QUOTE(xmedia2004 @ Sep 19 2005, 02:41 PM)
General Electric Company $43,736,487,000
Vinnell Corporation (Northrop Grumman) $42,414,198,000
Science Applications International Corp. $16,194,431,000
DynCorp (Computer Sciences Corp.) $15,809,649,000
Bechtel Group Inc. $11,742,537,000
Unisys Corporation $10,772,003,000
Fluor Corp. $8,544,917,000
United Defense Industries, L.P. $7,299,691,000
Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton) $5,686,006,000
Halliburton barely makes top 10.
Looking at a companies financials during a bid to make sure they have the resources to pull off a job is important. All this suggests is that they would fill that criteria of being able to handle the job from a financial point of view. It would however, looking at the list you used in its complete form, show that "Young, Brian" who made 39,000 as a project manager probably would not be able to handle the job, so he would get cut from the bidding process for larger contracts.
QUOTE(xmedia2004)
In Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root has been awarded five contracts worth at least $10.8 billion, including more than $5.6 billion under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program contract,
Damaan You said awarded by Clinton. so is U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program <- Alias for Bill Clinton
From 1992 to 1997, KBR held the first LOGCAP contract awarded by the Army, but when it was time to renew the contract, the company lost in the competitive bidding process to DynCorp after the General Accounting Office reported in February 1997 that KBR had overrun its estimated costs in the Balkans by 32 percent
P.S. they did " beat out DynCorp and defense giant Raytheon for the third LOGCAP contract in December 2001, this one to run 10 years. " <- Clear, transparent
...
This contract is the lions share. The won one contract illustrated above that they were removed from.
It is true that Dyncorp won in 1997 (seen as a punishement for going over budget), however, Clinton split the logcap when they won and kept KBR on even though they lost. This is the bid that they were awarded via clinton. The work that Clinton had them do from 1997 on through the split in the logcap was finishing up in haiti, somolia, and then tons of stuff in the balkans. The biggest contracts given out were in the Balkans. Those contracts that clinton kept them on for made up the bulk of the money made through logcap during this period (kbr yearly profits from govt contracts more than doubled during this period as your graph shows). This was done because it was felt that it would be more expensive to switch companies. However, if kbr had proven themselves to be totally incompetant, you can be sure they would have switched anyways (unless Clinton is on the take as well
).
QUOTE(CPI)
When the United States joined NATO forces in the Balkans in 1995, KBR was deployed to the Balkans. KBR lost a second five-year LOGCAP contractawarded to DynCorp in 1997 after the General Accounting Office reported in February 1997 that KBR had overrun its estimated costs in the Balkans by 32 percent (some of which was attributed to an increase in the Army's demands). Despite these findings, KBR was awarded a new contract for Balkan logistical support that ran through May 1999. In September 2000, the GAO released another report claiming the Army had not reined in contractor costs, placing the total cost of the Balkan contract at $2.2 billion.
which brings me to the next point
the 32% over and other scope creep issues-
this is true as well. And it goes above and beyond the amt that all contractors try and screw you with
Given that, to quote the part you left out
"(some of which was attributed to an increase in the Army's demands)" from the page where you got the quote. Iraq has definitely seen similar things as you have pointed out with a 24mil bid going to nearly 900mil. Even so, I see this as more of an issue of the Govt, the army in particular, learning to deal with contractors. All contractors try and screw you after the bid, its business as usual, a good manager doesnt let them get away with it too badly. The GAO has correctly pointed the finger squarely at the military several times for failing to keep KBR in check during both administrations demonstrating a pattern not unique to the bush administration. The military is new at this, and it takes lots of accountants to keep them in check. This represents a real paradigm shift for the military and hopefully in time they will get better. A big part of the problem is making the ceilings publicly known. Any contractor who sees that they have a 7billion dollar ceiling, and is only charging 1 billion (as in the case you used with hali), is going to do anything they can to increase the scope to get a bigger piece of the pie. Some of the scope creep on the 24mil was legit as pointed out in the article you pulled the quote from, but it probably wastn all legit, and it is the militaries job to sort through that. Thats just the way it works because they are the contract managers. And if you think the Hali is the only one that does this your out of your mind, they all do it. I was just involved in a project last year that went from 35mil to 180mil in a matter of months and was projected to go far beyond that and Hali was no where near the project.
