Blackmail
KBR Machinery Company had the Army over a barrel: if the Army refused to pay KBR's inflated bills (more than $1B in unjustified costs), KBR threatened to shut off payments to its subcontractors, which in turn would stop feeding the army in Iraq.
Of course, the fact that KBR was then a subsidiary of Halliburton didn't hurt its bargaining position either; the Halliburton board knew what it was doing when it gave Dick Cheney $80 million he wasn't contractually entitled to as he moved from its executive suite to the White House. But even a less-well-connected company would have had an intolerably powerful bargaining position vis-à-vis the army: the company could basically hold the troops hostage.
And KBR was able to squeeze more than money out of the Army; it also demanded and got high performance ratings, which helped it win a share of a contract for $150 billion just awarded for support functions in Iraq.
Hilzoy is right: time to de-privatize, or at least insist on always having a second source ready to take over, as any sane private company does when contracting out an essential function.
What a great issue for the Obama campaign!
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I, too, hope that Obama will pick this up as a campaign issue. But, I wonder if he will let the fact of "Cheney being his cousin" stop him from doing so? I hope not........
Probably not, since they are like 24th cousins, or something equally distant.......
Were the US armed forces to take over all services now farmed out to private companies in Iraq, the number of troops there would double, and yet the overall cost of their deployment would go down.
At which point, even the slowest American citizen would become, however slowly, aware of two things: 1) we'd have to institute a draft to continue the ongoing WAR CRIME we have perpetrated in Iraq and 2) the private companies, all connected intimately to the Bush cabal, have relentlessly overbilled the taxpayer, and even if they had not, would always remain uncompetitive cost-wise with the armed forces were they to provide their own supply and service.
Not to mention, the quality of' service' (such as it is) would dramatically improve.Private companies with no oversight are no match for a citizen Army.
But that would require a draft. There would have been NO war in Iraq, I can say with certainty, if a draft had been triggered by the AUMF in 2002. We would have been spared the barrage of "message force multipliers" in the run-up to the Second Iraq Gulf War, and al Qaeda, rather than metastisizing into Iraq, would have been hunted down in Afghanistan. (We are now facing the prospect of war between two erstwhile allies in the 'War on Terror," Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such a development is unlikely to bode well for U.S. interests, and could easily lead to disaster.)
Holding the troops hostage over money is nothing new to big business and Bush, Inc. (this is repetitious, I know).
And yet, since 2006, the Democrats have been fully complicit as well...
Perhaps they are all right and you are wrong... Is that possible??
Michale.....
Yup, it's those democrats! The ones who don't have a large enough majority in EITHER house to ensure that they can overturn a presidential veto. The ones who don't even have enough of a majority in the Senate to get controversial legislation out the door! Uh Huh! It's all the democrats fault!
WTF. KBR is treatening the Army? Dammit, this is the United States Army. If KBR threatens to cut off services, then the government should tell KBR and Halliburton that if they do, they will NEVER even be considered for another government contract. How long to you think those too corps would be around if they couldn't stick their noses in the federal trough?
Yeah, I know. That will never happen while Cheney is in office. By the way, when are we going to put that thieving war criminal in Gitmo? Where is the justice?
I knew Cheney would have a silver lining for that recent Supreme Court case. He can file a Writ of Habeas Corpus if we put him in Gitmo.
The taxpayers have been cheated and robbed again by Dick Cheney and his pals. It is time for the citizens of the US to declare ownership of Halliburton and KBR based upon the billions of dollars we have paid out for goods and services never delivered. All of the assets of these and all other crony corporations need to be seized and returned to the US treasury, and that includes all of the money being held by corporate officers, influence peddlers, and kick-back takers including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and the entire Bush Crime Family.
We were robbed by a criminal conspiracy. It's time to take the money back and put the crooks in jail for life.
It is obscene that our military is being held hostage by these "people." Bad enough that they are already being held hostage by the politicians in this administration.
Once again privatizing a government function turns out to be great for the robber baron who get's the spoils and terrible for the nation.
Stop the treason!
So let me get this straight..
You want to "de-privatize" which will result in hundreds of thousands MORE US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan??
And what about all the American citizens you will be putting out of work??
Michale.....
They will have to provide other services for the govt then. But to deprivatize the govt will result in a MAJOR cost savings, since KBR and others are charging anywhere from 10 times to 100 times what the military could do on its own!
While I concede the cost savings and I do agree that civilian contractors get paid WAY to much, it still doesn't address the issue that there would still be a huge addition of US troops to replace the contractors.
Considering that the LEFT's message is "Get The Troops Out!!" this idea would seem to contradict the message.
Michale.....
AMEN!
I would like to see more analysis and reporting on financial fraud among contractors and others in Iraq.
As desperate as we are for financial help in America with HEMS (health, educations, maintenance and suooprt) the amount of theft is treasonous, literally.
I have read of pallets full of US dollars being stolen, along with the overbillings and pathetic, shoddy workmanship and construction quality. This money is going to executives, - like like in the oil industry.
Read Catch 22. Or at least look at the description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 This has been SNAFU for a long time.
Remember the good old days? You know, when the military provided for its own? Back in the day, when they brought their own food forward through their own supply lines? Thus the entire reason for the Liberty Ships of WWII???
Right? How did the troops eat before civilian contractors? Get rid of them, & they can't rape the taxpayers. I know what they're paying a 1st class petty officer to run the chow line, it's the same wether he's feeding troops or driving a fuel truck or any other non combat job soldiers used to have, & it only goes up once a year. Somewhere a few years back, the gov't decided contractors could do a lot of the work that was getting done by GS workers, shaving the overburden off the beauracracy. The idea was flawed from the start--now contractors get paid five, ten times more than what we used to pay soldiers, & the soldiers didn't whine, either. The second they changed over to civilian companies, they opened the doors to grifting, favor-giving, & outright theft. That's why the old system was the way it was. No soldier ever tried to renegotiate his contract before he performed his daily duty. SHAME ON KBR!, AND SHAME ON THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF FOR NOT FIRING THEM IN A PUBLIC DISPLAY OF DISHONOR! And why can't the Army just order KBR employees off bases and take every last scrap of food & equipment? Are they worried about getting sued? They're the Army for Pete's sake! Where have everybody's balls gone?
I hope that the Obama campaign picks up on this.
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