Details the myriad illegal, immoral, and unethical activities of Dick Cheney when CEO of Halliburton, his obstruction of justice, and lies to the American public since his appointment as Vice President. For information on an equally corrupt politician, see link to Tom DeLay-Corporate Whore. Be sure to visit our cavernous vault of archives.

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Testimony expected to detail Halliburton's alleged profiteering

By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Washington Post    July 22, 2004

WASHINGTON -- In the spring of 2003, not long after John Mancini arrived in Kuwait City as a procurement employee for Halliburton Co., he came to an unsettling conclusion: No one cared about his skill at buying goods and making sure government money was wisely spent.

Over the next three months, Mancini said in a recent interview, he watched as colleagues at Halliburton subsidiary KBR paid inflated fees for cellphone services, bought hundreds of rolls of duct tape for $60 each, and obscured the waste by failing to file paperwork properly. In one case, he said, a fellow procurement employee recorded a multimillion-dollar purchase as a $200 order, then dismissed it as a mistake.

After he and others raised questions, Mancini said, the company sent in a team to prepare for government audits. "The waste was unbelievable," said Mancini, who left KBR after three months. "This was pure negligence."

Stories like Mancini's will be the focus of a hearing today by the House Committee on Government Reform, as it examines allegations of waste, abuse, and profiteering related to the Army's contracts in Iraq with Halliburton, the oil services company that Dick Cheney ran from 1995 to 2000, before he was vice president.

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said that she did not know the particulars of Mancini's allegations, but that the company would look into them.

Mancini is not scheduled to testify, but the committee will hear from several KBR executives. Halliburton officials have acknowledged some misspending in Iraq, including $6 million in overcharges the company repaid, but have said repeatedly that the company is doing a good job overall.

"KBR is pleased to have the opportunity to appear before the Committee . . . so we may describe our efforts in Iraq to support our troops in a very difficult, demanding, and dangerous mission," Hall wrote in an e-mail. "We recognize that any effort like this demands oversight."

The hearing is shaping up as a political sparring match over Halliburton because of the Cheney connection. The minority Democrats, led by Henry Waxman of California, pressured Republicans leaders to allow whistle-blowers to testify, in part to promote the company as an election year issue.

Committee chairman Thomas Davis III, Republican of Virginia, said "the so-called whistle-blowers" simply misunderstood the logistical reality of life during wartime. He said he was giving the Democrats an opportunity "to put up or shut up" on an issue that would not go away.

"They're taking a series of anecdotes and trying to turn them into some kind of scandal," Davis said in an interview yesterday.

Under a wide-ranging contract called LogCAP, Halliburton furnished the Army with logistical support throughout the Middle East. It was guaranteed a certain level of profit and could pass on all costs to the government, with the assumption that it would operate efficiently. Halliburton has been awarded work in Iraq worth about $5.6 billion through May, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

Scheduled to testify are several former employees interviewed earlier by Waxman's staff. One told of filling out time cards saying he worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, even though he put in no more than a week's worth of labor. Another said the company removed spare tires from new Mercedes and Volvo trucks, then abandoned one that had a flat tire.