QUOTE(xmedia2004)
most were given No Bid by Army or whoever point is NO BID
I used to work in government bidding processes for several years so maybe thats why this makes sense to me, but most importantly is not out of the ordinary or considered no bid by the govt. Once a company wins a bid through a competitive process, the gov holds them to that bid for a set period of time. Then any other government agency can piggy back onto that bid and be ok since the original bid was won through a competitive process. Its seen as a way to keep the government from wasting resources and reinventing the wheel. Companies use this in various ways - established companies tend to bid high relying on consumer confidence - new companies tend to bid low to get a beachfront. Both realize that they are not just bidding for that contract.
example1: The dept of transportation set up a bidding process for a database system. Oracle wins. Im in education, so rather than re-bid everything out I can legitematly say oracle won using the same bid since they have already won another bid via a competant competetive bidding system.
example2: The dept of transportation set up a bidding process for a database system. Oracle wins. Im in education, and I need MS SQL, rather than re-bid, I can take the bid from dept of transportation and hold MS to the amt they bid there and take the contract.
example3: They each do their own bids.
All are considered legit competitive bidding by govt.
Apply this to Hali: This is still considered a competitive bid and not an award. Since Hali won LOGCAP the army can go with them and have it be considered a competitive bid. However, what clinton did is considered an award since hali lost that bid, and was still given contracts that were considered under the umbrella of logcap in those regions.
Furthermore, many of these are contract extensions which are also completely legit.
QUOTE(Harvard University professor @ Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration)
One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded -- whether a career civil servant working on procurement or an independent academic expert -- who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd.
SourceNeither factcheck nor "The Center for Public Integrity" have really found anything of substance that is out of the ordinary in the govt dealings with halli. And as Kelman points out:
the premise of the accusations is completely contrary to the way government contracting works, both in theory and in practice. QUOTE(xmedia2004)
To say Chaney is not currently profiting is not the same as Chaney will not or has not profited.
As puckSR rightly summed up what i was trying to say earlier: That is purely speculative and cannot be proven that it will happen. He may get offered his old job back, or cheney could decide in 2009 he would rather go fishing. We will have to wait and see. I admit that if that does occur or he later receives a kick back it will be a very bad thing. I also imagine that it will result in legislation preventing it from occuring again. In the meantime I am not going to run around in self pity looking for something that isnt there yet, i am going to figure out ways that i can profit off of the situation as well (there is always a way).
QUOTE(xmedia2004)
Dont have to because there is a clear nexus between escalation of Halliburton profits and the admins role in securing contracts exclusivly for them
this is about as far as this conspiracy can be taken because the deeper you look at it the more ordinary and normal it appears. If a good unbiased org comes out with clear allegations I will definitely re-open the book, but I certainly wont have to have you tell me about it cause I am sure word of the law suit will be all over the news. Every contractor that ever bid will be sueing the govt. And that is really my last point: dont you think these other contractors have motivation to get lawyers to find examples of cronyism? Hali has one of the largest microscopes in the world on them. Yet there is still little evidence they have done anything out of the norm.
Having said all that - I do believe their is a flaw in the LOGCAP bidding process. Once you have won a bid, you become heavily favoured to win and re-win over and over and over again. This is because, as the Clinton Admin found, it becomes an expensive proposition to switch companies due to the learning processes and equipment already in place by the incumbant. If you dont like this blame Al Gore. It was his "Reinventing Government" initiative that created this situation. But personally I see the "Reinventing Government" initiative a step in the right direction. He essentially cut the federal work force thus limiting government. If you think Hali is expensive try letting the army do it. If you have a suggestion for leveling the playing field against incumbant companies like hali I am open to suggestions because a monopoly serves no one.
