KBR's new contract worth $2.8 Billion or about 3% cost of HC Reform for a year

[mod mom]

Healthcare Reform has a cost of about $950 billion/10 years or about $95 billion/year. The army just rewarded KBR a contract worth $2.8 billion for a one year contract, despite their egregious record which includes electrocution, poisoning our troops, covering up rape cases, questionable billing, and avoiding paying taxes. This contract amounts to about 3% of the cost of HC reform for a year.

This should be a major story to DUers and yet unhappycamper's thread on this outrageous contract has only received 11 greatest votes, what the heck DU, let's get this up the list to draw more attention to it because you can bet MSM is going to let it slip by!

Please recommend unhappycamper's thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7832381

SOURCES:

Health-care reform has a 10-year cost of about $950 billion

-snip

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/facts_and_figures.html


Defense giant KBR Inc. was awarded a contract potentially worth $2.8 billion for support work in Iraq as U.S. forces continue to leave the country, military authorities said Tuesday.

-snip
Dan Carlson, a spokesman for the Army Sustainment Command, said the new contract is for one year

-snip
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/03/ap_kbr_contract_030210/

[ixion]

1. So after fraud and the people that have been killed

because of KBR's criminally negligent work, how is it that they're able to get a massive contract?

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. +1

[mod mom]

3. Because you dare not stand up to their profits:

The Army official who managed the Pentagon's largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted when he refused to approve more than $1 billion in questionable payments to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food, housing and other services to U.S. troops.

Speaking out for the first time, Charles M. Smith said that he was forced out in 2004 after telling KBR officials the Army would impose escalating penalties if they failed to improve operations. "They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify," he said. But he was suddenly replaced, he said, and his successors approved most of the payments. Army officials denied Smith had been removed because of the dispute but confirmed reversing his decision.

http://www.startribune.com/world/19997404.html?location_refer=World


I EXPECTED THIS DURING * BUT IT LOOKS WE HAVE JUST MORE OF THE SAME. : mad:

[Webster Green]

4. Disgusting!

KBR is not only incompetent, they are vile.

This is real bad news. When does that "change" thingie start anyway? :banghead:

[mvccd1000]

5. Interesting...

They built most of the housing I lived in, the dining facilities I ate in, the gyms I worked out in, they cooked my meals, delivered my mail, and did my laundry while I was repairing and armoring trucks for soldiers.

They may be making an obscene profit, but based on my personal experience in Iraq, I wouldn't label them vile or (completely) incompetent.

(However, the nickname "Keep Bringing Retards" was not totally out of line.) :)

[mod mom]

7. Tell that to the families of the soldiers who didn't fair as well as you:

Army awards lucrative Iraq contract to KBR
By Kimberly Hefling and Richard Lardner - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Mar 2, 2010 13:22:45 EST
WASHINGTON — Defense giant KBR Inc. was awarded a contract potentially worth $2.8 billion for support work in Iraq as U.S. forces continue to leave the country, military authorities said Tuesday.

KBR was notified of the award Friday, a day after the company told shareholders it lost about $25 million in award fees because of flawed electrical work in Iraq.

The company was charged with maintaining the barracks where Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a 24-year-old Green Beret, was electrocuted in 2008 while showering. The company has denied wrongdoing, and investigators said in August there was “insufficient evidence to prove or disprove” that anyone was criminally culpable in Maseth’s death.

The uproar over his death triggered a review of 17 other electrocution deaths in Iraq and widespread inspections and repairs of electrical work in Iraq, much of it performed by KBR.


http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/03/ap_kbr_contract_030210/

KBR gets $35M contract despite electrocutions
By Kimberly Hefling - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Feb 7, 2009 17:03:23 EST
WASHINGTON — Defense contractor KBR Inc., which is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq, has been awarded a $35 million contract by the Pentagon to build an electrical distribution center and other projects there.

The announcement of the new KBR contract comes just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by the Associated Press, rejected the company’s explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company’s “continuing quality deficiencies” and said KBR executives were “not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground.”

“Many within DoD have lost or are losing all remaining confidence in KBR’s ability to successfully and repeatedly perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq,” wrote Graff, commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency, in a Sept. 30 letter.

Graff rejected the company’s claims that it wasn’t required to follow U.S. electrical codes for its work on U.S. military facilities in Iraq. KBR has said it would cost an extra $560 million to refurbish buildings in Iraq used by the U.S. military, including Saddam Hussein’s palaces, which among other problems are based on a 220-volt standard rather than the American 120-volt standard.

-snip

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/02/ap_kbr_contract_020709/

Memo: Halliburton failed to purify GIs’ water
Internal report says contamination could've caused 'mass sickness or death'


updated 7:28 a.m. ET, Thurs., March. 16, 2006
WASHINGTON - Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused “mass sickness or death,” an internal company report concluded.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the company failed to assemble and use its own water purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used for washing and laundry at Camp Ar Ramadi in Ramadi, Iraq.

The problems discovered last year at that site — poor training, miscommunication and lax record keeping — occurred at Halliburton’s other operations throughout Iraq, the report said.

“Countrywide, all camps suffer to some extent from all or some of the deficiencies noted,” Wil Granger, Theatre Water Quality Manager in the war zone for Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary, wrote in his May 2005 report.

