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View Full Version : Cheney's Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War



PorkChopSandwiches
04-07-2013, 05:51 PM
http://i.imgur.com/0AVWcbB.jpg


The accounting of the financial cost of the nearly decade-long Iraq War will go on for years, but a recent analysis has shed light on the companies that made money off the war by providing support services as the privatization of what were former U.S. military operations rose to unprecedented levels.

Private or publicly listed firms received at least $138 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for government contracts for services that included providing private security, building infrastructure and feeding the troops.

Ten contractors received 52 percent of the funds, according to an analysis by the Financial Times that was published Tuesday.

The No. 1 recipient?

Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007.

The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.

Who were Nos. 2 and 3?

Agility Logistics (KSE:AGLTY) of Kuwait and the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Together, these firms garnered $13.5 billion of U.S. contracts.

As private enterprise entered the war zone at unprecedented levels, the amount of corruption ballooned, even if most contractors performed their duties as expected.

According to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.

Even without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying governement employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. No-bid contracting - when companies get to name their price with no competing bid - didn't lower legitimate expenses. (Despite promises by President Barack Obama to reel in this habit, the trend toward granting favored companies federal contracts without considering competing bids continued to grow, by 9 percent last year, according to the Washington Post.)

Even though the military has largely pulled out of Iraq, private contractors remain on the ground and continue to reap U.S. government contracts. For example, the U.S. State Department estimates that taxpayers will dole out $3 billion to private guards for the government's sprawling embassy in Baghdad.

The costs of paying private and publicly listed war profiteers seem miniscule in light of the total bill for the war.

Last week, the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University said the war in Iraq cost $1.7 trillion dollars, not including the $490 billion in immediate benefits owed to veterans of the war and the lifetime benefits that will be owed to them or their next of kin.

RBP
04-07-2013, 06:55 PM
So Halliburton didn't "make" (which implies profits) $39.5 billion, it was awarded $39.5 billion in contracts - big difference. The article fails to give any comparison to the cost that the military would have paid if it was done by the DoD. It assumes that "disciplined" soldiers would be more cost effective but presents no facts to back that up. That's a huge assumption. I also have never cared for the implication that all Halliburton contracts in inherently corrupt because of Cheney's former association with the company. That's also an assumption I have never seen backed up.

Lastly, I don't trust war spending numbers. They are usually bogus, muddled in assumptions about what constitutes war spending, and include money the DoD would have spent regardless. I have not seen a good accounting of the incremental costs. Most soldiers would still be receiving paychecks and benefits, they'd still be fed, they'd still be housed, they'd still drive vehicles, etc. Certainly they do it more in theater and the Reservists account for a lot, but no one knows what that incremental expense number is. Even the Brown Cost of War Project referred to in the article admits on their website that there is no good accounting method for determining war spending, but they do it anyway. The Brown Cost of War Project is also decidedly anti-war and states that there were better alternatives to a 9/11 response. To me that makes the numbers subject to bias as well. But check it out for yourself, maybe you'll agree with them.

PorkChopSandwiches
04-07-2013, 07:36 PM
Cheney has direct ties to Haliburton and was the real person in charge when we went to war. :-k

Shady
04-07-2013, 07:58 PM
So Halliburton didn't "make" (which implies profits) $39.5 billion, it was awarded $39.5 billion in contracts - big difference. The article fails to give any comparison to the cost that the military would have paid if it was done by the DoD. It assumes that "disciplined" soldiers would be more cost effective but presents no facts to back that up. That's a huge assumption. I also have never cared for the implication that all Halliburton contracts in inherently corrupt because of Cheney's former association with the company. That's also an assumption I have never seen backed up.


Yes, Halliburton provided all of their services at cost. :banghead:

RBP
04-07-2013, 08:15 PM
Cheney has direct ties to Haliburton and was the real person in charge when we went to war. :-k

:roll:

No, he doesn't and he didn't during his time as VP. Who keeps perpetuating this myth?

http://www.factcheck.org/kerry_ad_falsely_accuses_cheney_on_halliburton.htm l

RBP
04-07-2013, 08:19 PM
Yes, Halliburton provided all of their services at cost. :banghead:

Don't be daft. I never said that, but they did not "make" $39.5 billion either.

But even if they did, so what? What's point are they (poorly) trying to make? That Cheney profited? False.

Teh One Who Knocks
04-07-2013, 11:34 PM
:roll:

No, he doesn't and he didn't during his time as VP. Who keeps perpetuating this myth?

http://www.factcheck.org/kerry_ad_falsely_accuses_cheney_on_halliburton.htm l


Don't be daft. I never said that, but they did not "make" $39.5 billion either.

But even if they did, so what? What's point are they (poorly) trying to make? That Cheney profited? False.

For some people, it's easier for them to believe what they want to believe instead of the truth

Muddy
04-08-2013, 12:56 AM
Cheney.. A financial corporate genius all the way to the end...

RBP
04-08-2013, 01:21 AM
Cheney.. A financial corporate genius all the way to the end...

whatever that means :dunno: