Haliburton?
 

Where does the pork Barrel end?

Catch the News Tonight!

Sick of the crap!:mad:

I saw better Idiots running the Nut House if Cookoo nest the movie!

What a sad state of affairs We call our duley Elected Morons!:(

Hell, it is a Position of power and that what the desire, well along with all of the perks that most dont know about!:mad:

Whether true or not, there certainly is a nasty smell of political influence here.

Sort of off topic, but a guy came into where I work once wearing a Halliburton uniform. It kind of freaked me out :)

I didn't see the story and I have no idea what the hell Tom is talking about but if any of you have a problem with the US doing business with Haliburton then how about telling us who the US should be buying those products or services from. I believe there are only 2 companies on the whole planet that are the main suppliers of oil services and drilling equipment. One is Haliburton and the other is Schlumberger. It's not like buying a 40 at the corner bodega. You cant go down to the local Kmart, Walmart, or Home Depot and buy drilling equipment.

There are many other industries that are the same way. If the government was going to purchase mid-size or jumbo passanger jets they would have to buy from one of two companies, Boeing or Airbus. Boeing is a US company while Airbus is owned by the French and Germans. Boeing manufacturers the Airforce One. Does the government buy from Boeing because Dick Chaney used to work there is it because they are the only manufacturer? Why did Haliburton do billions of dollars in business when Clinton was President?

I thought this was the case...but I wasn't sure so I didn't say. WHo else besides Haliburton and Schlumberger could handle the job? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

According to broadcast news reports on radio and television yesterday, DOD (I think) signed a contract with Haliburton for roughly twice the price per gallon as the nearest competitor.

yes i saw that news broadcast as well...but do we know how many companies besides haliburton can do the job?

Well, I suspect that the at least one other bidder can do the job or they wouldn't have been considered. You generally have to qualify for government contracts before you're allowed to bid.

So, logic would tell me that they're (make that we're) paying Haliburton twice what we would be paying another qualified bidder.

Don't worry, a lot of people don't know what Tom is talking about, but they take it with stride instead of frustration.....


Ah well.

Just a minor correction that needs to be correctly addressed:

There is no such thing as 'the Air Force One.' 'Air Force One' is the call sign of any U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. If on a Navy aircraft, it's 'Navy One', on an Army aircraft, 'Army One', and his personal helicopter that takes off from the south lawn of the White House is 'Marine One'. Should he board a civilian aircraft, it immediately becomes 'Executive One' for the duration of the flight. (The Vice President gets the call sign 'Air Force Two' and so on, but none of the lesser minions of the President's cabinet rates a special call sign.)

Two Boeing 747-200 aircraft (Air Force designation VC-25A) were built specifically as Presidential aircraft. Not only is it the 'flying White House' but it also has sophisticated communications systems aboard to provide command and control of the military.

Airbus is actually a consortium of European aerospace companies, of which the French, Germans and British have a substantial stake. At the time the presidential 747s were ordered in the mid-1980s, Airbus was a minor but growing player in the commercial aircraft arena.

Pentagon audit eyes Halliburton

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Pentagon audit has raised questions about whether a subsidiary of Halliburton -- an oil services company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney -- overcharged the U.S. government $61 million for gasoline imported from Kuwait to Iraq.

The Pentagon said Thursday a routine review turned up the potential overcharge by subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, which was awarded a no-bid contract in March to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.

But there is no allegation that Halliburton unduly profited from the overpriced gas.

The audit questions if Halliburton paid above-market rates to a Kuwaiti subcontractor when it paid $2.27 per gallon for the gas. Another supplier bought gas at $1.18 per gallon from Turkey.

Halliburton says the higher cost was due to having to negotiate a short-term contract, at a time when there weren't enough trucks in Kuwait to deliver the fuel. It says trucks had to be brought in and shipping in a war zone pushed up the transportation and security costs as well.

