Hearings Mark Tougher Oversight of War Contracts

Original
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner
The Financial Times    Monday 05 February 2007

  Executives from government contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including KBR and Compass of the UK, face a rocky ride in Washington this week as Henry Waxman, new chairman of the House of Representative's chief investigative committee, begins hearings on allegations of "waste, fraud and abuse."

  The hearings, which open tomorrow, are expected to mark the beginning of a new phase in which contracting practices are subject to tougher oversight.

  Mr. Waxman has been a dogged critic of the Bush administration's handling of billions of dollars of US taxpayers' money in Iraq reconstruction contracts.

  The committee has called on the chief executives of Blackwater, a security contractor, KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, and Compass, food services group, among others, to answer questions.

  The hearing will feature the testimony of family members of four Blackwater employees who were killed in Falluja in 2004, and whose bodies were burned and dragged through the streets. The families are suing Blackwater for wrongful death.

  Mr. Waxman is likely to focus his line of inquiry on allegations that Halliburton wrongly entered into a subcontracting arrangement with ESS, a division of Compass that ran a dining facility in Iraq, which in turn used Blackwater to provide it with security services.

  Halliburton controls a $16 billion (£8 billion) contract in Iraq, known as Logcap, which provides logistical support to US troops.

  Under the provisions of the contract, Halliburton can use only the US military - not private security companies such as Blackwater - to provide armed protection to its contractors.

  In response to questions from Congress, the Department of Defense in July said that KBR had "no knowledge" of Blackwater having been hired by any of its subcontractors.

  But in a memo Mr. Waxman subsequently received from Compass, the company admitted that ESS had used Blackwater and the US security group had been deployed by other subcontractors.

  Mr. Waxman in December said, in a letter to Donald Rumsfeld, former defence secretary, that the security subcontract raised "serious questions" about the oversight exercised by Halliburton and the Pentagon regarding the tiering of subcontractors, and whether it was "proper" for Halliburton to bill the government for the services. The pervasive use of multiple tiers of sub-contractors has, according to Mr. Waxman, contributed to "exorbitant overhead fees" on government contracts.

  Compass said Steve Murray, the director of contracting at ESS, would testify at the hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, in spite of the fact that the committee had invited Richard Cousins, chief executive. Blackwater and KBR declined to answer questions about whether the chief executives of the groups would appear.

Paul Bremer, the former chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, is set to make his first appearance before Mr. Waxman's committee tomorrow.

 

Technorati tags: Hearings, Oversight, War Contracts

 

On the GOP Blocking Senate Debate On Iraq

   We all have heard that the Dems got fucked by the Republicans and that there will be no open debate on Iraq and the resolutions that would have sprung from it. Not only did the Democrats in office get screwed, but the American public did also, as did our U.S. troops in Iraq!

   You can bet your ass that those Republican pieces of crap that are up for re-election in '08 will not be in office come '09! Some of the Democrats that went for this will also be selling shoes come '09!

   What the general public needs to be is to email your respective Senators and Congress people to tell them that the Iraq war funding needs to stop. This is the only way that we are going to get our people home and if this isn't done very quickly, the Bush Crime Family will have our people in Iran also. You can bet your ass that Iran isn't about nuclear weapons or necessarily about controlling the oil flow. It is more about power! Bush's to be exact.

    If we allow this punk to continue his escapades, I see him declaring martial law in the United States and I see the 2008 elections being postponed because of all of the shit that will be hitting the fan between the U.S., Iran, Iraq, and the majority of the middle east.

   If you haven't read this , please do. It might explain alot to you.

   Back to the Senate.

    NYT:

The deadlock came after Democrats refused a proposal by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, that would have cleared the way for a floor fight on the Warner resolution in return for votes on two competing Republican alternatives that were more supportive of the president.

One of those alternatives, by Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, would declare that Congress should not cut off any funds for forces in the field. That vote was seen as problematic for Democrats because many of them opposed any move to curtail spending, raising the prospect that it could have attracted the broadest support in the Senate.

 Forty-seven Democrats and two Republicans voted to open debate on the resolution; 45 Republicans and one independent were opposed.

But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said that “time was tenuous” and that he would not guarantee that Democrats would try again to bring up the resolution. He did promise that there would be more clashes over Iraq policy as the Senate turned to measures like the president’s request for $100 billion in emergency Iraq spending.

“You can run but you can’t hide,” Mr. Reid told his Republican colleagues on the floor. “We are going to debate Iraq.”

                               IMPEACH! INDICT! IMPRISON!

 

Technorati tags: GOP, Senate, Senate Republicans, Debate, Iraq