Heads in the Sand: Senate Republicans
And Oversight of the War in Iraq

 

Congress has a constitutional duty to perform effective oversight of the Executive Branch.  At no time is that duty more important than when American men and women are sent to war.  Yet, like Rip Van Winkle, this Congress chose instead to take a nap.  During the do-nothing 109^th Congress, Senate Republicans have recklessly abdicated the responsibility to conduct oversight.  Standing committees of the United States Senate have held:

 

• No hearings on flawed pre-war intelligence;

 

• No Hearings with generals who served in Iraq, have grave concerns about the planning and conduct of the war, and now call for a change of course;

 

• No hearings on the costly legacy of the Coalition Provisional Authority;

 

• No hearings on the well-documented abuses plaguing Halliburton’s contract to support the troops, worth $5 billion each year; and

 

• No hearings on Halliburton’s disastrous no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

 

Because Senate Democrats believe that the Constitution requires the legislative branch to be more than a rubber stamp for the Executive Branch, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) has used its statutory authority to hold thirteen hearings relating to Iraq.  Testimony from those hearings paints an alarming picture of Executive Branch incompetence, and offers a grim reminder of the need for rigorous, effective congressional oversight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In late 2002 and early 2003, senior Administration officials argued both publicly and privately that Saddam Hussein’s regime had connections to al Qaeda terrorists and active weapons of mass destruction programs.  To support those assertions, they cited numerous specific examples: a secret meeting in Prague, efforts to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger, the purchase of aluminum tubes suitable for uranium enrichment, guidance software for unmanned aerial vehicles, and mobile biological weapons laboratories.

 

We know now that those specific claims were false, and that the intelligence community had expressed many doubts that Administration officials too often ignored or dismissed.  Unfortunately, Senate Republicans have declined to hold a single public hearing to explore whether Administration officials interfered with the intelligence process and how those officials used the intelligence information that they received.

 

Because Senate Democrats believe Members of Congress have a constitutional duty to consider such questions, the DPC held the first public hearing on pre-war intelligence relating to Iraq.  The following excerpts are from testimony received by the Committee.

 

Former National Intelligence Officer Paul Pillar: The Administration Cherry-Picked Intelligence to Make a Public Case for War

 

“The second major problem area I’d like to highlight involved the administration’s aggressive use of intelligence to build public support for the war.  The textbook model of intelligence policy relations was turned upside down.  Instead of intelligence being used to inform policy decisions, it was used primarily to justify a decision already made.  The administration’s public case sometimes included the use of raw reporting, without reference to and, in some cases, in contradiction with the intelligence community’s judgments about the reporting.  This got to the cherry-picking that Colonel Wilkerson referred to.  The best known case was the use, in a presidential speech, of a spurious report about purchases of uranium ore, despite the intelligence community’s judgment and advice that the report’s credibility was too questionable to warrant public use.” (Paul Pillar, Former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, 6/26/2006)

 

Lawrence Wilkerson (former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell): Secretary Powell’s Presentation at the United Nations was “Perpetration of a Hoax”

 

“Second, the specific instance at the United Nations, I’ve commented on before, and I’ll repeat it again here, will remain, until I go to my grave, the lowest point in my professional life.  I’m not proud of having participated in what I consider to be a perpetration of a hoax.  There are various and many and complex reasons for that perpetration, and they all do not hold culpability for any particular individual or, for that matter, any particular part of the system.  I fear they do in some places, though, and that’s another thing I think is on the plate of challenges before you, is to determine where and how and when and what the results should be.” (Lawrence Wilkerson, 6/26/2006)

 

Lawrence Wilkerson: Secretary Powell Was Never Informed of Doubts About the Reliability of “Curveball”

 

“Nowhere at any time during the deliberations day and night at Langley, day and night in New York for two days prior to the presentation -- my task force rarely even put its head down to sleep -- did anyone mention the name Curveball, or anything about the unreliability of the multiple sources that we were given as evidence that the mobile biological labs existed and were in Iraq and working.  We never heard the term, we never heard any doubt on the reliability.” (Lawrence Wilkerson, 6/26/2006)

