Balkinization

The Cost (Plus) of No-bid Contracting in Iraq

The New York Times reports that Vice President Cheney's former firm, Halliburton, which received lucrative contracts in Iraq without having to go through the usual competitive bidding process, is coming under increasing scrutiny:

On Thursday, two Democratic members of Congress informed the Pentagon that two former Halliburton employees had come forward with a variety of accusations about wasteful spending of government money, saying Halliburton "routinely overcharged" for its work in Iraq.
"High-level Halliburton officials frequently told employees that the high prices charged by vendors were not a problem because the U.S. government would reimburse Halliburton's costs and then pay Halliburton an additional fee," the two Congressman — Henry Waxman of California and John D. Dingell of Michigan — wrote in a letter to Pentagon auditors.
One of the former employees, according to the letter, said "a Halliburton motto was: `Don't worry about price. It's cost-plus.' "
In the letter, the congressmen said the two men approached Mr. Waxman after leaving jobs with Halliburton for personal reasons last month. The letter said the employees told them Halliburton worked hard to avoid putting purchases out for competitive bidding and therefore overspent for many purchases as well as common items.

War profiteering is a despicable practice; it is even more despicable when the profiteering is by the President's and Vice-President's friends, who are hand picked without having to go through normal channels of competitive bidding, and who happily pass on their overcharges to the public. There is nothing patriotic about using the war to line the pockets of your friends and campaign contributors. It is bad enough when the Administration moves its friends to the head of the line. It is even worse when if the companies use the opportunity to gouge the public.

This is crony capitalism, the sort of thing one would expect in a third world country.

The press should spend less time going over Bush's national guard service in 1973 and more time on this. The Administration's contracting practices in the Iraq war are the real military scandal; they speak volumes about the President's character, and his apparent belief that he is entitled to use the public treasury as his personal plaything to reward his friends regardless of the cost to the country.

Posted 9:12 AM by JB [link]