NY Times: No Evidence of Halliburton Profiteering
Monday Dec. 29, 2003; 4:13 p.m. EST
A comprehensive investigation into Halliburton's multibillion-dollar contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure shows "no evidence of profiteering" by the Houston-based oil services company.
That's the verdict by the New York Times, which assigned its Whitewater sleuth Jeff Gerth and investigative ace Don Van Atta to lay bare all the tawdry details of how Vice President Dick Cheney's former company was reaping big-bucks profits from sweetheart deals imagined by Democrats.
One problem: Gerth and Van Atta found almost nothing for Dems to hang their hats on. In fact, not only couldn't the Times find any evidence that Halliburton was stuffing its pockets under-the-table - even the aboveboard revenue collected by the company hasn't been much to write home about.
"So far this year, Halliburton's profits from Iraq have been minimal," the Times admitted. "The company's latest report to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows $1.3 billion in revenues from work in Iraq and $46 million in pretax profits for the first nine months of 2003."
That's a slender 3.5 percent margin, hardly enough to make any self-respecting war profiteer look twice. No wonder this story hasn't been leading TV and radio news reports all day.
Too be sure, Times editors did their best to make it sound as if something fishy was going on. The report's front-page headline - "Halliburton Contracts in Iraq: The Struggle to Manage Costs" - gave no clue to the exoneration that followed.
And subheadlines like "Little Public Disclosure" and "An Absence of Competition" hinted darkly of shady deals where Cheney's friends were lining their pockets with blood money.
But even the Times had to admit that Halliburton's original Iraq contract was won "in a bidding process in December 2001."
What about that widely cited report last month claiming the company had overpaid by as much as 100 percent for Kuwaiti gasoline? Turns out that news is pretty much a political bust, too.
Company spokeswoman Wendy Hall explained that the Army Corps of Engineers needed the fuel imported to Iraq within 24-hours - not much time to launch a competitive bidding process.
"There's a premium for getting it done fast," explained Gordon Adams, a military procurement expert at George Washington University.
Anyone who disagrees ought to try sending all their mail by next-day-air and see what happens to their postage budget.
Another factor that sent job cost estimates through the roof: sabotage by terrorists.
"As the war wound down, more work came [Halliburton subsidiary] KBR's way, mostly because of acts of sabotage on pipelines and Iraq's oil facilities," the Times noted. "When security problems made the production of fuel inside Iraq even more difficult -- leading to shortages -- the government asked Halliburton to import fuel."
If the Times' report on Cheney's old company is the best the Democrats can do, it's time for Terry McAuliffe to begin searching for a new campaign boogeyman ASAP.http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/12/29/165459.shtml |
