Criminal probe into Halliburton?
thestar.com
"Three U.S. lawmakers say Pentagon criminal investigators have been asked to look into whether a unit of Halliburton Co., the oil-services company once headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney, overcharged for fuel trucked into Iraq.
But the Pentagon's inspector-general's office said yesterday no official decision has been made on which way a possible investigation will go since military auditors from the Defense Contract Audit Agency referred the pricing issue to the inspector-general earlier this week.
The office "is still in the process of assessing the referral" from the audit agency. "There has been no official decision made regarding this matter," said a defence official, who declined to comment further.
Trucking in fuel was part of a no-bid contract given to Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. to rebuild Iraq's oil industry. Yesterday, KBR was awarded one of two follow-on contracts to the earlier deal. KBR got a $1.2 billion (U.S.) contract to restore Iraq's southern oil fields, while a contract for the northern fields, worth up to $800 million, went to U.S. construction giant Parsons Corp. and partner for the work, Worley Group Ltd. of Australia. The larger contract was worth about $1.6 billion (Canadian) at yesterday's exchange rate.
The Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton the benefit of any doubt in awarding the contract, Dow Jones Newswires quoted a spokesperson as saying.
"If they are doing something wrong, they will be caught," said Ross Adkins.
Halliburton said the new contract validated all the work the company had done in Iraq under the first contract, which has given the company $2.3 billion (U.S.) in business so far.
"This decision is an endorsement of the courageous work being done by Halliburton's employees in Iraq," Dave Lesar, Halliburton's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
The three Democratic lawmakers said they were told by the inspector-general's staff Thursday the pricing issue had been referred to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.
The information on a possible criminal probe was released in a letter to Pentagon Inspector-General Joseph Schmitz by the three lawmakers, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Representatives Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan..." |
