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KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100
worth of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) to be used as cooking and heating fuel
to Iraq, a Pentagon audit report revealed Monday.
Pentagon auditors were stunned. "It is illogical that it would cost $27,514,833
to deliver $82,100 in LPG fuel," officials from the Defense Contract Audit
Agency noted in the report.
The audit report was released by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. John
Dingell, D-Mich., critics of Halliburton and its war profiteering contracts.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had assigned Halliburton the job of
getting fuel into Iraq, declined to comment on the substance of the audit report.
"The major issues in this audit report have not been resolved," a
Pentagon spokesperson said. The corps "is currently working to finalize
negotiations for a price on this and all outstanding task orders."
Halliburton, previously headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has profited
greatly from its no bid and no cómpete contracts with the Pentagon.
Invoices submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers totaled $875 million for
supplying Iraq with fuel from May 2003 through March 2004.
Pentagon auditors questioned $108 million or about 12 percent of those costs.
(Is that Dick Cheney's designated "commission" aka skim?)
In March 2004, the Defense Energy Support Center, the military's own fuel supply
arm, took over the job. In a letter to President Bush Monday, Waxman and Dingell
complained that Pentagon officials had repeatedly ignored their requests to
see copies of the Pentagon audits.
"Indeed, when Government Reform Committee staff indicated that they were
considering issuing a subpoena for the audit reports, a Defense Department official
replied that issuing a subpoena will not get the material released any faster,"
the lawmakers wrote.
America remains One Nation Under Fraud