In a statement, Halliburton insisted those costs are "pass through costs" and said the company "only recovers a few cents on the dollar."

Congressional critics, who accuse the company of price gouging, don't believe the claims.

"There have been indications for some months now that taxpayer interests aren't protected," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. "I'm glad the Defense Department is finally coming to ask some tough questions. They should have been raising these issues many months ago."

Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakhein insists his auditors have been hard-nosed.

"Contractor improprieties and/or contract mischarging ... will neither be condoned nor allowed to continue," Zakhein said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the contract is being reviewed, and Halliburton will have to justify the sum. If the government does not believe the cost is legitimate, the bill will be disallowed.

In that case, Halliburton would have to assume the debt, or it could go back to the Kuwaiti subcontractor to try to address the issue.

Auditors also found another potential Halliburton overcharge of $67 million for dining halls in Iraq, but they say that seems to a billing error.

That bill has not been paid.

Democratic presidential candidates are already jumping on the issue.

Howard Dean called Halliburton "a special interest contributor that is overcharging taxpayers" and Dick Gephardt charged that Cheney's former employer is "bilking the taxpayers."

Here's another perspective: we're paying the salaries and benefits of AMERICANS first and foremost, rather than Germany, etc. So a big chunk of that cash is coming right back home.

--add

Yeah, and I believe that this contract was signed during the Clinton administration, and simply transfered over to Iraq for convenience.

Clinton did use Haliburton for Somalia, Hati and Bosnia. Haliburton has been involved with every post military action since Viet Nam. By the way, Haliburton's largest holder during the Viet Nam era was LBJ and family.

The biggest sign of hypocrisy about bringing up Haliburton is that no one brings up Bechtel. Why? Because Dick Cheney did not run Bechtel. There may be the appearance of impropriety, but only because it is manufactured, not because it is real.

Not in this case. See the article someone posted above. The contract in question is from this administration (there was a fair amount of controversy when it was first awarded) -- and it was expanded without additional bidding in March.

Slightly off topic:

I was at a conference a few months ago. At the lunch break, I was alone and looking for a seat. All of the tables were full except for one with a man and a woman. I approached and asked if they would mind me sitting there. They said sure, but asked me if I really wanted to sit with them. They worked at Haliburton, and no one else would sit with or talk to them.

Sounds to me like the conference attendees were a bunch of A#$holes. Why would working for Halibyrtin make a difference?

I think the contract in question was signed under the current administration but I could be wrong.

It was the Intenational Anittrust Law & Policy Conference. The conference attendees were corporate and government lawyers as well as judges. The Halliburton people were prepared for people not to talk to them because it wasn't the first time it had happened. They didn't go into details, and I didn't ask. Just a glimpse into the corporate world.

The money's being paid back.

-Rudey
--Relax

Yes Rudey is right, Bush today said they had to pay back what was over charged. But now haliburton is under fire for their food services they run for the troops because they are unsafe and unhealthy. Even the kitchen Bush ate at was cited for unhealthy conditions. You would figure they would at least clean up because he was there but since it was a "suprize" they didn't know to.

Well, I won't bash lawyers, I have a family filled with them. But, it seems a bit immature to me. Are you a lawyer?

No, I'm not a lawyer. I don't think that it was immaturity. I think that there was a legal or ethical reason that the lawyers couldn't talk to them. I won't speculate why. :)

Props to the Republican congressman from Nevada joining with the Democrats calling on congress to investigate Haliburton.

I heard on the radio on the way to work that Haliburton is declaring Chapter 11 for "several of it's smaller subsidiaries."

I wonder which ones?

OK, you all know I can be cynical, but if the one(s) in question are part of the legal action, would that "protect" them from the government recovering the alleged overages?

Halliburton Files Subsidiary Bankruptcy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: December 16, 2003

Filed at 5:01 p.m. ET

HOUSTON (AP) -- Halliburton Co. filed for a long-awaited bankruptcy for some of its subsidiaries in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, moving ahead on a $4 billion settlement of asbestos claims.