 

Lawrence Wilkerson: Stephen Hadley Tried to Force Discredited Information into Secretary Powell’s United Nations Presentation

 

“That was one of the matters that kept working its way back into his presentation and one of the dramatic moments at the DCI’s conference room at Langley when we were doing, as I recall, the last rehearsal with the secretary before we went to New York.  And the secretary was stopped in mid-presentation, and Mr. Hadley asked what had happened to the Mohammed Atta story.  And the secretary fixed him and essentially said, ‘We took it out and it’s staying out.’  And it was just an example of the tenacity with which certain people tried to get information into the script, repeatedly, that either the DCI or the DDCI or Secretary Powell himself simply didn’t find credible and left out.” (Lawrence Wilkerson, 6/26/2006)

 

Lawrence Wilkerson: Office of the Vice President Provided First Draft of Secretary Powell’s United Nations Presentation That Was Full of Bad Information

 

“I understand Scooter Libby has indicated that he wrote it, but I think he means he edited it.  I think John Hannah probably wrote it.  And as I’ve said in my written statement, that 48-page document wasted precious time as we went through it because it was simply uncorroboratable.  And so I turned to the DCI after a few hours of wasted time — quite frustrated — and I said, ‘This is not going to do it, Mr. Tenet.  We got to do something else.’” (Lawrence Wilkerson, 6/26/2006)

 

Former National Intelligence Officer Paul Pillar: Office of the Secretary of Defense Sought to Link Iraq to al Qaeda for Political Purposes

 

“I wasn’t working specifically on counterterrorism at the time, but based on my understanding and indirect observations — in some of which I found out inside Senate committee hearing rooms indirectly — the one particular body under Mr. Feith which had the name of Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group seemed to be devoted overwhelmingly, perhaps exclusively, to the purpose of assembling these scraps of information that would point to links between Iraq and al Qaeda.

 

And although I agree with Colonel Wilkerson that there are more general military grounds for skepticism about some of the products coming out of CIA or elsewhere in the intelligence community, the driving force here, quite clearly, was the attempt — not by the military, but in this case an arm of the Office of the Secretary of Defense — at the policy level to link the whole Iraq war to the idea of terrorism and the mood of the public after 9/11.

 

And hence this gargantuan effort to drag up everything that could suggest any kind of link between the Saddam regime and the terrorist threat that we all feared.” (Paul Pillar, Former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, 6/26/2006)

 

Paul Pillar: Feith’s Office Was Created Because Policymakers Didn’t Want to Hear That No Link Existed Between Iraq and al Qaeda

 

“[The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group] wasn’t established because the intelligence community wasn’t doing its job.  It was doing its job rather intensively and devoting a great deal of effort, particularly the counter-terror center — again, I wasn’t in it at the time — to this whole issue of Iraq and al Qaeda, because they were asked so many questions again and again and again and again and again.  So they wrote a bunch of papers.  It wasn’t that they didn’t do the good analysis or come up with the specific evidence.  It’s that the policymakers, these particular ones in the office of the Secretary of Defense, didn’t like the answer.  And the answer was there’s no alliance.  And that was a very well-documented answer.  And there was a lot of other information that pointed in an opposite direction from all these scraps that Mr. Feith’s office put together and we later read about in the Weekly Standard.  Evidence that showed, for example, that there was not training going on.  That there were not contacts between Iraq and just about any Islamist you could come up with in Afghanistan.  That was all the other side that was ignored.” (Paul Pillar, Former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, 6/26/2006)

 

Work Product from Doug Feith’s Office Linking Iraq to al Qaeda Was “An Unsorted Pile of Junk”

 

“As I recall, it was two pages long.  And it was the evidence linking Iraq with terrorism.  And the person was giving it to me effectively as comic relief, saying, ‘Can you believe what’s on this paper?’  It was as if I had gotten my morning traffic some day, because there’s a lot of junk in intelligence that the analyst knows that has to be sifted out to get to the real kernels, and it looked like an unsorted pile of junk”…That office basically was writing intelligence that was getting far more attention then what Carl or I were working on, and yet it had none of the professional standards that it had applied to the rest of the intelligence community.  And it was so low profile, if you didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes, to many of us it was utterly invisible until the last moments.” (Wayne White, Former State Department Intelligence Analyst, 6/26/2006)

 

Lawrence Wilkerson: Vice President Cheney’s Influence Allowed Neoconservatives to Overrule Intelligence Professionals

 

Testimony of Lawrence Wilkerson, 6/26/2006:

 

REP. WALTER JONES (R-NC):  My question is this to all four of you who would like to answer, maybe it’s a very simple question. I apologize if it’s been asked before.  But what perplexes me is how in the world could professionals — I’m not criticizing anybody here at this table — but how could the professionals see what was happening and nobody speak out?

 

I’m not saying you did not do your duty, please understand.  My point is as a congressman who trusted what I was being told — I was not on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Dorgan, but I am on the Armed Services Committee — and I was being told this information.  And I wish I’d the wisdom then that I might have now.  I would have known what to ask.  But I think many of my colleagues — they did not have the experience on the Intelligence Committee — we just pretty much accept it.

 

So where along the way — how did these people so early on get so much power that they had more influence in those in the Administration to make decisions than you the professionals?

 

WILKERSON:  Let me try to answer you first.  Let me say right off the bat I’m glad to see you here.

 

JONES:  Thank you, sir.

 

WILKERSON:  As a Republican, I’m somewhat embarrassed by the fact that you’re the only member of my party here.

 

JONES:  Agreed.

 

WILKERSON:  But I understand it.  I’d answer you with two words.  Let me put the article in there and make it three.  The Vice President.

 

Intelligence Community Warned of Post-Invasion Turbulence in Iraq — And Was Ignored by Administration Policymakers

 

“[O]n the situation that would be faced in post-Saddam Iraq, the intelligence community produced, on its own initiative, its assessment of the likely challenges there.  It presented a picture of a political culture that would not provide fertile ground for democracy and foretold a long, difficult and turbulent transition.  It projected that a Marshall Plan-type effort, something on that scale, would be required to restore the Iraqi economy, despite the oil wealth.  It forecast that, in a deeply divided Iraqi society, there was a significant chance that the sectarian and ethnic groups would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power prevented it.  And it anticipated that an occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks, including by guerrilla warfare, unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the very first weeks and months after the fall of Saddam.  It also assessed that war and occupation would boost political Islam, increase sympathy for terrorist objectives and make Iraq a magnet for extremists from elsewhere in the Middle East.  Clearly, little if any of this influenced the decision-making on going to war.” (Paul Pillar, Former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, 6/26/2006)

 

Intelligence Community Warned that Iraq Would Not Lead to Democratic Revolution in the Middle East

 

“My own formal February 2003 I&R analysis, ‘Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes,’ warned that even a successful effort in Iraq, both militarily and politically, would not only fail to trigger a tsunami of democracy in the region but potentially could endanger longstanding U.S. allies in the Middle East, not the region’s anti-U.S. autocrats.

 

“I must add that the conclusions of this study were not all that extraordinary for decisionmakers with open minds.  Polling for a number of years, and by a variety of polling sources, clearly showed that the region’s populations were and are predominantly more anti-American, anti-Israeli and militantly Islamic than their existing governments.

 

“So, even if democracy had taken hold in various Middle East states, the result would have been governments more anti-American, anti-Israeli, more militantly Islamic than those previously in power, as we have already seen in the case of Hamas in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli theater.” (Wayne White, Former State Department Intelligence Analyst, 6/26/2006)

 

 

 

Since 1792, when President George Washington cooperated with an inquiry by the House of Representatives into the defeat of an Army expeditionary force, the Congress has exercised oversight of the nation’s conduct of war.  During World War II, the Truman Commission saved millions of taxpayer dollars by investigating war profiteering.  During the war in Vietnam, Congress held 328 days of hearings relating to that conflict.

 

Unfortunately, since U.S. troops invaded Iraq, the standing committees of the United States Senate have been all but silent.  In the face of that silence, Senate Democrats have commenced a series of hearings into the planning and conduct of the war in Iraq.  Excerpts from those hearings follow:

 

Major General John Batiste (Ret’d): the Bush Administration Lacks the Leadership to Win in Iraq, and the Republican-Controlled Congress Has Failed in Its Oversight Duties

 

“Secretary Rumsfeld’s dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies and the good people of Iraq.  He was responsible for America and our allies going to war with the wrong plan and a strategy that did not address the realities of fighting an insurgency.  Secretary Rumsfeld built his team by systematically removing dissension.  America went to war with his plan.  To say that he listens to his generals is disingenuous.  We are fighting with his strategy.  He reduced force levels to unacceptable levels, micromanaged the war, and caused delays in the approval of troop requirements in the deployment process, which tied the hands of commanders while our troops were in contact with the enemy.  At critical junctures, commanders were forced to focus on managing shortages, rather than leading, planning and anticipating opportunity.  Through all of this, our congressional oversight committees were all but silent, not asking the tough questions as was done routinely during both world wars, Korea and Vietnam.  Our Congress shares responsibility for what is and is not happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (Major General John Batiste (Ret.), 9/25/2006)

 

Colonel Thomas Hammes (Ret.d): the Administration Has Failed to Equip Our Troops, and to Ask the American Public for the Necessary Sacrifice to Win

 

“I find it remarkable the nation that could produce 4,000 aircraft a month in World War II is limited to 48 armored vehicles per month today.  We did not ask our soldiers to invade France in 1944 with the inferior equipment they had in 1941.  Why are we asking our soldiers and Marines to use the same armor we found was insufficient in 2003?  It is simple: the administration has refused to dedicate the resources necessary to make it happen.  It is content to let our troops ride in inferior vehicles.

 

“Further, the administration has failed to replace and maintain the equipment necessary for the units of the United States to be ready for other potential operations.  Although our units lack equipment to train, our repair depots are working single shifts and only five days a week.

 

“The American people have not refused to provide what our people need.  The Administration has refused to ask for the funding.  The failure to provide our best equipment is a serious moral failure on the part of our leadership.”  (Colonel Thomas X. Hammes (Ret’d), 9/25/2006)

 

Major General John Batiste (Ret’d): the Civilian Leadership at the Pentagon Went to War with Fewer Troops Than Commanders Recommended

 

“I was privy to a meeting in 2002 where General Franks and some of his staff from U.S. Central Command was to have briefed Donald Rumsfeld on the plan.  It didn’t get very far.  The numbers were too high; for whatever reason they were ushered back to Tampa to try it again.  And this process happened over and over and over again, until the plan was finally whittled down to this unacceptable level that we all accepted back in March of 2003.  Completely ignored the insurgency, which was an absolute certainty; completely ignored the hard work after the fall of Saddam Hussein; deployed insufficient troops and capability to the Iraqi theater of war, so we could accomplish the mission.” (Major General John Batiste (Ret.), 9/25/2006)

 

Major General Paul D. Eaton (Ret’d): Secretary Rumsfeld “Has Proven Himself Incompetent Strategically, Operationally, And Tactically”

 

“The President charged Secretary Rumsfeld to prosecute this war, a man who has proven himself incompetent strategically, operationally, and tactically.  Mr. Rumsfeld came into his position with an extraordinary arrogance, and an agenda — to turn the military into a lighter, more lethal armed force.  In fact, Rumsfeld’s vision is a force designed to meet a Warsaw Pact type force more effectively.  We are not fighting the Warsaw Pact.  We are fighting an insurgency, a distributed low-tech, high-concept war that demands greater numbers of ground forces, not fewer.  Mr. Rumsfeld won’t acknowledge this fact and has failed to adapt to the current situation.  He has tried and continues to fight this war on the cheap.” (Major General Paul D. Eaton (Ret’d), 9/25/2006)

 

Former Marine Office Nathaniel Fick: Window of Opportunity is Closing, Yet Administration Has Failed to Engage the American People

 

“I’m here today as neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but as a citizen and a veteran.  My message is urgency.  Urgency because 776 Americans were wounded, and 72 were killed, in Iraq in September, following record high Iraqi casualties earlier this summer.  Urgency because the consequences of losing in Iraq are staggering, and our finite window of opportunity to make progress is slamming shut.  Urgency because the American people have not been engaged in this war, and we cannot succeed if the burden is borne by our military alone.  The most shocking part of serving in Iraq is coming home and realizing that most of the nation hardly knew we were gone.” (Nathaniel Fick, former Marine officer, 10/12/2006)

 

Former Army Officer Phillip Carter: Pentagon Under-Resourced Efforts to Train the Iraqi Police

 

“Senior military leaders, as Senator Durbin said, called 2006 the ‘Year of the Police.’  But when the time came to allocate resources to this fight, the police were second best, at best.  In Diyala, we continually stretched our resources to get the job done.  I had two military police platoons to cover a province of thousands of square kilometers, covering fifty police stations.  What this meant in practical terms was that we could visit each police station two to three times a month, but we could never quite partner with them and develop the close advisory relationship, the kind of relationship that would enable us to move forward in a meaningful way.” (Phillip Carter, Former Army Officer, 10/12/2006)

 

 

 

Whistleblowers, journalists and scholars have offered withering criticism of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the temporary governing body that the Bush Administration established shortly after the invasion of Iraq.  Staffed largely by young, inexperienced Americans who passed an ideological litmus test, the CPA left a legacy of poor policy decisions — from disbanding the Iraqi Army to pursuing inappropriate construction projects — and massive waste, fraud, and abuse.  Witnesses at DPC hearings have detailed many of these failings:

 

“CPA Was a Disaster”

 

“By almost all accounts, military, civilian, the media and even our Coalition partners, CPA was a disaster.  CPA was never able to get ahead of the curve of events.  CPA’s mistakes have been well documented from the broad de-Ba’athification process to the disbanding of the Iraqi Army.” (Gerald Burke, Former National Security Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, 10/12/2006)

 

CPA Played Fast and Loose with U.S. and Iraqi Cash

 

“[I]nexperienced officials, fear of decision-making, lack of communications, minimal security, no banks, and lots of money to spread around.  This chaos I have referred to as a ‘Wild West.’ …[W]as waste of taxpayer’s and Iraqi DFI dollars what it had to be?  Were inefficiencies at a high level inevitably mandated by the circumstances?   I would give a firm ‘No’ to both questions.” (Franklin Willis, Former CPA Official, 2/14/2005)

 

CPA Health Office Lacked Relevant Experience and Ignored Advice of International Health Professionals

 

“[T]he people who were put in charge of rebuilding the health sector didn’t know what they were doing.  What I mean by that is that the individual that was put in charge of the CPA and his entire staff, among them none of them had training in public health.  None of them had lived overseas.  And not one of them had participated in the reconstruction of a country following a disaster or a war.  We have people with those sorts of expertise in the United States, and some of them in the U.S. government.  But none of them were appointed to the CPA health office.” (Richard Garfield, Former CPA Advisor, Columbia University, 7/28/2006)

 

Bush Administration Ignored CPA Contractor Fraud

 

“I wish that I could tell you that the Bush Administration has done everything it could to detect and punish fraud in Iraq.  If I said that to you, though, I would be lying.  In [the case of Custer Battles], the Bush Administration has not lifted a finger to recover tens of millions of dollars that our whistleblowers allege was stolen from the government.” (Alan Grayson, Attorney for Whistleblowers, DPC Hearing, 2/14/2005)

 

 

 

Halliburton subsidiary KBR currently holds the global Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, under which it supplies U.S. troops in Iraq with food, water, fuel, entertainment, and other services, at a cost of more than $5 billion per year.  Former KBR employees have documented massive waste, fraud, and abuse relating to KBR’s work in Iraq under the LOGCAP contract, and Defense Department auditors have questioned more than $800 million in expenses that KBR charged to U.S. taxpayers.

 

Despite that public record, Senate Republicans have failed to hold a single oversight hearing on KBR’s performance under the LOGCAP contract.  Seeking to remedy this lapse in oversight, the DPC has uncovered the following abuses:

 

Defense Department’s Own Auditors Found over $800 Million in Questioned Costs under LOGCAP Contract

 

“[G]overnment auditors at the Defense Contract Audit Agency have identified more than $1 billion in ‘questioned’ Halliburton costs.  DCAA challenged most of these costs as ‘unreasonable in amount’ after completing audit action because they ‘exceed that which would be incurred by a prudent person.’  The auditors found…$813 million in questioned costs under Halliburton’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract to provide support services to the troops.” (Joint Report of Democratic Policy Committee and House Government Reform Committee Minority Staff, 6/27/2005)

 

Halliburton Failed to Test and Treat Water That Troops in Iraq Used to Shower and Bathe — Which Instead Tested Positive for E. Coli And Coliform Bacteria

 

“Mr. Gist told [Lieutenant] Strating he had concerns that the [Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit (ROWPU)] concentrate reject was being used to fill the water tanks…after hearing this [Lieutenant] Strating investigated.  He went to the water treatment site and followed the lines from the ROWPU concentrate drain to water trucks filling up with this water.  He then followed this truck and observed it pumping the water into the water storage tank at PAD 206.  The PM team tested the water at the ROWPU concentrate distribution point.  The results are as follows:…Coliform Positive, E. coli Positive…After discovering that KBR was filling the water storage tanks with ROWPU concentrate, [Lieutenant] Strating gathered the base mayor ([Colonel] Grayson), the Q-West KBR site manager (Bernardo Torres), Rachel Vanhorn (KRB LNO), Mathew Wallace (KBR ROWPU Manager) and Bill Gist (water quality technician) to the ROWPU site and told them all at the same time that he had identified that KBR was filling the water storage tanks with ROWPU concentrate.  Mr. Wallace stated that it has always been done this way and there is not a problem with it.  [Lietenant] Strating explained that it is against Army regulations (TB MED 577) to use ROWPU reject for personal hygiene.” (E-mail from Captain A. Michelle Callahan, Brigade Surgeon, 101^st Sustainment Brigade, 3/31/2006)

 

The Defense Contract Management Agency Has Confirmed That Halliburton Failed to Follow Proper Water-Handling Procedures

 

“[T]here was evidence suggesting that KBR was using outmoded and no-longer-valid procedures with regard to the obtainment and treatment of the water used for showering…On February 7, 2006, DCMA Northern Iraq issued to KBR a Corrective Action Request (CAR), citing questionable water-supply practices for non-potable water and prohibiting the use of brine water for any activities involving human contact.” (“Point Paper” Provided by Defense Contract Management Agency, 4/7/2006)

 

According to Its Own Theater Water Quality Manager, Halliburton Has Failed to Test Water at Locations Across Iraq

 

“I am also likely to believe that there is no documentation to support the 3x daily requirement for testing of shower/hygiene water (I apologize if I am wrong).  This is in TB MED 577 8-10.  This testing is required per our statement of work and I have yet to find an installation that does the required testing let alone has such documents to support their testing activities.” (E-mail from Wil Granger, 7/15/2005)

 

The Inspector General at the Department of Defense Has Ordered a Full Audit of the Provision of Potable and Non-potable Water to U.S. Facilities in Iraq.

 

“The overall objective of this audit will be to determine whether the processes for providing potable and non-potable water to U.S. forces in Iraq are adequate.  Although the congressional request identified an interest in only the processes for non-potable water, we expanded our objective to include potable water.” (Letter from Inspector General at the Department of Defense to Senator Dorgan, September 11, 2006)

 

Halliburton Served Spoiled and Expired Food to the Troops

 

“Food items were being brought into the base that were outdated or expired as much as a year.  We were told by the KBR food service managers to use these items anyway.  This food was fed to the troops.  A lot of these were frozen foods: chicken, beef, fish, and ice cream.  For trucks that were hit by convoy fire and bombings, we were told to go into the trucks and remove the food items and use them after removing the bullets and any shrapnel from the bad food that was hit.  We were told to turn the removed bullets over to the managers for souvenirs.” (Rory Mayberry, Former KBR Food Production Manager, 6/27/2005)

 

Halliburton Charged for Meals Never Served

 

“KBR charged the government for meals it never served to the troops.  Until late 2003, Anaconda was a transition site for army personnel.  Because there could be large numbers of extra personnel passing through everyday, KBR would charge for a surge capacity of 5,000 troops per meal.  However, KBR continued to charge for the extra headcount even after Anaconda was no longer a transition site.  When I questioned these practices, the managers told me that this needed to be done because KBR lost money in prior months, when the government suspended some of the dining hall payments to the company.  The managers said that they were adjusting the numbers to make up for the suspended payments.” (Rory Mayberry, former KBR Food Production Manager, 6/27/2005)

 

Halliburton Overcharged and Double-Charged for Cases of Soda

 

“Soft drink (consumable soda) costs of about $617,000 on one task order for about 2,500 personnel were listed as a morale and welfare-related cost.  Not only was the cost associated with individual drinks excessive, but it duplicated soft drinks included as part of food service costs.” (U.S. Army Audit Agency Report, 11/24/2004)

 

Halliburton Overcharged for Vanity Towels

 

“There also was a requisition for 2,500 towels for a MWR facility in Baghdad.  There were old quotes for ordinary towels.  The MWR manager changed the requisition by requesting upgraded towels with an embroidered MWR Baghdad logo.  He insisted on this embroidery, which you can see from this towel…The original purchase order for that, that I was discussing for these 2,500 towels was for towels at a price of .38KD which was roughly $1.60 a towel.  That towel [with the logo] would have cost around $4.50 and $5.50 per towel.” (Henry Bunting, former Halliburton employee, 2/13/2004)

 

Halliburton Wasted 50,000 Pounds of Nails

 

Testimony of Henry Bunting, former Halliburton employee, 2/13/2004:

 

QUESTION:  And there’s another element here that talks about an order for 50,000 lbs of nails…Wrong nails, wrong product?

 

BUNTING:  They were nails that were too short.  And the —

 

QUESTION:  Fifty thousand pounds of nails that were too short?

 

BUNTING:  Fifty thousand pounds.

 

QUESTION:  Sitting in a warehouse —

 

BUNTING:  No, not even sitting in a warehouse.  Just sitting on the ground.  They didn’t even have warehousing facilities.

 

Halliburton Torched New Trucks for Lack of Proper Equipment, Even in Safe Environments

 

Testimony of Richard Murphy, Iraq War veteran, 4/7/2006:

 

MURPHY:  We were conducting convoys from the South, from a base called Taleel and moving up North to Baghdad on a road in the middle of the desert, just about as safe as you can get in Iraq.  At one point, one of the trucks, one of the civilian trucks got a flat tire and they did not have the proper wrench to change the tire so the decision was made to torch the truck.

 

QUESTION:  Was it a new truck?

 

MURPHY:  Yes, Sir.

 

QUESTION:  So they did not have the proper wrench to change the tire so they made the decision to burn the truck?

 

MURPHY:  Yes, that was the story.

 

QUESTION:  I have heard that before but you actually saw the truck?

 

MURPHY:  Yes, Sir, I saw the truck.

 

Halliburton Discouraged Full Disclosure to Auditors

 

“When I was there, I heard that we had the auditors in and that we were not supposed to talk to the auditors; that was the quickest way home.” (Henry Bunting, Former Halliburton Employee, 2/13/2004)

 

Halliburton Put a Whistleblower under Armed Guard

 

Testimony of Julie McBride, former KBR Morale, Welfare & Recreation Officer, 9/18/2006:

 

MCBRIDE:  When I went to Baghdad, I gave an administrator a three-sheet report where I stated some of the observations that I’ve told this committee today, in regard to the accounting that was being done in the [Morale, Welfare & Recreation] department.  In fact, I called it “cooking the books in true Enron style.”  It was at that point that I was put under guard.

