Army Probe Clears Halliburton
For the second time in two weeks, an oil services company
formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney has been cleared of allegations
circulated by Democrats that the firm had engaged in war profiteering during the
rebuilding effort in Iraq.
"The head of the Army Corps of Engineers quietly exonerated Halliburton Co.
of any wrongdoing in a Kuwait fuel-delivery contract that Pentagon auditors
asserted has overcharged the U.S. government by more than $100 million,"
reported the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
In a previously undisclosed Dec. 19 ruling, the commander of the Corps, Lt.
Gen. Robert Flowers, said that Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary
had provided enough data to show it had purchased the fuel and its delivery to
Iraq at a "fair and reasonable price."
The ruling is likely to take the steam out of a separate ongoing audit by the
Pentagon into Halliburton's fuel delivery contract in Iraq, the Journal said - a
prospect that had Democrats crying foul.
"It appears the administration is deliberately sabotaging the government's
ability to audit Halliburton," complained Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., - a
longtime Halliburton critic.
Waxman offered no comment on findings issued last week by the New York Times,
which concluded its own investigation into Halliburton by saying there was "no
evidence of profiteering" by the company.
In a report that left Bush administration critics crestfallen, Times
investigative sleuth Jeff Gerth said that "so far this year, Halliburton's
profits from Iraq have been minimal. The company's latest report to the
Securities and Exchange Commission shows $1.3 billion in revenues from work in
Iraq and $46 million in pretax profits for the first nine months of 2003."
Company spokesman Wendy Hall told the paper that gasoline imported into Iraq
was often more expensive than anticipated because the Army sometimes demanded
delivery within 24-hours, leaving little time for competitive bidding.
Also driving up costs: the dangers faced by Halliburton workers from Iraqi
insurgents. Since it began work in Iraq, Halliburton and its subcontractors have
had 7 employees killed and 10 injured, in attacks that left 60 vehicles damaged
or destroyed, according to the Financial Times in London.
Allegations that Halliburton had overcharged on Kuwaiti gasoline contracts
received wide coverage when the news first surfaced in December, with over 450
mainstream media reports on the topic - a Lexis-Nexis search revealed.
Meanwhile, both the Times investigation and the Army Corps of Engineer's
probe exonerating Halliburton have been virtually ignored by the press.
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