US Army to Rebid Halliburton Contracts

September 7, 2004 10:44 AM

US Army to Rebid Halliburton Contracts
Looks like Halliburton's about to lose its sweetheart deal as the US Army looks to rebidthe contracts.
"Pentagon auditors last month "strongly" urged the Army to withhold paying 15 percent of Halliburton's bills in Iraq, saying the company had not provided enough details to support at least $1.82 billion out of $4.3 billion of logistical work."
Insert inappropriate snide political comment here.
posted by fenriq (26 comments total)

Last time haliburton was fined they simply stopped paying their sub-contractors who were feeding the soldiers, and they had to eat sandwiches.

Wonder what they'll do to retaliate over a billion dollars.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:51 AM on September 7, 2004

Insert APPROPRIATE snide political comment here.
posted by jmccorm at 10:59 AM on September 7, 2004

Phew! This means that all that talk of favours and money to Haliburton because of their ties to the administration was wrong, right? Clearly if there was a conspiracy afoot, the contract would never be re-bid. Unless this is a clever ruse to throw everyone off the track!

Regardless, I have no idea what the story or context is here because the Reuters story linked to is about 3 paragraphs long with hardly any detail or background.
posted by loquax at 11:00 AM on September 7, 2004

Isn't it interesting, the things that can happen in an election year?
posted by SisterHavana at 11:22 AM on September 7, 2004

I can't wait for Michael Moore to tell me I shouldn't vote for Bush because he can't keep his corrupt promises to his oily capitalist friends.
posted by techgnollogic at 11:26 AM on September 7, 2004

Clearly if there was a conspiracy afoot, the contract would never be re-bid.

Clearly if there was a "conspiracy" afoot (simple greed by any other name is "conspiracy" to some, one supposes), the contract would never be re-bid....unless decent people hadn't uncovered Halliburton's sordid history and practices and started howling about it.

I can't wait for Bush/Cheney apologists to explain to us how Bush/Cheney's corrupt relationships with their oily capitalist friends haven't just been an outright shakedown of the United States military, America, and Iraq. Really. I can't wait.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 11:34 AM on September 7, 2004

I think this is the part where Dick Cheney turns into Spiro Agnew.
posted by clevershark at 11:42 AM on September 7, 2004

I think techgnollogic is David Dark is 111. Same M.O.

Halliburton will find a way to make that money back when Bush/Cheney attack Iran. Coming to a theater near you!
posted by Outlawyr at 11:49 AM on September 7, 2004

loquax, for your sake:

Story: The Army is in the process of bidding out parts of Haliburton's 13 billion dollar service contract in Iraq.

Context: Haliburton won the contract in a no-bid fiat, and Army auditors have found that Haliburton has not fulfilled more than 1.8 billion dollars of the contract. Other news reports have linked the immediacy of the Army's decision to request bids on the contracts with the auditors' discoveries.

Does that help?
posted by Ptrin at 11:50 AM on September 7, 2004

War is good for (some peoples') economy.
posted by jackspace at 11:59 AM on September 7, 2004

Does that help?

It would, if it was 1962 and I didn't have access to 24 hour news channels and the internet. Given that I do, I would expect a little substance more in a post here than a reuters link if a subject if to be discussed seriously. I know it's the first day of school and all, but still.
posted by loquax at 12:10 PM on September 7, 2004

I can't wait for Michael Moore to tell me I shouldn't vote for Bush because he can't keep his corrupt promises to his oily capitalist friends.

That's sort of like saying "the war can't be about oil because oil prices are still sky-high". The answer is, that they fucked it up. They do that a lot.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:10 PM on September 7, 2004

at least $1.82 billion out of $4.3 billion

At least.

Marshall Plan in 2004 dollars: $100 billion

Iraq, mission accomplished, moving quickly in reverse: $200 billion

Marshall Plan being a success is probably due to a lack of Feith. :-)
posted by nofundy at 12:13 PM on September 7, 2004

Phew! This means that all that talk of favours and money to Haliburton because of their ties to the administration was wrong, right?

Maybe they just wanted this all to go away before grand juries were convened and the VPOTUS was indicted--or at least before formal investigations were launched in an election year?
posted by jpoulos at 12:15 PM on September 7, 2004

Enough Feith-based policies already.
posted by clevershark at 12:18 PM on September 7, 2004

Call me picky if you wish, but how are these contracts going to be "re-bid" if they were no-bid contracts in the first place?
posted by clevershark at 1:02 PM on September 7, 2004

Regardless, I have no idea what the story or context is here because the Reuters story linked to is about 3 paragraphs long with hardly any detail or background.

No one said it was a good MeFi post. You said you didn't understand the story, so I explained it to you. Do you understand it now, or no? This question is separate from the question of whether our time would be better spent in the It Girl post than in this bit of skeletal newsfilter.
posted by Ptrin at 1:05 PM on September 7, 2004

Perhaps Halliburton failed in these no-bid contracts because they were casting Perle's before swine?

Good thing we've got the CEO Presidency and an executive branch that's "run like a business" to straighten things out for us or our country might go into default!

Good thing Bush hired so many good people to work for him, eh?
posted by nofundy at 1:08 PM on September 7, 2004

I thought it preferable to link to the Reuters root story rather than the Yahoo syndicated version. I wasn't aware that I had to post multiple sources for the news, I always forget that I'm the only who get access to Google. Besides, half the fun in a thread like this is the continual discovery of more and more news backing it up.

Sorry, loquax. I'll try better in the future.

Clevershark, a good point indeed!
posted by fenriq at 1:14 PM on September 7, 2004

I think techgnollogic is David Dark is 111. Same M.O.

If that were true, he'd have misquoted Aristotle, kissed up to Matt and accused us all of being gay and/or stalinists.
posted by signal at 1:26 PM on September 7, 2004

Halliburton may not rebid on contracts that it never bid on in the first place since they were awarded no-bid.
Poor Halliburton, not willing to scrabble over a mere $13 billion in rebuilding money. Said Dave Lesar, CEO of Halliburton, "I'm not sure we're going to rebid if it's hacked into too many pieces in Iraq. If we do choose to rebid, we're going to jack the margins up significantly," said Lesar, whose comments to an analysts' conference in New York were broadcast on the Internet." Un-fucking-believable!
posted by fenriq at 1:48 PM on September 7, 2004

ken lay was finally indicted

that barnes guy who kept W out of Nam is talking to 60 minutes

embarassing gov't memos 'leaked'

halliburton losing its contracts

these all seem to indicate an ebbing W influence, and a rising number of powerful people turning against him. Think of Ben Barnes. While gtech was about to lose its contract, the information Barnes held was worth literally billions. Now what is it worth with all those Iraq contracts and a presidency in jeopardy? There is big money making him talk. Those memos? they don't hand them out of interns - powerful people mailed their copies to the press.

Fuck the polls. Everyone says its the big money that decides politics - and its beginning to look like the faceless money ruling class is turning its back on bush. This gives me hope... in a sick sad sorta way.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 2:09 PM on September 7, 2004

If we do choose to rebid, we're going to jack the margins up significantly

At least that way the Pentagon will know in advance what this war will cost... instead of finding out afterwards.
posted by clevershark at 2:22 PM on September 7, 2004

clevershark: Call me picky if you wish, but how are these contracts going to be "re-bid" if they were no-bid contracts in the first place?

It's kind of like how some people are trying to "re-elect" Bush when.... eh, you know what I'm saying.
posted by hincandenza at 9:21 AM on September 8, 2004

i hope halliburton does 'retaliate', and i hope they do piss off the Army.

cause when johnny comes marching home, he'll vote, and he'll remember who screwed him over in the desert.
posted by Miles Long at 10:14 AM on September 8, 2004

The Iraqi Insurgents?
posted by crunchland at 10:19 AM on September 8, 2004