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KBR contract overseer replaced for ... oversight

Submitted by AmyW on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 10:21am.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Amy Weiss

Charles M. Smith, the man responsible for managing the military contract with KBR in Iraq during the first two years of the war, told The New York Times Tuesday he was removed from his position because he held off paying KBR over $1 billion in non-specific charges pending further information, calling into question yet again the Bush Administration's connection to defense contractors.

KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown and Root, is a subsidiary of Halliburton with contracts totaling $20 billion so far for providing food, shelter, and more for U.S. troops in Iraq. Despite an investigation into the charges Smith found suspicious, KBR was included in a recently signed 10-year contract.

After Smith was replaced in his position, the Army hired the RCI Holding Company to conduct an internal review of KBR's charges, ultimately agreeing to pay most of what Smith withheld. Though Pentagon and Army officials have alleged RCI did not use information obtained from the Army's internal Defense Contract Audit Agency, their parent corporation, Serco, has been hired to supervise KBR under the new 10-year contract.

In the Times article, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), was quoted as saying the report Smith gives "is startling, and it confirms the committee's worst fears. KBR has repeatedly gouged the taxpayer, and the Bush administration has looked the other way every time."

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

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A billion $ and counting

Submitted by Colleen Clark on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 11:24pm.

According to the NYTimes story, Smith wouldn't sign off on paying KBR because, "KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. “They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify,” he said in an interview. “Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that.”

But the ever patriotic KBR was concerned about taking care of the troops. "They said that KBR had warned that if it was not paid, it would reduce payments to subcontractors, which in turn would cut back on services. “You have to understand the circumstances at the time,” said Jeffrey P. Parsons, executive director of the Army Contracting Command. “We could not let operational support suffer because of some other things.”
KBR "warned...." Isn't this the same as "threatened??"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?

Meanwhile out on the campaign trail Obama has been deemed by some as insufficiently 'patriotic' because he doesn't always wear a flag pin in his lapel.

So KBR holds the government up for a billion $$ but no one calls them unpatriotic!

What has happened to us???

Colleen Clark
Cambridge, MA

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KBR Oversight

Submitted by bluesky45207 on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 1:18pm.
The country is being run by the biggest crime family ever, otherwise referred to as the mob. Of course it is corrupt to give no-bid contracts to cronies. Of course it is corrupt to give new no-bid contracts to corporations and companies that have defrauded the government in prior contracts. Obviously the illegal and immoral actions taken by the Supreme Court and the Bush Crime Family were done for this robbing of the national treasury and Iraq's wealth, and now they are going after Iran's and Pakistan's. If not only the media but the powers that be and the military put up with this shit going down with no revolt, then they must all be in on it too. We don't have a chance in hell. Bye bye America.
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It's called crony capitalism

Submitted by sulphurdunn on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 11:27am.
It's called crony capitalism and is how the Bush family manages all of its political investments.
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