it was 67M during this short time frame, what other ripoffs have they perpetrated without the public scrutiny.. Same for Dyncorp and the other phony-baloney "contractors"..

This govt of ours nickel and dimes ordinary people, and yet stands there with their thumbs up their noses as millions and billions fly straight into the pockets of their pals...

Remember the massive amounts of money that "cannot be accounted for" in the Defense dept??? I think I know where some of it went...probably most of it.

These guys a magicians.. They are transforming tax dollars into (probably) untaxed profits for their pals..

The only hope we have here is that someone in the media will focus on this issue ans TURN UP THE HEAT... and then if we ever get back investigative powers, we need to go over this stuff with a fine toothed comb.. Heads should roll..

Lots of people do not see it, but there is a DIRECT connection to the loss of services, and the potential failure of medicare and SS.. Every dollar that is borrowed to fill the crony slush fund, is a dollar that will not go toward the things that our government promises to do for its citizens..

[karnac]

22. Actually, Halliburton has been losing money

This last slap in the face guarantees they will lose money in Iraq.

YAAY! So much for their attempt at profiteering at profiteering. Couldn't happen to a nicer company.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=27911

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

20. New Reuters story and link:

U.S. Military to Take Over Halliburton Oil Role

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Wednesday it would soon take over Halliburton's role of getting fuel into Iraq, a decision that follows a draft Pentagon audit that found Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm may have overcharged for the job.

The Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) said it had expanded its traditional mandate of providing fuel to the U.S. military and would now be responsible for importing and distributing fuel products to the Iraqi people.

"This is the first time our agency has been given this kind of work," said DESC spokeswoman Lynette Ebberts, who declined to comment on whether the DESC was taking the work because of price gouging allegations against Halliburton.

Halliburton's unit Kellogg Brown and Root is expected to continue bringing in fuel to Iraq under a no-competition deal it signed in March with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers until DESC has advertised new contracts for the work.

More: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4061889

[goforit]

21. Does anyone remember the huge gas hikes in Campaign 2000?

Was there ever an investigation on the collusion of
oil companies to raise gas prices to sway the election of 2000
to vote republican?

I found it ironic why the gas prices sky rocketed here in the US
and nowhere else in the world at that time.

[proud patriot]

24. Me too , not to mention

Some rhetoric used by bush about America needing
someone familair with the energy industry , so we
could get lower prices .

[tom_paine]

23. Wow, they bucked the Imperial Family & their Cronies

Somebody is going to either be ruined or "commit suicide".

You just don;t cross the Imperial Family without expecting some kind of reprisal.

[Myra]

25. It is good news. It'd make it even better if Halliburton had to

Return all the stolen loot.

Fuckers.