FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FOR MORE
INFORMATION:
Halliburton Criminal
Investigation Important First Step to
Reign in War
Profiteers, Say Advocates
DURHAM, N.C. – News
reports today that Pentagon officials have opened a criminal fraud
investigation of Halliburton to examine overcharging the government for gasoline
in Iraq are an important first step – but point to the need for additional
action by the President and Congress, according to the Campaign to Stop the War
Profiteers.
“Halliburton
has overcharged by at least $61 million for gasoline brought in from Kuwait to
Iraq; Halliburton employees took at least $6.3 million in kickbacks for
steering a subcontract for Iraq rebuilding to a Kuwaiti firm; and Halliburton
was charging the government for three times as many meals as it was actually
serving to U.S. soldiers in Kuwait over a nine month period,” says William Hartung, senior fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School and
author of a forthcoming book on war profiteering. “In short,
Halliburton is a desperate firm with a history of shaky ethical practices that
is being allowed to take
“The Pentagon’s
decision to investigate criminal wrong-doing by Halliburton is commendable and
an important first step,” noted Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for
Southern Studies and co-director of the Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers. “However,
a much broader inquiry into the politics of contract decisions, and the performance
of corporations that have been given billions of taxpayer dollars, is still
needed.”
Kromm noted
that government agencies have yet to investigate San Francisco-based Bechtel
which, despite being given over a billion for various reconstruction projects
in
Keith Ashdown,
Vice-President of Policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, further stated, “Recent
revelations about questionable billing and procurement practices have raised
important questions about the quality of government oversight in Iraq and
whether the Bush Administration is adequately protecting the interests of
American taxpayers. Hundreds of millions
of dollars are being wasted as a result of unscrupulous conduct by contractors
and lax government controls and oversight. A bipartisan, independent commission
is needed to review the performance of contractors under existing contracts and
monitor the letting of subcontracts.”
Campaign organizers say the ongoing revelations of war
profiteering and the Pentagon criminal investigation add urgency to the
following demands:
n Establish A Bipartisan War Profiteering Commission: Congress should establish a bipartisan commission based on the
Truman Committee model with the goal of rooting out waste and malfeasance. The
committee would have the power to subpoena the appropriate parties and conduct
far-ranging investigations into the nature of the contracting process, and thus
will perform an important public service to
n End “Cost-Plus” Contracts. As whistleblower and former Halliburton
purchasing officer Henry Bunting stated in recent testimony to the Senate
Democratic Policy Committee, Halliburton’s unofficial motto in Iraq is ‘don't worry
about it, it's cost-plus.’ Cost-Plus contracts remove any incentive for
corporations to reduce costs; the greater the cost incurred in the project, the
greater the profit for the company.
A network of
organizations around the world have announced today as a ‘Day of Action’
against corporate war profiteering, with events in
The Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers is a national initiative
of the Institute for Southern Studies, a non-profit research, education and
action center based in
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