Raise your hand if you're surprised by this.

[unixronin]

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup

The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so.

KBR was assigned the work under a "construction capabilities" contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process.  The company is not involved in the Army Corps of Engineers' effort to repair New Orleans' levees.

(link from james_nicoll)

Tell me with a straight face that nobody saw THAT coming.

Comments

[jenkitty.livejournal.com]

It's actually not a surprise. Go look up the LOGCAP program, and know that Halliburton has one of those contracts. Technically, it's a legitimate contract. It just looks real damn bad.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the nice folks at Bechtel mobilizing as well.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. As you said, it's technically legitimate under the capabilities contract. I'm not convinced the awarding of that contract was without bias, but ..... it's a done deal at this point.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and yeah, my whole POINT was it was no surprise.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I can just see the salivations. "Ooh, category 5? Wow, that's a lot of money, man! Bring on the global warming!"

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

In case you're not aware of this, and assuming that this is at least part of the reason for your misgivings about this action, I would like to clear up Vice President Dick Cheney's current relationship with Halliburton.

VP Cheney is not currently working for Halliburton. He did in the past but he has resigned. He does currently receive some income, but it is deferred income and the amount is fixed. In short, it's money he earned and they're paying on the installment plan. How much he gets is not related to Halliburton's performance.

Cheney does own some Halliburton stock. However, he has signed a legal instrument the result of which is that a charitable organization (can't remember which at this time) has total control over when to sell the stock and that organization will receive any and all profits from the sale. In effect he has given them the stock and the contract he signed is one that he simply can't back out of. It is irrevocable.

The truth is that Halliburton/KBR is one of only a few companies capable of performing this kind of work. As Jen mentioned, Bechtel is another. I suppose that Cheney would like to see Halliburton succeed for the benefit of the people he used to work with, and certainly that charity stands to profit if the company does well. But I'm willing to bet that this was not a necessary nor a sufficient condition for them to receive the contract.

So, yes, I saw it coming, but not for the "obvious" reasons.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of this, yes.

It just looks so damn bad when we hear "KBR-Halliburton overcharged the Pentagon by 30% on this in Iraq", "KBR-Halliburton provided substandard food to our troops in Iraq", "The Pentagon is withholding such-and-such amount of payment from KBR-Halliburton due to failure to complete specified tasks", and then suddenly, "Oh, we're awarding KBR-Halliburton the contracts to rebuild all these Gulf Coast facilities."

I realize there are few qualified alternate contractors. But I wish there were more, so that there could be some kind of choice and competitive bidding, and KBR had more incentive to do a better job.

[novel-tharkun.livejournal.com]

I don't personally believe it, but another part of that particular conspiracy theory would be the personal / party donations by Halliburton to the Republican party, and Vice-President Cheney's ability to direct it and control the flow levels.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Which makes it sound as if Cheney has no vested interest in seeing that Halliburton doesn't continue to thrive. If their profits go up, he gets X. If their profits go down, he still gets X. So why would this cause him to give them preferential treatment, right?

But he does have a vested interest: if the company fails, he could lose that income. The fact that they owed it to him in a deferred disbursement doesn't change that it is a vested interest. He very much wants and needs to see the company succeed, because if it doesn't, he wont get his money.

I'm not saying he IS playing favorites. I'm just dispelling this myth that the arrangement of his deferred income makes him unbiased. That's simply untrue. It is less severe than if his income was tied to their profits, but it is still non-zero.

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not at all surprised to see you (and countless others) pointless bring this kind of thing up yet again.