Halliburton bills U.S. for shipping nothing -- literally

Found first on The Raw Story, the liberal alternative to Drudge, http://www.rawstory.com

Trucks made to drive without cargo in dangerous areas of Iraq

BY SETH BORENSTEIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Empty flatbed trucks crisscrossed Iraq more than 100 times as their drivers and the soldiers who guarded them dodged bullets, bricks and homemade bombs.

Twelve current and former truckers who regularly made the 300-mile re-supply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad told Knight Ridder that they risked their lives driving empty trucks while their employer, a subsidiary of Halliburton Inc., billed the government for hauling what they derisively called "sailboat fuel."

Defense Department records show that Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, has been paid $327 million for "theater transportation" of war materiel and supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq and is earmarked to be paid $230 million more. The convoys are a lifeline for U.S. troops in Iraq hauling tires for Humvees, Army boots, filing cabinets, tools, engine parts and even an unmanned Predator reconnaissance plane.

KBR's contract with the Defense Department allows the company to pass on the cost of the transportation and add 1 percent to 3 percent for profit, but neither KBR nor the U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., which oversees the contract, was able to provide cost estimates for the empty trucks. Trucking experts estimate that each round trip costs taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Seven of the 12 truckers who talked to Knight Ridder asked that they not be identified by name. Six of the 12 were fired by KBR for allegedly running Iraqi drivers off the road when they attempted to break into the convoy. The drivers disputed that accusation.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/8726376.htm

"we have to run empty trucks so the enemy has to guess which ones have stuff to destroy"?

The 'major' media ...Times, post, etc. takes so long on reporting this shit...what's their deal? And their pushing of the Chalabi agenda? Totally unacceptable!

In fact, it would be bigger than the price hikes for fuel by Halliburton that made the news a few months ago. The question is, can it be proven that H. is running nothing for big money?

I almost feel like Halliburton had PR control over this!! Saturday dailies are the lowest read day of the week! It's as if they thought they could sneak it in. The good thing here is, if the big papers miss it tonight, it will be a BIG story on Sunday, the MOST read papers...

HAL plans to spin-off/sell-off KBR & DII in the upcoming Fall/Winter. HAL share-price is supposed to jump afterwards. Insiders have been buying-buying-buying, and it just might be that they'd like the share-price to drop (again) so that they can pick-up better bargains before the jump-up (as they've been doing over the last 3 years of the Cheney Ascendancy).

With ties to Cheney and Rummy, how could they not be?

I'd call it treason. String 'em up.

... by yet another outrage.

What are we up to now? One every 4.7 days?

yet most americans say nothing.

at election time....

...not feeling too secure about this.

hard time keeping track with my reading habits.
I know damn well * himself doesn't have a clue whats breaking around him(Condi just tells him it's okay and take a nap) b/c he will not read.

But Halliburton seems to have nine lives...no significant consequences for their crimes.

Is this any less a crime than a bank robbery? Where is the LAW?!

if we allow ten days per year,
(which would approximate the actual time Dubya spends on the nation's business)
then time is just about up.

That's hilarious. These motherfuckers sure are smug about stealing our money.