I half expect a story to come out one of these days announcing that Monty Burns and Dr. Evil have been secretly running Halliburton for the last few years. It might explain the rampant corruption.
The U.S. ambassador to Kuwait intervened last year to ensure that Halliburton, the oil services company once led by Vice President Dick Cheney, retained a Kuwaiti business as a subcontractor to deliver fuel to Iraq, documents released Wednesday show.
State Department documents appear to contradict the Bush administration’s assertion that all decisions involving Halliburton’s contracts were handled only by career contracting officers for the government.
And once again, it’s Henry Waxman with the goods.
In the latest twist into the ongoing probe into possible fuel overcharges, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., released excerpts today from a blistering Dec. 2, 2003 e-mail one-time Ambassador Richard Jones allegedly sent in an apparent effort to make sure Halliburton subsidiary KBR continued doing business with Kuwait’s Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co.
“(T)ell KBR to get off their butts and conclude deals with Kuwait NOW! Tell them we want a deal done with al-Tanmia within 24 hours and don’t take any excuses. If Amb. Bremer hears that KBR is still dragging its feet, he will be livid.”
[…]
State Department officials have long insisted they were not involved in the selection of fuel suppliers. Waxman, in a letter to the Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, argued the documents obtained by his staff “directly contradict these assertions.”
Ya think?
Waxman is following up on all of this by demanding congressional hearings on Halliburton’s contracts in Kuwait and Iraq. Since Republicans decided to give up congressional oversight and self-respect to the White House in 2001 as an inauguration present to Bush, Waxman’s efforts probably won’t work out.
But he should keep this up anyway — and maybe find a few high-profile friends to help him out once and a while. In ’93 and ’94, when Dems controlled Washington, Republicans did an exemplary job of throwing the Dems off track with cries about meaningless scandals-of-the-week. In the case of Halliburton, we have a real scandal involving actual corruption.
At some point, a concerted effort to generate more attention on this will pay off. Today’s Washington Post story on Waxman’s charges, for example, was published on page A29. If memory serves, Travelgate got better placement than this.