The Daily Background
| Report: Halliburton sub-corp refuses to share data with government
by Arlen Parsa
NYT published an article today that says a federal investigation has now revealed that Halliburton sub-corp KBR has “misused federal rules to withhold basic information on its practices from American officials.”
The contracts awarded to the company, KBR, formerly named Kellogg Brown & Root, are for housing, food, fuel and other necessities for American troops and government officials in Iraq, and for restoring that country’s crucial oil infrastructure. The contracts total about $20 billion.
The oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said KBR had refused to disclose information as basic as how many people are fed each day in its dining facilities and how many gallons of fuel are delivered to foreign embassies in Iraq, claiming that the data was proprietary, meaning it would unfairly help its business competitors.
Although KBR has been subjected to a growing number of specific investigations and paid substantial penalties, this is the first time the federal government has weighed in and accused it of systematically engaging in a practice aimed at veiling its business practices in Iraq.
Basically, they’re illegally keeping even basic records a secret from our own government so there is no way to tell how much they’re overcharging by (it’s no longer a question of whether or not they’re overcharging American taxpayers).
This is pretty bad, considering that as the article says, we’ve paid them 20 billion dollars already (much of that has been in no-bid contracts handed directly to the corporation, for which Vice President Dick Cheney worked, and openly expreses his admiration for).
