Self-Dealing and the War Service Industry, Part I

Charles M Smith and Dina Rasor, Truthout: On April 19, 2007, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the Army’s management of KBR’s contract, called LOGCAP, which provided support and logistics to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the committee, began the hearing by noting, “There has been a history of highly favorable treatment of this contractor (KBR) throughout the contract.” Chairman Levin was correct, but greatly understated the problem of KBR holding the government hostage during these wars as the only contractor that was providing support to the troops. KBR was and is a politically connected company that used all their connections to run up the costs on LOGCAP early in the wars so that future contracts would be fat and lucrative. They also used their well-placed political clout to make sure they got their bonus money even though their performance was poor. Read the full article.

Self-Dealing and the War Service Industry, Part II

Charles M Smith and Dina Rasor, Truthout:  In last week’s column, we discussed KBR’s main support contract for the Iraq war, called LOGCAP. Charles Smith and Dina Rasor discussed how, despite Mr. Smith’s efforts as lead oversight on this contract to withhold money from KBR until they produced financial documentation, KBR hired a retired general to successfully pressure the Army to overturn Mr. Smith’s and the Defense Contract Audit Agency’s (DCAA) efforts at responsible oversight.  In Part II of this series we will explore the cronyism and self-dealing with the other major military service contract in Iraq, the Restore Iraq Oil (RIO) contract, and the brave woman whistleblower who also refused to go along and allow KBR to break contract rules to enrich themselves, but was thwarted in her efforts to do the right thing on behalf of the troops and the country.  Read the full article.

Self-Dealing and the War Service Industry, Part III: The Payoff

Charles M Smith and Dina Rasor, Truthout:  For the past two weeks, this column has outlined two scandals that took place early in the Iraq war concerning the now well-known Army contractor, Kellogg, Brown and Root, also known as KBR. Two government employees, Charles M. Smith (a co-author of this series of articles) and Bunny Greenhouse, both worked to prevent KBR, one of the largest war service industry contractors, from manipulating their government contracts to gain more money than what they earned. Both Smith and Greenhouse, long-term government employees, were thwarted in their efforts to make sure that KBR did their job for the troops and the taxpayers; in repayment for their work on the matter, their careers were stymied.  Read the full article.