Tuesday, January 6, 2004
Not many details here, but there it is. Not good news for the Halliburton conspiracy theorists, as this seems to have been the one big issue against Halliburton, and now it's biting the dust. Oh, but it's just an Army report, after all...
The head of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers, said Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit will not need to provide "any cost and pricing data" relating to a contract to deliver millions of gallons of gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a previously undisclosed Dec. 19 ruling.
The paper said Flowers' ruling came after lower-level Army Corps officials concluded that KBR had provided enough information to show it had bought the fuel and its delivery to Iraq at a "fair and reasonable price."[...]
Update: After reading this post at Blackfive, I find that CNN has changed the story at the URL above from what it was this morning. The new story continues to imply wrongdoing on Halliburton's part.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army said on Tuesday it had granted Halliburton a special waiver to bring fuel into Iraq under a no-bid deal with a Kuwaiti supplier despite a draft Pentagon audit that found evidence of overcharging for fuel.
Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Ross Adkins said the waiver was granted to Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm to ensure much-needed fuel reached the Iraqis and the decision was not tied to the Pentagon's audit...
