Contractor served troops dirty food in dirty kitchens

December 14, 2003 4:32 PM

Contractor Halliburton served troops dirty food in dirty kitchensWell, Bush served up clean turkey and these guys were busy overcharging the Pentagon on energy so they could reap big bucks...Cheney remains in his gopher hole.
posted by Postroad (22 comments total)

I also read that a Halliburton employee bumped into an Iraqi car while trying to park, and left without a note.

Add that to the List of Reasons Why Americans Shouldn't Vote for Bushitler and his Cronys of Evil.
posted by Seth at 4:39 PM on December 14, 2003

Bushitler and his Cronys of Evil

Coincidentally, that's the name of my punk band.
posted by pemulis at 5:04 PM on December 14, 2003

Postroad: first of all they were overcharging and paying the overcharge to a subcontractor, so Halliburton didn't make a dime out of the deal. The argument is whether they did enough oversight before awarding the subcontract. Score 1 for possible neglect over corruption.

Second of all, god knows what kind of TOE Brown & Root have for field kitchens. Probably just a fraction of what an organic military mess could provide, in both equipment and personnel. I suspect that they are being pushed *way* over normal volume of meals/day.
posted by kablam at 5:15 PM on December 14, 2003

Look out for Jesus!
posted by damnitkage at 5:25 PM on December 14, 2003

Cheney is not in a 'gopher hole', he is in an "Undisclosed Secure Location".
posted by rough ashlar at 5:42 PM on December 14, 2003

Check their web sites. Tons of available jobs for you concerned citizens to join the cause and better the situation.
posted by HTuttle at 5:54 PM on December 14, 2003

I am shocked -- shocked! -- to have my illusions about institutional food services operated on government contract shattered! Two proud fields with a long history of quality craftsmanship, yet when combined they are somehow lesser!
posted by majick at 6:15 PM on December 14, 2003

$28 dollars a day per soldier. I do $12/day myself, and while I'm not fighting in a combat zone, I'm not eating caffeteria food either. I do eat on the cheap, though. What is the amount the average person spends on food every day?
posted by Hildago at 6:27 PM on December 14, 2003

Second of all, god knows what kind of TOE Brown & Root have for field kitchens. Probably just a fraction of what an organic military mess could provide, in both equipment and personnel. I suspect that they are being pushed *way* over normal volume of meals/day.

Maybe if they had bid competitively on the contract in the first place, it would have been better known if they had the capacity to handle that volume.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 6:39 PM on December 14, 2003

Yeah I thought $28 is high also but consider this is all processed crap that has to be kept frozen and shipped through multiple hops around the world.
posted by stbalbach at 6:47 PM on December 14, 2003

I bet the blood they found on the floor (mentioned in the article) comes directly from Bush and Dick's hands.
posted by Peter H at 8:18 PM on December 14, 2003

Gopher hole? Don't you mean spider hole?
posted by spilon at 8:24 PM on December 14, 2003

and where's cheney? in his shithole? what was all that blasting under his house a few years ago? anyone ever find out?
posted by quonsar at 8:54 PM on December 14, 2003

bitch ass little hidey holes.
posted by specialk420 at 9:27 PM on December 14, 2003

^ wow that's not funny!
posted by Slimemonster at 11:58 PM on December 14, 2003

kablam,

Can you link to who the subcontractor is? That's the first time I've heard that and forgive me but I'm very skeptical of your claim.

No-bid contracts, the free market at work lowering the price ..err.. quality of goods our tax dollars purchase. Or something like that.

Who's for more no-bid contracts for Cheney's buddies? Don't try to skip to the front fo the line now Seth!
posted by nofundy at 5:01 AM on December 15, 2003

specialK, holy cow, that link made me laugh until I cried. Too funny.
posted by a3matrix at 9:02 AM on December 15, 2003

Comics, critics pounce on Halliburton 's bid flap

Troll the Web and up pops a scowling Vice President Dick Cheney on a humor site declaring: "I did not have financial relations with that company."

Meaning, of course, Houston's Halliburton Co.

Tune in to David Letterman and hear his commentary on the $87 billion price tag for rebuilding Iraq: "And when you make out that check, remember there are two L's in Halliburton."

Or flip to the funny pages, where Doonesbury character Duke insists: "If we get gouged, we'll know it's Halliburton."

Everyone in Houston knows that Halliburton is the world's second-largest oil field services firm, that it built the Rice Stadium, Johnson Space Center and Minute Maid Park, and that its people serve up chow at U.S. military bases in Iraq.

But nationally, Halliburton has become a punch line -- and a political lightning rod.

Yeah, it's really an amazing coincidence that no-bid contracts for cleaning up a war went to a company whose "former" (but currently drawing "deferred" pay) company officials started that war.

I also read that a Halliburton employee bumped into an Iraqi car while trying to park, and left without a note.

Really, Seth? Maybe you could post the link where you read it. Or maybe you could just get called out again for yet another of the straw men you stuffed -- cutting and running instead of trying to actually refute any criticism of Bush.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:23 PM on December 15, 2003

In other news, soldiers complain about being attacked by insurgents, list dirty food as the least of their worries.
posted by h00dini at 2:57 PM on December 15, 2003

nofundy: "...Pentagon officials said Thursday that Halliburton's Kuwaiti subcontractor apparently charged too much for the gasoline. Halliburton's president, Dave Lesar, said the Kuwaiti firm was the only one that met the contract's requirements...

The article continues with what the profit would have been to Halliburton for the overcharge: something between $1.2 and $4.3 million. At the same time, their Turkish subcontractor was *not* overcharging for fuel, so Halliburton was not overcharging across the board.

As I stated above, the main criticism of Halliburton has shifted away from accusations of profiteering *in this case*, to having made a poor selection of a Kuwaiti subcontractor to deliver the oil--which Halliburton contests, as they said above.

However, even if Halliburton has to remit the entire $61M, it will still be peanuts compared to their multi-billion contracts elsewhere.
posted by kablam at 8:23 PM on December 15, 2003

Thanks for the link kablam.

For some reason I thought we were discussing the food preparation services of Halliburton but the link you provide does somewhat ameliorate the charges against the company in regards to fuel distribution.

Do note however that the top level contractor (no-bid and all) guarantees themselves a comfortable profit at nearly no risk.

Cost-plus no-bid contracts are a losing proposition for the taxpayer any way you slice it and is just plain wrong.

Would anyone deny Halliburton was awarded many of its no-bid contracts specifically because of close ties to the aWol cabal and not because of the "cost benefits of privatization?"
posted by nofundy at 5:13 AM on December 16, 2003

kablam:

Of course, the NYT had the fuller story. In addition to passing the buck from their subcontractor ("The government's accounting shows that Halliburton paid its Kuwait subcontractor $1.17 a gallon, when it was selling for 71 cents a gallon wholesale in the Middle East") there is also the niggling concern of a 26-cent per-gallon overhead:

Halliburton, which has the exclusive United States contract to import fuel into Iraq, subcontracts the work to a Kuwaiti firm, government officials said. But Halliburton gets 26 cents a gallon for its overhead and fee, according to documents from the Army Corps of Engineers....

...A company's profits on the transport and sale of gasoline are usually razor-thin, with companies losing contracts if they overbid by half a penny a gallon. Independent experts who reviewed Halliburton's percentage of its gas importation contract said the company's 26-cent charge per gallon of gas from Kuwait appeared to be extremely high.

"I have never seen anything like this in my life," said Phil Verleger, a California oil economist and the president of the consulting firm PK Verleger LLC. "That's a monopoly premium — that's the only term to describe it. Every logistical firm or oil subsidiary in the United States and Europe would salivate to have that sort of contract."

While the Army Corps of Engineers has decided that it only cares about Halliburton's passing of the buck on the (admittedly much greater) overcharging by the subcontractor, it would not be accurate to say that "the main criticism" of Halliburton has shifted away from profiteering. Most people outside of the Pentagon still accuse them of that.

And for HTuttle:

If you can't beat him, join him? I'm not sure how I could have an effect on Halliburton policy working as an intern or whatnot -- if I had scads of money, I might buy enough of their stock to get on their board, but alas, I am lacking in the scads of money department. Care to, ah, ameliorate that problem, mate? ;)
posted by Ptrin at 8:03 AM on December 16, 2003