A multibillion dollar Iraq contract handed without competition to Halliburton’s KBR unit in 2003 by the Pentagon triggered a cloudy skepticism over the whole contracting process in the Bush administration’s War on Terrorism.
Now, Judicial Watch released new documents — after a protracted court battle with the Defense Department — that reveal more tawdry details over the no-bid contract award, known as Restore Iraq Oil or RIO.
You gotta love this one, which includes a candid opinion by an Army Corps of Engineer official:
“I am copying you on this crap since I honestly believe the competitive procurement will never happen.”
The Army attempted to withhold this silly document even though no worthy exemption applied to keeping it private.
It took a federal district judge to force the Army to release the document.
Oh, wait a minute — perhaps the Pentagon information officers deem “national embarrassment” on the same level as national security.
But my voice of experience tells me that the Pentagon was just busting balls.
Another document released by Judicial Watch suggests that the Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) may have publicly lied regarding the involvement of the Vice President’s office in awarding the contract.
In an email dated April 22, 2003, Carol Sanders of the USACE, writes:
“Mr. Robert Andersen, Chief Counsel, USACE, participated in a 60 Minutes interview today in New York regarding the sole source award of the oil response contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root….Mr. Andersen….was able to make many of the points we had planned.” Sanders subsequently provided sound bites from the interview, including, “There was no contact whatsoever (with the VP office).”
Of course, we all now know that Cheney’s right-hand man, Scooter Libby, was informed March 5, 2003, of the original contingency contract immediately after it was signed — thanks to previous efforts by Judicial Watch.
Do I need to mention that Vice President Dick Cheney was the former chairman and CEO of Halliburton before joining the Bush 2000 campaign?
More at Judicial Watch.
Hi, Dave, how in the wide world are you? Seems you’re doing very well, and for that I’m glad. See you one fine day.
Jim in Henderson, NV, not Berkeley, CA
This is a point I’ve never understood…the rules say that whoever draws up the contingency plans is automatically disallowed to pick up any contracts related to them. It’s meant as a ‘conflict of interest’ idea about fairness. But any company that’s even qualified to draw up logistical plans on that magnitude will already have a global infrastructure in place—making them ideal for those contracts to run much better than outsourcing peicemeal.