The administration’s competence problem is already at the yadda, yadda, yadda stage. They were supposed to protect us from terrorist attack, they said Iraq would be a cakewalk, that we only needed 50,000 troops. They failed to plan for the occupation or Hurricane Katrina or the prescription drug plan. Yadda.
But when you look at the details of what incompetence means, it becomes both chilling and really, really expensive. The Army announced this week it has decided to reimburse Halliburton for nearly all of the disputed costs in the more than $250 million in charges the Pentagon’s own auditors had identified as excessive or unjustified.
According to the Pentagon’s figures, it normally withholds an average of 66 percent of what the auditors recommend. In this case, the Pentagon wound up paying all but 3.8 percent of the disputed costs, a figure so far outside the norm it was noticed immediately. Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the New York Times, “To think that it’s that near zero is ridiculous when you’re talking these kinds of numbers.”
You may recall Bunnatine Greenhouse, a senior civilian contracting official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who said the Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) contract was “the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.” (Greenhouse was later demoted for her honesty.) Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said, “Halliburton gouged the taxpayer, government auditors caught the company red-handed, yet the Pentagon ignored the auditors and paid Halliburton hundreds of millions of dollars and a huge bonus.” In addition to costs, the Army, which blamed the excess to “haste and the perils of war,” also awarded the company additional profits and bonuses provided in the no-bid contract.
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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060301_the_ultimate_mistake/
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