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U.S. Army paid bonuses to KBR despite questions

Lerxst said:
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.
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I know this was the mantra we all heard when KBR got the job, but I'm not sure I believe it. Isn't this what Cheney would say to justify the no-bid contract? Do you really believe there was no other company capable of building and servicing military bases?
 
Triad said:
That ok because after this reply you're on ignore.
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Put me on ignore too Triad. You don't want to hear what I think of the crap you are spinning.
 
WillRockwell said:
I know this was the mantra we all heard when KBR got the job, but I'm not sure I believe it. Isn't this what Cheney would say to justify the no-bid contract? Do you really believe there was no other company capable of building and servicing military bases?
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I believe there were companies capable of servicing bases, but I don't think there was a single company that had the kind of "one stop shop" horsepower that made KBR as appealing. Look, we are talking about people who went into Iraq with an absolute abortion of a plan. It's not like managing the details of a situation they completely failed to plan for were at the top of their list. What I'm getting at is that the move to outsource and outsource big came fast and with little anticipation. KBR presented a very nice option to the Bush administration as the prime on these contracts. And given the concept of using Iraqi oil money to pay for the rebuilding I don't think that the bean counters were all too concerned in validating claims for payment. Seriously, who would they send at the time?

I don't think that the Bush administration fully appreciated how this would shake out and KBR was just very convenient for offloading responsibility. There was a disconnect at the strategic level when it came to projecting the real civil aspect of the cost of rebuilding during a violent and widespread insurgency. They simply tried to keep up by pouring money into it as fast as they could.
 
Binary_Digit said:
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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No I am not saying any investigation are headed by liberals and their plotting to do x y or z in the courts. Never did.
Here is what I said-
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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I'm saying Haliburton/KBR is a target of the Far Left and stories like this are made and often hyped to absurd levels as many of the posts in response to it show.

The argument that Haliburton/KBR is some sort of nefarious evil corporation aligned with Cheney is a Far Left Bush basher special.

It become a boy who cried wolf and even if the story is valid it still can't be believed.

Fraud is rampant yes..it not some evil plot by Bush/Cheney..yet that is the response you got wasn't it.


/As for Lerxst his descent into bashing and crap started a few weeks back. If someone acts like him then please do ignore me./
 
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WillRockwell said:
Put me on ignore too Triad. You don't want to hear what I think of the crap you are spinning.
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What for?
You prove my point more often then not.
:stooges
 
Triad said:
I'm saying Haliburton/KBR is a target of the Far Left and stories like this are made and often hyped to absurd levels as many of the posts in response to it show.
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This story is not being reported by the "Far Left," it is being reported by Reuters. If you can show that Reuters has hyped this story to absurd levels, please do.

Triad said:
It become a boy who cried wolf and even if the story is valid it still can't be believed.
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Since Reuters is reporting this story, and not the "Far Left," your assertions about the credibility of the "Far Left" have nothing to do with the topic. If Reuters has lied in the past and ruined their credibility, please provide evidence of that.
 
Way to take what I said and make it something I didn't say..again.
So now that a claim I didn't make falls to the side you rather obviously distort my explanation into being another nefarious act.

I explained what I was saying. I have no doubt you knew full well what I meant in what I said. If you cannot accept it for what it is then don't..no need to alter it or make a soap opera out of it.

done.
 
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Triad said:
Way to take what I said and make it something I didn't say..again.
So now that a claim I didn't make falls to the side you rather obviously distort my explanation into being another nefarious act.

I explained what I was saying. I have no doubt you knew full well what I meant in what I said. If you cannot accept it for what it is then don't..no need to alter it or make a soap opera out of it.

done.
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You know, I gave an honest attempt to find some semblance of an actual argument in the midst of all your pointless liberal bashing, so if I got it wrong it's only because you can't seem to explain your position without plastering it with "I hate libruls" at every opportunity. I gave you the benefit of doubt and assumed you were not trying to be a troll. Apparently I was mistaken about that. Good day, sir.
 
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No you didn't you twisted everything I said(multiple times) in order to bash me with your false findings.
Its clear now that you had no intention of doing anything else.


If you reject my opinion of my own opinion then you had no desire to know my opinion to begin with.
Don't act like you did.


