EDITORIAL – Halliburton under investigation by FBI

Yesterday wasn’t a good day for Halliburton. In addition to a new audit revealing that the… Yesterday wasn’t a good day for Halliburton. In addition to a new audit revealing that the company couldn’t find 42 percent of the items that it handled while working in Kuwait for the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, it’s also under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning its no-bid contract to build much of occupied Iraq’s infrastructure.

Halliburton, a massive company that dealt with feeding and housing U.S. troops in Iraq, had its multibillion-dollar contract with the government opened to bids in early September, under allegations of improper charges, kickbacks and faulty accounting practices, according to the Associated Press.

Now the FBI is beginning a formal investigation into the company’s practices and the circumstances under which it was awarded its no-bid contract. Vice President Dick Cheney was head of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000.

The circumstances under which Halliburton gained and lost its contract are fishy at best. That the government awarded a contract to a company that used to be run by the vice president — without letting competitors bid — screams of favoritism, cronyism and most of the other bad –isms that mean the same thing, and is tantamount to military-industrial incest.

Auditing is an arduous process, but how long could it have taken the government to realize that the company it hired had shifty practices warranting a full-scale investigation?

According to Reuters, the Inspector General of the Coalitional Provisional Authority’s audit, which randomly sampled records of $3.7 million worth of items handled by Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown ‘ Root, found things like generators and $200,000 vehicles unaccounted for. These losses aren’t any calculator error — these are taxpayers dollars lost in the swirl of contractors and subcontractors now responsible for putting Iraq back together.

Additionally, Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers’ chief contracting officer, came forth last week alleging that her agency unfairly gave a Halliburton subsidiary several no-bid contracts, according to the AP. It doesn’t get much plainer than that.

These allegations prove that it’s time for more transparent accounting and accountability. The government shouldn’t be working hand in money-filled hand with Halliburton, and certainly should have opened contracts to bidding from competitors. For as much as this administration harps about the free market, these practices show a much older type of policy — patronage.