The Houston-based oilfield services and construction company said the pre-negotiated Chapter 11 filings won't affect normal operations of subsidiaries DII Industries, Kellogg, Brown & Root and others. The parent company and KBR's government services business, which provides services in Iraq, are not part of the bankruptcy.

Last week, most of the claimants in more than 370,000 asbestos claims against Halliburton voted in favor of the proposed reorganization plans. The company will discuss the Chapter 11 proceedings in a conference call Wednesday.

``The reorganization plan provides permanent and final resolution of Halliburton's asbestos issues,'' said company spokeswoman Wendy Hall. ``It is important to note that none of KBR and the Halliburton companies are going out of business and that this reorganization will have no impact on any of our present or future projects.''

A year ago Halliburton agreed to settle the claims for about $4 billion in cash and stock.

Halliburton, once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, inherited most of the claims four years ago when the conglomerate, under Cheney's leadership, acquired Dresser Industries Inc. for $7.7 billion. Cheney left the company in 2000 to be George W. Bush's running mate.

The bankruptcy was filed in Pittsburgh because most of the asbestos claims were filed against a former Dresser subsidiary, Pittsburgh-based Harbison-Walker Refractories Co. That company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

Shares of Halliburton closed higher Tuesday, up 48 cents at $25.14 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Thanks Cream,

Looks like the sub in question in Iraq is NOT part of the action. Appreciate the post.

You're welcome, DeltAlum.

OK this is beyond ridiculous.

At the end of the day all of these military contractors (Halliburton is but one) are raping US tax payers and it's got nothing to do with politics. This is just beyond dirty and if our country would try and shoot some of these executives for treason, I bet all of the companies would fall in line.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/wo...rtner=homepage

When Robert Sanders was sent by the Army to inspect the construction work an American company was doing on the banks of the Tigris River, 130 miles north of Baghdad, he expected to see workers drilling holes beneath the riverbed to restore a crucial set of large oil pipelines, which had been bombed during the invasion of Iraq.What he found instead that day in July 2004 looked like some gargantuan heart-bypass operation gone nightmarishly bad. A crew had bulldozed a 300-foot-long trench along a giant drill bit in their desperate attempt to yank it loose from the riverbed. A supervisor later told him that the project's crews knew that drilling the holes was not possible, but that they had been instructed by the company in charge of the project to continue anyway.

A few weeks later, after the project had burned up all of the $75.7 million allocated to it, the work came to a halt.

The Fatah project went ahead despite warnings from experts that it could not succeed because the underground terrain was shattered and unstable.

It continued chewing up astonishing amounts of cash when the predicted problems bogged the work down, with a contract that allowed crews to charge as much as $100,000 a day as they waited on standby.

The company in charge engaged in what some American officials saw as a self-serving attempt to limit communications with the government until all the money was gone.

The Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, had commissioned a geotechnical report that warned in August 2003 that it would be courting disaster to drill without extensive underground tests.

"No driller in his right mind would have gone ahead," said Mr. Sanders, a geologist who came across the report when he arrived at the site.

KBR defended its performance on the project, and said that the information in the geotechnical report was too general to serve as a warning.

Still, interviews by The New York Times reveal that at least two other technical experts, including the northern project manager for the Army Corps, warned that the effort would fail if carried out as designed. None of the dozen or so American government and military officials contacted by The Times remembered being told of the geotechnical report, and the company pressed ahead.

Once the project started going bad, senior American officials said, an array of management failures by both KBR and the Corps allowed it to continue. First, some of those officials said, they seldom received status reports from the company, even when they suspected problems and made direct requests.

Although independent experts have noted that it is one of a handful of companies with the experience and size to handle enormous jobs like the reconstruction effort, KBR is often sheltered by a military that is heavily dependent on it.

-Rudey

I think John Snow is about to bitch slap some one!:eek: