Top Twenty Iraq Oversight Outrages Uncovered by the Democratic Policy
Committee
(Why we need a change of leadership and a Congress that will do the oversight and enforce corrective action.)
Over the last three years, Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) hearings have uncovered massive waste, fraud, and abuse relating to government contractors operating in Iraq. This report presents twenty of the worst oversight outrages, as documented in testimony and evidence presented at DPC hearings:
1) Halliburton billed taxpayers $1.4 billion in questionable and undocumented charges under its contract to supply troops in Iraq, as documented by the Pentagon’s own auditors.
2) Parsons billed taxpayers over $200 million under a contract to build 142 health clinics, yet completed fewer than 20. According to Iraqi officials, the rest were ‘imaginary clinics.’
3) Custer Battles stole forklifts from Iraq’s national airline, repainted them, then leased the forklifts back to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) through a Cayman Islands shell company – charging an extra fee along the way.
4) Halliburton allowed our troops in Iraq to shower, bathe, and sometimes brush their teeth with water that tested positive for e. coli and coliform bacteria. One expert has said that the troops would have been better off using the highly polluted Euphrates River. Halliburton has admitted that it lacked ‘an organizational structure to ensure that water was being treated in accordance with Army standards and its contractual requirements.’ (It’s hard to shoot straight when you’re bent over clutching your stomach.)
5) Halliburton served the troops food that had spoiled or passed its expiration date. Halliburton managers ordered employees to remove bullets from food in trucks that had come under attack, then saved the bullets as souvenirs while giving the food to unwitting soldiers and Marines. (It’s hard to pursue the enemy with your pants down around your ankles.)
6) Halliburton charged taxpayers for services that it never provided and tens of thousands of meals that it never served.
7) Halliburton double-charged taxpayers for $617,000 worth of soda.
8) Halliburton tripled the cost of hand towels, at taxpayer expense, by insisting on having its own embroidered logo on each towel.
9) Halliburton employees burned new trucks on the side of the road because they didn’t have the right wrench to change a tire – and knew that the trucks could be replaced on a profitable ‘cost-plus’ basis, at taxpayer expense.
10) Halliburton employees dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they ordered the wrong size, all at taxpayer expense.
11) Halliburton employees threw themselves a lavish Super Bowl Party, but passed the cost on to taxpayers by claiming they had purchased supplies for the troops.
12) Halliburton chose a subcontractor to build an ice factory in the desert even though its bid was 800 percent higher than an equally qualified bidder.
13) Halliburton actively discouraged cooperation with U.S. government auditors, sent one whistleblower into a combat zone to keep him away from auditors, and put another whistleblower under armed guard before kicking her out of the country.
14) Halliburton sent unarmed truck drivers into a known combat zone without warning them of the danger, resulting in the deaths of six truck drivers and two soldiers. Halliburton then offered to nominate the surviving truck drivers for a Defense Department medal – provided they sign a medical records release that doubled as a waiver of any right to seek legal recourse against the company.
15) Halliburton’s no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure was the worst case of contract abuse that the top civilian at the Army Corps of Engineers had ever seen. She was demoted after speaking out.
16) Under its no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure contract, Halliburton overcharged by over 600 percent for the delivery of fuel from Kuwait.
17) Halliburton failed to complete required work under its oil infrastructure work, leaving distribution points unusable.
18) Iraq under the CPA was like the ‘Wild West,’ with few limits and controls over how inexperienced officials spent – and wasted – millions of taxpayer dollars.
19) Cronies at the CPA’s health office lacked experience, ignored the advice of international health professionals, failed to restore Iraq’s health systems, and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. The political appointee who ran the office had never worked overseas and had no international public health experience.
20) Administration officials promoted construction of a ‘boondoggle’ children’s hospital in Basra, which ended up more than a year behind schedule and at least 100 percent over budget.
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Regards,
Jim
Andy Hailey