I will not play these stupid games.
It becomes a routine then you can go impress Lerxst with your act.
 
Redress said:
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?
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Sorry, I'm against the death penalty for any reason. But, I'm not against seizing all of their personal assets, putting them in Leavenworth prison (not Lompoc where they can play golf) and putting their families out on the street with nothing. Then we can deny then government assistance too and tell them it's not a conservative ideal to get welfare, just work hard and you'll end up just fine.
 
Slippery Slope said:
Sorry, I'm against the death penalty for any reason. But, I'm not against seizing all of their personal assets, putting them in Leavenworth prison (not Lompoc where they can play golf) and putting their families out on the street with nothing. Then we can deny then government assistance too and tell them it's not a conservative ideal to get welfare, just work hard and you'll end up just fine.
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I can work with that.
 
Lerxst said:
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.
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Why use a henhouse comment if you don't believe KBR is stealing chickens? You're much more of an optimist than I, I believe there were other companies capable of doing the work. I do remember a list someone put out to contradict the notion that Haliburton (which spun off KBR after getting the contracts) was the only company capable of doing the work needed (because we privatized our military down to rifle carriers).

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.
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Nonsense, we were no where near ready to rebuild anything until after the "surge" quelled the violence somewhat. Except for the work on the military bases which should have been built and inspected by the military. But of course we want to privatize the military so the MIC can have MORE taxpayer dollars.

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.
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And these contractors knew this and therefore did ****ty work to make higher profits. KBR could have brought in enough people to do the work correctly and properly inspect it themselves. Instead they chose to be greedy.
 
Triad said:
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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I believe WE know what happened. Contractors got hefty no bid contracts and then did ****ty work to increase the already massive profits and troops died from the ****ty work. I'm sad to see that even a troll like yourself would dispute these FACTS.

Oh and if you can prove anything in that video to be untrue then I challenge you to make a thread to debunk it... I'll be right there... :waiting:
 
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Lerxst said:
I believe there were companies capable of servicing bases, but I don't think there was a single company that had the kind of "one stop shop" horsepower that made KBR as appealing.
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That's a bad argument for giving a no-bid contract. It's a good argument if you have a bid process.

Look, we are talking about people who went into Iraq with an absolute abortion of a plan. It's not like managing the details of a situation they completely failed to plan for were at the top of their list. What I'm getting at is that the move to outsource and outsource big came fast and with little anticipation. KBR presented a very nice option to the Bush administration as the prime on these contracts.[/QUOTE]
This is a nice Cheney type explanation but it is leaking commonsense like a sieve. You haven't any proof that Haliburton was the only company capable of handling the contracts, you're simply parroting the admins talking points. It was attractive to them because their pals would make lots of money and favors are never forgotten.

And given the concept of using Iraqi oil money to pay for the rebuilding I don't think that the bean counters were all too concerned in validating claims for payment.
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Too bad that was never really an option but rather a propaganda point to help sell the war. It was a flat out lie to the American people.

Seriously, who would they send at the time?
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Damnit, I will find that list...

I don't think that the Bush administration fully appreciated how this would shake out and KBR was just very convenient for offloading responsibility. There was a disconnect at the strategic level when it came to projecting the real civil aspect of the cost of rebuilding during a violent and widespread insurgency. They simply tried to keep up by pouring money into it as fast as they could.
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Again, you take the optimist approach. I believe that looking back at the history of US warfare there was a calculation that boat loads of money could be made. And they were right.
 
tlmorg02 said:
This is called government being too cozy with corporations. I am reminded of Haliburton.
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This is more likely the result of contractual terms within the negotiated contract. We do not know the particulars, and therefore can only speculate.
 
Slippery Slope said:
Why use a henhouse comment if you don't believe KBR is stealing chickens? You're much more of an optimist than I, I believe there were other companies capable of doing the work. I do remember a list someone put out to contradict the notion that Haliburton (which spun off KBR after getting the contracts) was the only company capable of doing the work needed (because we privatized our military down to rifle carriers).
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I never said they weren't stealing. I was commenting on why they got the rapid award of the no bid contracts.

Nonsense, we were no where near ready to rebuild anything until after the "surge" quelled the violence somewhat. Except for the work on the military bases which should have been built and inspected by the military. But of course we want to privatize the military so the MIC can have MORE taxpayer dollars.
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We were engaged in repairing infrastructure from the day we took over the country.

