Halliburton exempt from Army withholding

[True_Blue]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army on Thursday said Halliburton Co.'s Kellogg Brown and Root unit would not be slapped with a blanket 15 percent withholding on the payment of disputed bills involving billions of dollars of work in Iraq.

Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., said the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for policy and procurement had approved an Army request for a "deviation" from government contracting rules over a 15 percent withholding.

The Army requested a deviation so Halliburton's bills could be paid. Otherwise, the company had said, it might have to suspend some essential services to troops in a war zone.

more....
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/03/news/fortune500/halliburton.reut/

[7th_Sephiroth]

1. holding the troops food over the army's heads

"take our money, we wont feed your boys"--Halliburton

[hangemhigh]

2. Imagine my surprise. nt

[NYC]

3. If they can't provide the services, UNPRIVATIZE the services.

...Otherwise, the company had said, it might have to suspend some essential services to troops in a war zone...

[Ramsey]

4. There are simply no limits

To the corruption of this administration, or on the complete ignorance and tolerance for evil of vast swaths of the gullible American populace.

Another absolute outrage that will be totally ignored. It gets so hard to keep track.

[JDPriestly]

7. Amen!

No limits on the corruption of the Bush administration.

[theworldiswatching]

9. One exception

Except for the big rich biotechs who would love to grease his palm to let them develop fetal stem cell research. I'm sure they have lobbyists in action right now.

[tabasco]

19. 9-11 changed everything.

Now it's ok for corporations to hold our troops hostage and threaten to deny essential services. I hope we have some good people in Congress who can stop this slide because the administration is completely corrupt.

[Supersedeas]

24. the Condi/Gonzalez vote dowsed any hopes of that

[bushcrab]

5. OK you're forgiven, BUT JUST DON'T DO IT AGAIN!

[PsN2Wind]

6. Nationalize Halliburton

for the duration.

[makhno]

8. Exactly

What is this, some new form of corporate blackmail? You'd think that with all the hoopla about national security, a company that holds our troops hostage would be slapped down pretty hard.

[global1]

10. Way To Go Halliburton - Very Patriotic!!!!! n/t

[dusty64]

11. Unreal how they

just keep getting away with the most open corruption and criminal behavior I have EVER seen.

[struggle4progress]

12. kick for dick

[hickman1937]

13. Blackmail? n/t

[daleo]

14. That's a hell of a threat.

Withholding food from soldiers over money. If they really did this, I wouldn't want to be a Halliburton worker in Iraq. Cheney always gets his way, though.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. What complete bullshit

If Halliburton needed to pay a bill, it would dip into its huge corporate coffers. Or borrow some money - it's still a going concern, it would be able to do so easily.

What this really means is that the shareholders don't want to lose any profit, so they've told their ex-CEO they're not going to pay. He, of course, is quite happy with that. He wants Halliburton to keep paying his pension, and to be there, grateful and willing to give him huge 'consulting' fees when he retires. Has any company ever owned the US presidency so effectively?

[Moderator]

16. kick

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

17. Bush Administration Pays Halliburton For Services Never Rendered

As of June 2004, the Government Accounting Office estimated that more than $1 billion in taxpayer money had been wasted due to illegal overcharges by contractors in Iraq, since the onset of the war. Furthermore, experts say that once the total is calculated correctly, the losses could very well add up to billions more.

According to GAO Comptroller General, David Walker, the $1 billion represents about 2% of the $60 billion spent in Iraq between March 2003 and June 2004. To no one's surprise I'm sure, Walker listed Halliburton's overbilling for meals as the kind of typical overcharging that is occurring.

Whistleblowers Ignored

Last summer, 5 whistleblowers, who were past employees of Halliburton, came forward to tell tax payers what was really going on in Iraq. They specifically described how the company was robbing tax payers blind with apparently not a care in the world about discovery or punishment.

Marie deYoung, is a former Army chaplain who worked for Halliburton, and then spent 5 months inside its Kuwaiti operation, said the Iraq operation: "it’s just a gravy train." She claims there is no effort to hold down costs because the company knows that all costs will be passed down to taxpayers. When she complained to her higher ups, they told her, "We can be as dumb and stupid as we want in the first year of a war, nobody’s going to care."

More: http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=10364&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported

[rodeodance]

18. sweet deals all in the name of safty for the troops.

[gratuitous]

20. Support our troops

Republican style, with the outstretched palm and what's in it for me?

[banana republican]

21. The Withold applies ONLY to PROFIT

it does not apply the cost of the items sold to the Gov't

[leesa]

22. They've ripped us off for billions WITHOUT providing the promised

services and now they are blackmailing us using the troops welfare as their threat?

And the Republicans want Cheney for Prez?? He's in charge of this theft.

[Carl Brennan]

23. Let's see. They start a war so VP Cheney's Halliburton can

fill its coffers with profits from oil and services to the troops fighting the war. Halliburton's stock triples or more in value, they supply lousy services and then threaten to stop these services altogether if the Army makes them pay for their violations of the rules.

So if the troops aren't shot they'll suffer from a shortage of food service.


This is a microcosm of what the Bush fascists longterm goal is: to get more and more for less and less until they get everything for nothing.

And then they want YOU to think it's a bargain.

You asked for it America and YOU got it!


OOOOOOPS. SHIIIT!! I just missed ten minutes of Seinfeld reading this damn topic!!!

[Matriot]

25. Sounds like treason to me

Let's face it, blackmailing us with the lives of our sons a daughters is definitely treason. Let's not forget that during a time of war or conflict is punishable by death.