Posts Tagged ‘KBR’
DOJ sues KBR for illegal charges in Bush’s War
The U.S. Justice Department has sued the Houston-based military contractor KBR Inc for alleged false claims act violations over improper costs for private security in Iraq.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleged that KBR knowingly included impermissible costs for private armed security in billings to the U.S. Army covering the 2003-2006 time period, the department said.
KBR has been the U.S. military’s largest private contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been criticized for cost overruns in Iraq, and lawmakers in Congress last month questioned the Army’s continued use of KBR for logistics work…
The Justice Department said the case, which seeks unspecified damages, was brought as part of an initiative to crack down on procurement fraud.
The contract at issue in the lawsuit provided for logistical support, such as food services, transportation, laundry and mail, for military operations in Iraq. The lawsuit involved the company and 33 KBR subcontractors…
The lawsuit alleged that KBR managers considered the use of private security unacceptable and were concerned the Army would disallow costs for such services. But KBR still charged for the costs of the unauthorized services, the suit said.
Back in the day, when I worked in the offshore oil industry, there were a few companies that owned the United States government. Halliburton and KBR were the leaders of the pack when it came to sucking dollars from American taxpayers.
They were the overseers who said, “Jump, boy!” The Pentagon, Congress – would always answer, “How high, boss?”
Contemptible and corrupt as were those practices in the past, the indifference of the Oil Patch Boys to any prospect of fiscal and corporate responsibility is worse. Throw the creeps in jail!
KBR does crap contracting in Iraq. Pentagon forks over bonuses!
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
The U.S. Army paid “tens of millions of dollars in bonuses” to KBR, its biggest contractor in Iraq, even after it concluded the firm’s electrical work had put U.S. soldiers at risk.
The Senate Democratic Policy Committee plans to hold a hearing today to examine KBR’s operations in Iraq, and question why the Army rewarded the Houston-based company.
The panel says KBR has been linked to at least two, and as many as five, electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers and contractors in Iraq due to “shoddy work.”
Investigators believe hundreds of other soldiers may have received electrical shocks, the source added. The Army is investigating…
During the Bush administration, some critics claimed Cheney’s deferred compensation from the company represented a conflict of interest and questioned Halliburton’s winning of lucrative government contracts in Iraq.
Don’t you love how polite everyone is to these creeps?
Cheney’s Oil Patch buddies get endless no-bid contracts for the war he and Bush started. They do shoddy work. They are caught time and again ripping off taxpayer’s dollars. Our soldiers’ lives are further endangered by their lousy work. And what’s the response from the Pentagon?
They pay ‘em bonuses.
Time to fire corrupt Pentagon officials who are KBR flunkies?
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
The Pentagon has done little to collect at least $100 million in overcharges paid in deals arranged by corrupt former officials of Kellogg Brown & Root, the defense contractor, even though the officials admitted much of the wrongdoing years ago, two senators have complained in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
The letter also said that the Army had almost completely failed to move away from the monopolistic nature of the logistics contract that has paid the contractor, now called KBR, $31.3 billion for logistics operations in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan…
Their letter is likely to revive allegations that the Pentagon has become so close to KBR, and relies so heavily on it, that there is little inclination or incentive to discipline the company, in response to either Congress or critics outside the government.
In 2007 the Army split the logistics contract, known as Logcap, in a way that allowed several companies to compete for each new need. The Army did this partly to avoid relying solely on KBR, whose pricing practices, even when technically legal, have sometimes received criticism as exorbitant. But the Army has seldom used the newly competitive arrangement…
To the irritation of KBR’s critics, the Army has generally upheld the bills the company has submitted to the military, even when the Pentagon’s own auditors have questioned the amounts. But the argument that the Army was overcharged appears to be more clear-cut in the cases of several former KBR officials convicted of accepting bribes and kickbacks.
Of $306 million in tainted contracts, at least $100 million of the charges appeared to be unjustified, wrote the senators.
The standard we all ask for the banking and mortgage crooks should be applied to the Pentagon. Throw the crooks and corrupt out on the street.
Shoddy wiring ‘everywhere’ on Iraq bases
Daylife/AP Photo
Thousands of buildings at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan have such poorly installed wiring that American troops face life-threatening risks, a top inspector for the Army says.
“It was horrible — some of the worst electrical work I’ve ever seen,” said Jim Childs, a master electrician and the top civilian expert in an Army safety survey. Childs told CNN that “with the buildings the way they are, we’re playing Russian roulette.”
Childs recently returned from Iraq, where he is taking part in a yearlong review aimed at correcting electrical hazards on U.S. bases. He told CNN that thousands of buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan are so badly wired that troops are at serious risk of death or injury.
He said problems are “everywhere” in Iraq, where 18 U.S. troops have died by electrocution since 2003. All deaths occurred in different circumstances and different locations, but many happened on U.S. bases being managed by various military contractors. The Army has reopened investigations in at least five cases, according to Pentagon sources.
Of the nearly 30,000 buildings the Army’s “Task Force Safe” has examined so far, Childs said more than half “failed miserably.” And 8,527 had such serious problems that inspectors gave them a “flash” warning, meaning repairs had to be completed in four hours or the facility evacuated.
He said the majority of those buildings were wired by contractor KBR, based in Houston, Texas.
Well, there’s a surprise, eh?
KBR charged with bribing Nigerian officials
The former Halliburton subsidiary KBR has been charged with bribing Nigerian government officials with “tens of millions of dollars” to obtain “billions of dollars in contracts.” KBR was spun off from its former parent corporation Halliburton in 2007.
The Justice Department had no comment on the filing, but officials familiar with the case said they expected KBR representatives to appear Wednesday the 11th in federal court in Houston.
The 22-page court document outlines a complex joint venture involving KBR and the Nigeria government-owned National Petroleum Corporation charged with developing the country’s oil and gas industry. The contracts involved the design and construction of a natural gas plant.
The government documents say the joint venture included payments to international consultants to bribe Nigerian officials.
The alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act come after the conviction of Albert Stanley, KBR’s former chief executive officer, who pleaded guilty to bribery last fall.
In case you never noticed, KBR has been under fire for its business practices while outsourcing Bush’s War in Iraq. The Nigerian charges are separate from KBR’s contracts in Iraq and Kuwait.