 

QUESTION:  And you were kept under guard until they transported you out of the country?

 

MCBRIDE:  Yes, sir.

 

Halliburton Offered to Nominate Wounded Truck Drivers for a Defense Department Medal And Asked Them to Sign a Necessary Medical Records Release — Which Also Contained a Full Liability Waiver

 

“In that letter, they actually — that letter says it is a medical release form.  They mislead the truck driver, tell him it’s a medical release form and we’re going to supply your records to the Pentagon so you can receive a government medal which was created on 9/11, the Defense of Freedom Medal.  And then they have, to an uneducated person, a release of liability included with it.” (T. Scott Allen, Attorney for Former KBR Truck Drivers, 9/18/2006)

 

 

 

On March 8, 2003, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary KBR a no-bid contract worth up to $7 billion to repair anticipated damage to Iraqi oil fields.  When the oil fields survived the invasion with less damage than expected, KBR was instead paid to transport fuel from Kuwait into Iraq, and to upgrade the Iraqi oil infrastructure.

 

When the Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract was first awarded, the top civilian contracting officer at the Army Corps of Engineers vociferously objected to the lack of any competitive bidding.  At a DPC hearing in 2005, she testified that the award of the RIO contract was “the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”  Other witnesses testified that Halliburton dramatically overcharged for work under that contract, and failed to complete necessary oil infrastructure projects.

 

Defense Department Auditors have now questioned more than $200 million in costs that Halliburton charged to taxpayers under its RIO contract.  Nonetheless, Republican-controlled standing committees have yet to hold a single hearing on either the RIO contract or the failure to repair Iraq’s oil infrastructure.  The DPC has sought to fill that void, documenting the following facts through its oversight hearings:

 

Halliburton’s No-Bid Contract to Rebuild Iraqi Oil Infrastructure Was Worst Contract Abuse Top Army Corps Civilian Had Ever Seen

 

“The abuse I observed called into question the independence of the [Army Corps of Engineers] contracting process.  I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.” (Bunnatine Greenhouse, Formerly Highest-Ranking Army Corps Civilian, 6/27/2005)

 

Defense Department’s Own Auditors Found over $200 Million in Questioned Costs under LOGCAP Contract

 

“[G]overnment auditors at the Defense Contract Audit Agency have identified more than $1 billion in ‘questioned’ Halliburton costs.  DCAA challenged most of these costs as ‘unreasonable in amount’ after completing audit action because they ‘exceed that which would be incurred by a prudent person.’  The auditors found…$219 million in questioned costs under the company’s Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure’” (Joint Report of Democratic Policy Committee and House Government Reform Committee Minority Staff, 6/27/2005)

 

Halliburton Overcharged by 600 Percent for Delivery of Fuel from Kuwait to Iraq

 

Testimony of Gary Butters, Chairman of Lloyd-Owen International, 6/27/2005:

 

QUESTION:  You testified, with your company’s help, another company called Geotech was transporting Kuwaiti fuel to Iraq at a cost of 18 cents per gallon.  Is that correct?

 

BUTTERS:  That’s correct.

 

QUESTION:  Now, let’s compare this to Halliburton’s costs.  Halliburton charged $1.30 per gallon to deliver gasoline from Kuwait.  In other words, they charged over seven times more than you do.  In your view, is there any way to justify such a large price difference?

 

BUTTERS:  Frankly, there isn’t.

 

Halliburton Failed to Complete Oil Infrastructure Work

 

“I would have to say that with the fuel distribution program, that there was none.  We were asked to initially assess our distribution points prior to delivery.  We have not, to date, seen a functioning KBR piece of equipment to where we deliver, that is Mufriq, Shibar (ph), Nasariyah, Samawah, Diwaniyah, Amarah, Kut, Najaf, Karrada (ph) and Hillah.  We have had to purchase equipment in order for us to download fuel such as generators, pumps, hoses, couplings.  Otherwise, it would not happen.” (Alan Waller, CEO of Lloyd-Owen International, 6/27/2005)