And these contractors knew this and therefore did ****ty work to make higher profits. KBR could have brought in enough people to do the work correctly and properly inspect it themselves. Instead they chose to be greedy.
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Well, your argument does have some merit.
 
Slippery Slope said:
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!
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Of course you make these farcical asinine claims without a shred of credible evidence.

I am always amused with the Liberal media reporting who just cannot resist adding Dick Cheney's name to any article on Halliburton as if it were remotely relevant.

Here's a CLUE for those how are CLUELESS about LARGE scale contracts; when it comes to this kind of operation, many times the Government will NEGOTIATE rather than bidding due to the timeline and SCOPE of the work to be done.

Imagine if you will, trying to write a detailed RFP for going into unknown situations in Iraq during combat; it’s nearly an impossibility.

The same can be said for HUGE Highway projects in States; how many companies do you think there are who have the highly specialized equipment and capabilities to carry out this work.

This claim about no-bid contracts and being cozy with KBR are beyond specious, they are asinine and purely hyper partisan hyperbole intended to falsely impugn good people for purely partisan purposes.

What makes them asinine is the notion that Cheney or Bush had direct involvement in these contract awards; yeah right. :roll:
 
This thread makes me sad. A company apparently has ripped of the government, and endanger our troops, and we use it to argue partisan politics.
 
Redress said:
This thread makes me sad. A company apparently has ripped of the government, and endanger our troops, and we use it to argue partisan politics.
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Unfortunately some posters on this forum cannot seem to control themselves in this regard. For them, EVERY argument boils down to "liberal vs. conservative" or "Dem vs. Rep." Every one.
 
Lerxst said:
Unfortunately some posters on this forum cannot seem to control themselves in this regard. For them, EVERY argument boils down to "liberal vs. conservative" or "Dem vs. Rep." Every one.
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That's why I addressed it from a contractual point.
 
Redress said:
This thread makes me sad. A company apparently has ripped of the government, and endanger our troops, and we use it to argue partisan politics.
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It has ALWAYS been the liberals attacking this company for political gain. What are you talking about?

I can't imagine a company more scrutinized on this planet. These are the folks that put out the oil well fires in Kuwait that were set by Saddam. -- way ahead of schedule. But Vice President Cheney used to work for the parent company so it HAD to become partisan.
 
sazerac said:
It has ALWAYS been the liberals attacking this company for political gain. What are you talking about?

I can't imagine a company more scrutinized on this planet. These are the folks that put out the oil well fires in Kuwait that were set by Saddam. -- way ahead of schedule. But Vice President Cheney used to work for the parent company so it HAD to become partisan.
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Oh boo hoo hoo, poor KBR. They are also being investigated for massive fraud and waste. And rightfully so. Nothing political about the Pentagons investigation results.
 
sazerac said:
It has ALWAYS been the liberals attacking this company for political gain. What are you talking about?

I can't imagine a company more scrutinized on this planet. These are the folks that put out the oil well fires in Kuwait that were set by Saddam. -- way ahead of schedule. But Vice President Cheney used to work for the parent company so it HAD to become partisan.
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If it turns out that they did nothing wrong, then the attacks against the company will be repudiated. If it turns out that the company did shoddy work, and intentionally ripped off the country and endangered our troops, then there should be nothing partisan in attacking the company. As I mentioned in my very first post in this thread, the actual guilt of the company has to be determined before we can decide whether to condemn them or not. How very partisan and left wing of me.
 
sazerac said:
These are the folks that put out the oil well fires in Kuwait that were set by Saddam. -- way ahead of schedule.
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BS...all KBR did was hire Boots and Coots International and Wild Well Control Inc. to put out and control the fires.

KBR just took another of it's many middleman cuts. But why worry about a few million here or there when millions (some say billions) in $100 bills shrink-wrapped on pallets were airlifted to Iraq and just simply vanished.

Incidentally if you're talking about the fires during Desert Storm, it was the same Boots and Coots and Wild Well plus a host of others, including but not limited to, Red Adair, Neal Adams Firefighters, Cudd Well/Pressure Control and Safety Boss.
 
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