About a year ago, under heavy political pressure, Dems finally persuaded the House Government Reform Committee to investigate the Bush administration’s lucrative no-bid contracts with Halliburton. Facing a subpoena threat, the Pentagon started turning over materials to the committee.
And while the committee has shown extraordinary, almost ridiculous, levels of patience, the Pentagon still hasn’t responded in full to the request for documents.
Almost one year after the House Government Reform Committee launched an investigation into the Pentagon’s contracts with Halliburton Corp. in Iraq, the panel still hasn’t received all the documents it requested from the Department of Defense (DoD). […]
The Pentagon handed over 900 pages of e-mails; however, many of those mentioned attachments and residual documents, which the committee has yet to receive.
“They ran out of will,” a GOP aide said. “We are trying to figure out why they stopped producing those documents. They went off the air.”
Another subpoena is not out of the question, the aide said.
In fact, it’s important to consider that lawmakers were able to see documents that were turned over to the U.N., including audits of the Development Fund for Iraq program, of which Halliburton was the major beneficiary. Unfortunately, though, the audits were “heavy censored” by the Pentagon.
Usually, when the Bush gang acts like they have something to hide, it’s because they have something to hide.
Of course, none of this has impacted Halliburton’s ability to keep getting more contracts.
To add insult to injury, the Army in July gave KBR a $4.97 billion one-year contract to provide logistics support for U.S. troops in Iraq, a move that came in the midst of criticism aimed at Halliburton and the government’s contracting practices. Additionally, Halliburton had already earned $9.1 billion from logistics work in Iraq.
In the past year, Halliburton stock has more than doubled. It went up from $31.40 to $66.44, according to Morningstar.com.
KBR has been accused of using political connections in its efforts to secure the two largest post-war contracts, Restore Iraqi Oil and Logcap. […]
While the Government Reform Committee is temporarily stalled, awaiting additional documents from the Pentagon, the committee’s Democrats have started to raise questions about no-bid contracts doled out to companies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One of those companies is KBR, and the other is Shaw Group — both clients of former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Joe Allbaugh.
I’m in the wrong business.