Report: Senators seek answers on KBR overcharges
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(AP:WASHINGTON) Two senators have asked the Pentagon to do more to reclaim $100 million worth of overcharges paid to subcontractors of defense contractor Kellogg Brown & Root, The New York Times reported Sunday.
In a letter dated Friday, Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, also said the Army hasn't done enough to make the rewarding of logistics contracts in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan more competitive. The Times said it had obtained a copy of the letter sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
McCaskill and Collins are, respectively, the chairman and ranking Republican on a contracting oversight subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Several former KBR officials have acknowledged taking kickbacks from subcontractors who then overcharged the Pentagon for work done overseas.
Heather L. Brown, a spokeswoman for KBR, as the contractor is now known, told the Times that its recent logistics contracts have been won competitively. And a spokesman for the Army Sustainment Command said other companies had been granted contracts in Kuwait and Afghanistan since the process became more competitive.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting, a bipartisan legislative group, is holding a hearing on logistics contracts on Capitol Hill on Monday.
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