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U.S. Army paid bonuses to KBR despite questions

Binary_Digit

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The U.S. Army paid "tens of millions of dollars in bonuses" to KBR Inc, its biggest contractor in Iraq, even after it concluded the firm's electrical work had put U.S. soldiers at risk (snip). The panel says KBR has been linked to at least two, and as many as five, electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers and contractors in Iraq due to "shoddy work." Investigators believe hundreds of other soldiers may have received electrical shocks, the source added. The Army is investigating.

U.S. Army paid bonuses to KBR despite questions

An electrician hired by the Army to help inspect electrical work at facilities where U.S. soldiers operate in Iraq said Wednesday that 90 percent of wiring done in newly constructed buildings by one military contractor was done improperly. The inspector, Jim Childs, said in prepared testimony that an estimated 70,000 buildings in Iraq were not up to code. The work was performed by Houston-based KBR Inc. "When I began inspecting the electrical work performed by KBR, my co-workers and I found improper electrical work in every building we inspected," Childs said.

Senator: KBR received $83 million in bonuses

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday to examine KBR's operations in Iraq, and question why the Army rewarded the Houston-based company.


This is absolutely appalling. I think they should be facing criminal negligence charges for getting our soldiers killed because of their incompetence. They shouldn't even get paid for sub-standard work, much less be receiving millions of our tax dollars as bonuses.
 
This is a direct result of our government getting us into a situation our military was not prepared for.
 
This is called government being too cozy with corporations. I am reminded of Haliburton.
 
I am going to try and word this carefully, since I don't want to give the wrong impression. Please read the note at the end of this post before condemning me.

KBR is under investigation. They have not been convicted or even actually charged with anything criminal at this point. If the bonuses where contractually mandated, then the government is under obligation to pay them. Remember, guilty until proven innocent. from that standpoint, I think this is a nonstory.

NOTE: If it turns out that KBR is guilty of incompetence, then I hope we fire them and never give them a singe dollar of government work in the future, and sue them for recompense. If it turns out KBR is guilty of misconduct, then dissolve the company, hang the management(literally, not figuratively), and invite any one else involved to stay in Iraq, we do not want them. I have absolutely zero patients for people who would endanger our troops to make a buck. I am an anti-death penalty liberal(save the argument for another thread), but I would willingly make an exception for those who risk our soldiers lives for a profit.
 

Our military was not prepared for a long term occupation and counterinsurgency. They were not prepared for policing Iraq nor nation building. The post Vietnam reorganization reduced our ability to support reconstruction efforts as well as effectively fight any kind of protracted counter insurgency. That was by design. We didn't have the resources because we didn't plan for this kind of action. Powell Doctrine strategy called upon overwhelming combat strength to achieve quick victory and then bring the troops home. What little counter insurgency philosophy the military had centered around small contingents of U.S. troops training the host nation government. It never called for U.S. troops to be engaged in the actual counter insurgency fighting. We were never supposed to stay in Iraq. But, according to Powell Doctrine strategy, we should have never went in in the first place as this war didn't pass the litmus test at all. In fact it failed miserably. As a result we have been strapped with not only rebuilding what we destroyed, but building new facilities in order to try and pacify the populace. We are seeing infrastructure destroyed by the ongoing insurgent activities and we are forced to rebuild what we already built. Our military cannot keep up like it should. It's a never ending cycle that is heavy on cash flow and extremely light on administration and oversight.

That is why KBR and other contractors were brought in and at outrageous prices. The military played a huge part in oversight, and they weren't prepared for that responsibility. It was a role they weren't supposed to have to take on. There was too much that had to be done, too little effective oversight, and as a result cost plus contracts were abused and the tax payers were fleeced. This is what happened. And this is just the tip of the ice berg. Had we not sent our military in with such a poor plan and inadequate troop strength we would not be in this situation.
 
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This is called government being too cozy with corporations. I am reminded of Haliburton.

Possibly because KBR IS Halliburton. It gets worse. KBR actually received a bonus for the electrical work that killed over a dozen soldiers. At least the Iraqis don't charge us to kill our servicemen.
 
Possibly because KBR IS Halliburton. It gets worse. KBR actually received a bonus for the electrical work that killed over a dozen soldiers. At least the Iraqis don't charge us to kill our servicemen.

It figures. And no they don't.
 
Haliburton and KBR are the corporations the left decided to demonize as part of their overall lets **** over Iraq plot.
It was chosen because years ago Cheney worked for them.

Past that they wouldn't give a rats ass if it ground up babies.



Doesn't matter guilt or innocence..it matters how they can portray negatively. Its basically a conspiracy theory.


