Anger over US Giveaway to Halliburton

Golly, who would have guessed that the frirends of the Bush regime would stand to make tons of money from this war…r
r
The US army came under fire today for granting an Iraqi oilwell firefighting contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton Co, once run by Dick Cheney, without a bidding process. r
r
Henry Waxman, the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives’ government reform committee, demanded an explanation in a letter to Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant General Robert Flowers. r
“I am writing to inquire why the administration entered into a contract potentially worth tens of millions of dollars to a subsidiary of Halliburton without any competition or even notice to Congress,” he said. r
r
“The contract – to extinguish oilwell fires in Iraq – has no set time limit and no dollar limit and is apparently structured in such a way as to encourage the contractor to increase its costs and, consequently, the costs to the taxpayer.” r
r
The Army Corps of Engineers said yesterday the contract had been given to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) without being put out to tender. r
r