-snip
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11854311/

Pentagon Dismisses KBR Contaminated Water: Troops Should ‘Just Drink Bottled Water’
On Sunday, the AP reported that contractor KBR has been providing “unmonitored and potentially unsafe” water to U.S. troops in Iraq. According to a Pentagon Inspector General’s report, dozens of soldiers fell sick, suffering “skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses” after using the “discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry.”

In a press briefing on Monday, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell dismissed KBR’s gross negligence. He responded by joking about how everyone knows the water in Iraq is unsafe, and advised everyone to avoid drinking it:

You know, we’ve all been to Iraq several times. Everywhere you go they make it perfectly clear that you don’t want to drink the water, so I’m a little surprised myself that this is an issue. As I understand it, the bottled water, which is what you’re supposed to be drinking in Iraq, had no issues whatsoever in the testing that was done. Evidently, there was some issue with some of the other water that was, I guess, primarily meant for washing. <...>

But I think our encouragement is always — for journalists and warfighters alike is read the signs and just drink the bottled water.

-snip
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/kbr-water/

[Webster Green]

8. Well, consider yourself lucky.

I stand by my comments. They are a vile corporation getting rich on the taxpayer's money because that's the way The Big Dick set things up.

It's disgusting that you would step up to defend them. I suppose you are a big fanboi of Monsanto as well? :puke:

[mvccd1000]

9. Which big dick?

Clinton? Most of the kbr people I met in Iraq were Bosnians, hired because of KBR's large presence in Bosnia during the Clinton years. (How do you think they got in on the ground floor of the Iraq mess, if not for their experience doing the exact same thing in eastern Europe?)

Anyway, you clearly have no experience with them. I do.

Vile or not, the facts are the facts. I spent years living in housing put up by them and eating meals cooked by them. Hundreds of thousands of other people had the same experience.

I stated my opinions based on that experience. You stated your opinions based on no experience.

[Webster Green]

12. Like I said, you were lucky.

Are you denying that people were killed due to the negligence of KBR?

It's absurd to say that you can't be informed about KBR's negligence in Iraq without having been there to see it in person. That's just stupid.

[mvccd1000]

15. So were hundreds of thousands of others...

Yes, people were absolutely killed by faulty wiring over here. It could well have been KBR's fault; I don't have enough facts to make an assumption.

Look at it this way, though; there are at least 100,000 soldiers over here. There are at least 100,000 contractors over here. Based on my experience, there is almost a 100% turnover every 12-18 months, which means that in the nearly 7 years this has been going on, there are possibly as many as 1.4 million different people who have passed through the facilities over here.

I'd defy you to find me a city of similar size anywhere - even the USA - where fewer people have died due to faulty wiring, construction, or other conditions.

Even one soldier (or contractor) is too many, but if you're going to label a corporation vile because of that, you'd better start labeling your power company, or the general contractors or electricians in your area, too.

[Webster Green]

17. It's is, or was, a subsidary of Halliburton.

They were given no-bid contracts which benefited a sitting vice president while he was still in office (The Big Dick). That, in itself, is extremely vile.

These scumbags made billions just getting set up to invade and occupy Iraq. (Before the war actually started).

Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel, Blackwater, and on and on. All vile!!

Why do you feel the need to defend them? Why are you such a big KBR fanboi? It gives me the willies just talking to you! :scared:

[mvccd1000]

18. fanboi? :)

Haha, hardly. I have plenty of criticisms of KBR after my time here. Calling them vile and citing an accident rate that most cities would probably be envious of are not among my complaints, however.

I have personal experience over here that seems to contradict your "facts."

Pardon me for sharing it with you.

[Webster Green]

20. Deleted sub thread

You seem incapable of grasping anything you haven't personally experienced. Are you living in a bubble?

Others died. Did you hear about the shitty water they were providing?

Maybe you should do a little googling. KBR is scum! That's my opinion based on my observation (from afar) of their activities.

[Echo In Light]

6. k/r

[invictus]

10. K&R

[w8liftinglady]

11. so-pardon my ignorance-who approves these?Congress?

[mod mom]

13. Def Sec Gates?

Oversight panel leader slams new KBR contract
CongressDailyMarch 4, 2010
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., sent a blistering letter Wednesday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, objecting to the award of another $2.8 billion contract to KBR Inc. for support services in Iraq.
KBR has been in the committee's cross hairs for two years, following revelations that the company's flawed electrical work in showers at military installations may have played a role in the deaths of 18 service members. KBR denies the allegations.

-snip
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0310/030410cdam1.htm

[mod mom]

14. here's more that might be helpful:

KBR was awarded a new $2.8 billion contract for one-year, with an option for four more years, under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) IV contract, by the U.S. Army Contracting Command, to provide logistic support, theater transportation and postal services to U.S. forces in Iraq.

-snip
http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4815:chairman-towns-questions-dod-decision-to-award-kbr-lucrative-contract&catid=3:press-releases&Itemid=49

[upi402]

16. Rewarding criminality and incompetence continues eh?

shock, no awe :wow:

[asdjrocky]

19. Nothing this administration does can surprise me any more.

[amborin]

21. recommend