Childish.
 
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This is a direct result of our government getting us into a situation our military was not prepared for.
I think it's more appropriately a result of Bush admin giving no bid contracts to it's pals and in thanks, KBR took the money and did ****ty work. Anyone who knows building contractors knows that ****ty work means more profit. So KBR wasn't satisfied to take the unbid contract at a very high profit margin, they decided to make even more by doing substandard work. Aren't corporations just dandy!
 
Haliburton and KBR are the corporations the left decided to demonize as part of their overall lets **** over Iraq plot.
It was chosen because years ago Cheney worked for them.

Past that they wouldn't give a rats ass if it ground up babies.



Doesn't matter guilt or innocence..it matters how they can portray negatively. Its basically a conspiracy theory.


Childish.

Right, no one actually died of electrocution due to shoddy work by KBR. It was the medical team that is at fault, after all, they couldn't save their lives, right?

Seriously Triad... do you think that non-liberals ever do anything wrong or is it all just a media conspiracy?
 
Haliburton and KBR are the corporations the left decided to demonize as part of their overall lets **** over Iraq plot.
It was chosen because years ago Cheney worked for them.
This is your hyper partisan and completely baseless accusation. KBR was chosen because KBR has abused their contracts in Iraq. There has already been testimony provided that has detailed the abuse.

So tell me Triad, does the "left" control the Defense Contract Audit Agency? Because this is a direct result of their many investigations into fraud and wasted in Iraq.

Top Pentagon auditor cites unprecedented number of reports of suspected contract fraud, waste.
WASHINGTON - A massive contract to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan received a withering review Monday, as a special panel investigating waste and fraud in wartime spending was told of numerous deficiencies in the arrangement that has paid KBR Inc. nearly $32 billion since 2001.

Testifying before the bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission, April Stephenson, head of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, said her agency has referred at least 16 reports since 2004 of suspected fraud or improper conduct stemming from the contract to government investigators.

Stephenson called the number of referrals "unprecedented" for a single military contract or program. But she declined to give details on those reports or name the sources of the alleged improprieties.

The agency has conducted dozens of audits on the KBR contract and has challenged about $4.7 billion in costs charged by the company, she said.

KBR is the primary contractor for the so-called LOGCAP III contract, but the Houston-based company has hired an extensive network of subcontractors to help it provide U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait with dining facilities, transportation, sanitation systems, warehouses and other critical services.
......snip.......
Jeffrey Parsons, head of the Army Contracting Command, and Lee Thompson from the Army Materiel Command, were on the defensive throughout most of the hearing, which lasted more than three hours. They said the demands for KBR's services as the war in Iraq escalated stressed the contract and the accounting systems to manage it beyond planned capacities.
Past that they wouldn't give a rats ass if it ground up babies.
Seriously, what value do comments like this add? They are completely juvenile and not even remotely true. Are you capable of actually commenting on this story with an objective and reasonable thought?

Doesn't matter guilt or innocence..it matters how they can portray negatively. Its basically a conspiracy theory.
Yes, click your heels three times and say that and possibly it will go away.

Childish.
I couldn't agree more.
 
To get past the partisan aspect of this, which saddens me...

Can we all agree that any business that endangers or kills our troops for profit should, upon conviction, have it's management and executive team hung on the Pentagon lawn?
 
I think it's more appropriately a result of Bush admin giving no bid contracts to it's pals and in thanks, KBR took the money and did ****ty work. Anyone who knows building contractors knows that ****ty work means more profit. So KBR wasn't satisfied to take the unbid contract at a very high profit margin, they decided to make even more by doing substandard work. Aren't corporations just dandy!

I'll have to disagree. KBR was one of the only companies available to provide wide scale resources for these kinds of operations. They had the internal infrastructure to ramp up major overseas contracting jobs under a single management shingle. I believe they went with KBR because they felt they had the capacity to carry a lot of the work load. The problem is that they were allowed into the henhouse.

What I think happened was not just sheer greed on KBR's part, I think what happened was that our government was putting an enormous amount of pressure on our people in Iraq to rebuild as quickly as possible and build anew as quickly as possible because the occupation was going so very badly. What this mean was "do as much as you can as quick as you can and we'll pay." They literally did have near enough qualified boots on the ground to go in behind these contractors and inspect their work. They just signed off on it, and the bonuses for "timely" completion of work began roling.
 
To get past the partisan aspect of this, which saddens me...

Can we all agree that any business that endangers or kills our troops for profit should, upon conviction, have it's management and executive team hung on the Pentagon lawn?

