Trucks made to drive without cargo in dangerous areas of Iraq

[floda]

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Empty flatbed trucks crisscrossed Iraq more than 100 times as their drivers and the soldiers who guarded them dodged bullets, bricks and homemade bombs.

Twelve current and former truckers who regularly made the 300-mile re-supply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad told Knight Ridder that they risked their lives driving empty trucks while their employer, a subsidiary of Halliburton Inc., billed the government for hauling what they derisively called "sailboat fuel."

Defense Department records show that Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, has been paid $327 million for "theater transportation" of war materiel and supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq and is earmarked to be paid $230 million more. The convoys are a lifeline for U.S. troops in Iraq hauling tires for Humvees, Army boots, filing cabinets, tools, engine parts and even an unmanned Predator reconnaissance plane.

KBR's contract with the Defense Department allows the company to pass on the cost of the transportation and add 1 percent to 3 percent for profit, but neither KBR nor the U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., which oversees the contract, was able to provide cost estimates for the empty trucks. Trucking experts estimate that each round trip costs taxpayers thousands of dollars.

more..

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/8726376.htm

[Speck Tater]

1. Haliburton will get a medal from Bush.

Those clever fellas have figured out yet another way to screw the American taxpayer. Bush will be really proud of the bloodsucking parasites.

[Alerter_]

11. "TRUCKS made to drive"?

Trucks don't drive themselves in dangerous terrority. The Whore Press should have said "DRIVERS made to drive trucks in dangerous areas".

[Barrett808]

2. Ah, the old "sailboat fuel" con -- KBR on the grift n/t

[htuttle]

4. Sailboat fuel....for the submarine races....

This is outright fraud:

Earlier this year, as many as a third of all the flatbed trucks in a 30-truck convoy were empty, they said. Much of the time, drivers would drop off one empty trailer and pick up another empty one for the return trip.

(snip)

"Sometimes we would go with empty trailers; we would go both ways," said one driver who goes by the nickname Swerve and declined to be named for fear of retribution. "We'd turn around and go back with empty trailers."

An independent expert on trucking economics put the cost of a 300-mile one-way run at a minimum of $1,050. Researcher Mark Berwick at the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University used a computer model, the fuel costs that Halliburton charged the Army and the truckers' salaries to come up with that figure.

Wilson and Michael Stroud, of the Seattle area, another former KBR trucking convoy commander, said the actual costs were probably far higher.

This is like KBR charging us for digging holes and then filling them in.

[daleo]

5. Worse than fraud

Reckless endangerment. Gross negligence. Attempted murder.

[shanti]

14. cheney

that prick, is the one making money off of US! the list of treasonable offenses just keeps piling up with this gang:grr:

[patrice]

3. The transportation unit stationed at Frt. Riley Kansas

has been saying that they did a lot of this too, that is when they weren't sitting around with nothing to do, which was most of the time. They also hauled a lot of what appeared to be personal property.

[AndyTiedye]

6. Can we Impeach Cheney Now?

Surely even those who supported the war should be outranged by such blatant profiteering!

[salin]

7. for those of our fellow citizens who don't yet get the term: War Profiteer

this is the story - put both employees AND us military who serve as escourts - out into dangerous zones - to haul ... NOTHING but earn additional $ for Halliburton. Then add the other Halliburton stories - and bingo - suddenly some might just begin to understand the term - and find it as reviling as many of us already find it.

[shanti]

15. and we all know who he learned that from

n/t

[gristy]

8. Speechless. I am just fucking speechless over this.

Buck Fush to hell, man. Asswipe and his cronies looting our treasury. That's all this war, this residency, was ever for. Enron ($4 billion), Lucent ($1.1 billion), Worldcom ($11 billion), Healthsouth ($4.6 billion) frauds were just a child's warmup to this fraud ($114 billion http://costofwar.com and 797 killed and 4327 wounded http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx)

[Gold Metal Flake]

9. This one could easily stick, but keep it kicked...

through the weekend. Send it to your friends!

[oldhat]

10. Bombard Drudge with this.

Cut the link and the first two paragraphs and submit it in the little box.

Send this to your local newspaper, too.

This is outrageous.

[Cooley Hurd]

12. Could it have been that they didn't have anything to haul...

...and the trucks were needed elsewhere?:shrug:

Even though, it sounds like the OTR hauling was poorly coordinated, given the dangerous circumstances...

[mom cat]

13. "Truckers for Kerry"! Truckers don't like to be screwed!

Also note that the article came from a paper in the South.