Sep 29th, 2003, 02:36 PM
Why does the pentagon award no-bid contracts?
Isn't that anti-capitalist and a waste of taxpayer money? With the Govt. asking $78 Billion more for Iraq, wouldn't you like to know we were at least trying to find contractors who could get the job done without paying say $4000 per cell phone?
Tim Russert asked Dick Chenney why he thought no bid contracts were being awarded. He said: " I have no idea. Go ask the Corps of Engineers. " As a taxpayer, I find that answer a little flip. He really has no idea at all? And he isn't even a little curious, when one of the companies getting fat no bid contracts is one he used to run? And in which he still owns 433,333 stock options that are getting more valuable every day, even though he said on that same episode of Meet The Press
"Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years."
Here's an article from some folks who are wondering the same thing.
US Senators aim to prevent no-bid Iraq contracts
By Susan Cornwell for Rueters
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Two U.S. senators launched an effort on Friday to require the government to seek competitive bids on Iraq contracts or explain why not, in a move aimed at preventing no-bid or limited bidding arrangements that have benefited companies like Halliburton and Bechtel.
Maine Republican Susan Collins and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden said adding their measure to President George W. Bush's $87 billion Iraq spending request would require agencies to notify Congress of sole source or limited bid contracts.
''The Iraqi contract process looks like Dodge City before the Marshalls showed up,'' Wyden charged at a news conference. ''It just doesn't pass the smell test to have companies not be part of the competitive bidding process.''
Costs under the no-bid contract won by a unit of Houston-based Halliburton (HAL.N), Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm, in March, reached $1.2 billion as of Sept. 25 and may reach $2 billion before it is replaced by a new competitive contract, Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Scott Saunders said on Friday.
The replacement contract is expected to be announced next month. The Halliburton unit, Kellogg Brown & Root, has put in a bid to continue its work.
Questions have been raised in Congress over the role of Halliburton in Iraq and whether its close ties to the administration helped secure the work. Cheney has strongly rejected this claim.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has also come under fire for the limited bidding process it used to award a contract in Iraq, now worth about $1 billion, to construction company Bechtel. The agency says routine bidding rules would have slowed down the process.
Collins said she did not know whether existing rules on open contracting had been followed when Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root was awarded the Iraqi oil work.
The law on open bidding does allow some exceptions, Collins said. Congress' watchdog, the General Accounting Office, is conducting an in-depth review of contracts already awarded in Iraq.
Army Corps spokesman Saunders said the KBR contract was handled correctly. Someone was urgently needed to put out Iraqi oil fires and start repairs, and KBR was already in the region on a separate logistical support contract, he said.
The logistical support contract has now risen to $1.6 billion, an Army Field Support Command spokesman said.
The Senate already passed a proposal similar to the Wyden-Collins amendment this year. In May it voted to force the Pentagon to seek competitive bids to repair Iraq's damaged oil fields, tacking the language onto a Defense Department bill. But the vote only affected money in that bill, Collins said.
Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 to 2000. His Halliburton links have come under scrutiny recently.
He denied on a Sunday television program that he still had any financial interest in Halliburton. But this week the Congressional Research Service concluded that his deferred compensation arrangement with Halliburton and unexercised stop options were in fact financial interests in the company.
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