Responsibility for this mess starts with the Bush administration (for such poor, poor planning) and rolls down to KBR. I believe the folks in the middle were probably doing the best they could in such a horrible situation. You have the White House engaging our nation in a pointless and inefficient expansionist gambit and you have KBR with a series of very fat no-bid cost plus contracts that have essentially no effective oversight whatsoever.
 
Right, no one actually died of electrocution due to shoddy work by KBR. It was the medical team that is at fault, after all, they couldn't save their lives, right?

Seriously Triad... do you think that non-liberals ever do anything wrong or is it all just a media conspiracy?

Who knows what happenned.
I know enough not to trust any of you on the facts. I also know many of you will make accusations of guilt without any facts at all.
Credibility is zero.

BTW you have a conspiracy film linked in your signature...:2wave:
 
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Responsibility for this mess starts with the Bush administration (for such poor, poor planning) and rolls down to KBR. I believe the folks in the middle were probably doing the best they could in such a horrible situation. You have the White House engaging our nation in a pointless and inefficient expansionist gambit and you have KBR with a series of very fat no-bid cost plus contracts that have essentially no effective oversight whatsoever.

From a practical standpoint, you are not going to get any convictions of any Bush administration officials over their conduct in handling the war effort. Such convictions are possible for companies that took advantage of the situation. Even if President Bush's administration mishandled the war effort(I believe they did), it is immaterial to my suggestion. Bush administration misconduct does not excuse a company that took advantage to profit and endangers our troops.
 
It sure is a shame the US military was not prepared for Iraq like it was for Japan and Germany. :roll:

.
 
Who knows what happenned.
I know enough not to trust any of you on the facts. I also know many of you will make accusations of guilt without any facts at all.
Credibility is zero.

Hahah oh my god this is so rich coming the likes of you! :rofl

Hey, did you happen to check out the thread in which Biden was accused of revealing classified information about a secret bunker? Oh wait, I think you were there for that. Yeah, you're one to talk alright about making accusations of guilt without any facts! :2funny:

I know I have not engaged in that kind of behavior. When I level a charge against a specific person or group I accompany it with evidence to support that charge. In this case, KBR is under the gun because a series of objective Pentagon investigations have shown a massive amount of waste and possible outright fraud. Nobody in this thread made that stuff up, that is what the PENTAGON is saying.

So tell me there Triad, who would you trust? KBR? The Bush administration? Dick Cheney? Or just anyone who says what you want to hear?
 
It sure is a shame the US military was not prepared for Iraq like it was for Japan and Germany. :roll:

.

It sure is a shame you would make such a comparison and leave out almost all the pertinent facts about how very different those situations were.

Care to engage in a debate over the historical evidence in this regard? Because the only thing they have in common are the fact that we stationed troops there as occupying forces. That's it.
 
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There is a very old story attributed to a greek slave named Aesop from the 6-7th Centuty BC its called-

'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'

"A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains.

The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: "Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep"; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth."

Its lesson is more then applicable.




Also note the KBR/Haliburton demonizers bashing Bush /Cheney etc.
Its a conspiracy theory..whatever legal trouble KBR may have is of no concern to them.
 
There is a very old story attributed to a greek slave named Aesop from the 6-7th Centuty BC its called-

'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'

"A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains.

The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: "Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep"; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth."

Its lesson is more then applicable.
Hogwash. Irrelevant red herring as you have no proof of anyone lying here. Moving on.

Also note the KBR/Haliburton demonizers bashing Bush /Cheney etc.
Its a conspiracy theory..whatever legal trouble KBR may have is of no concern to them.
Oh never mind, yet more pointless hyper partisan commentary. Nothing actually relevant to the topic of the thread.
 
That ok because after this reply you're on ignore.
 
That ok because after this reply you're on ignore.

Awww...my feelings are hurt Triad. :( God forbid I point out your nonsense, that I call attention to your pointless partisan hackery.

That's probably best because if you keep posting little gems like the ones above it's gonna get ugly for you up here.
 
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Triad, if I'm not mistaken you're trying to say that "liberals" are heading up this investigation, and that since they've allegedly lied about KBR & Haliburton in the past, there's good reason not to believe this accusation either. Have I got that right?

Assuming so, or even if I'm completely off for that matter, I think the manner in which you presented your argument seems more like partisan liberal bashing than making a valid point. You'll probably be putting a lot more people on ignore if you continue making your arguments using that approach, because Lerxist isn't the only one around here who will call you out on that stuff.

But to address your point, and I think Lerxist already mentioned this, the investigation is not being carried out by liberals as you claim, it's being carried out by the Pentagon.

KBR Targeted in Fraud Probe: Pentagon Official - Defense News
 
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