KBR (Halliburton) is at it again--gets $35 million contract from the Pentagon

The news is as stunning as it is disturbing. KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root...until recently a part of Halliburton) was awarded a $35 million contract for major electrical work in Iraq, according to the Associated Press, "...even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq."

How can this be? Where is Senate oversight of defense contracts? Why doesn't President Obama step in? KBR is robbing and murdering our citizens. While doing shoddy work that has killed our soldiers, KBR has already made $615 million on similar contracts. Why haven't these greedy, inept war profiteers been banned from receiving more of our money? According to federal law, the US government can ban companies in cases of fraud, antitrust violations (i.e., no-bid contracts which Cheney procured for Halliburton/KBR), bribery, tax evasion, or for actions that reflect a lack of business integrity or honesty. KBR qualifies to be banned on all these grounds.

And if you think this all started in Iraq, you're wrong. Halliburton/KBR's war profiteering goes back to WWII and Vietnam. I wrote of this in my book, Murder Of An American Nazi: "Halliburton began as Howco, an oil well cementing company in the early 20th century. When the Texas oil boom took off and demand for oil grew, Howco got rich. By the time the founder, Erle Halliburton, died in 1957, the company was worth hundreds of millions. They bought out the Brown brothers and Root in the 1960s. Brown and Root were LBJ's biggest financial backers. When LBJ became president he made sure Brown and Root and Halliburton got the contracts for building bases, airstrips, ports, bridges, piers, helicopter landing pads...hospitals and all sorts of other crap in Vietnam. They made hundreds of millions through cost overruns, waste and price fixing."

After Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries in 1998, Dresser's engineering subsidiary, Kellogg Company, was merged with Halliburton's construction subsidiary, Brown & Root (the "BR" of KBR). George and Herman Brown were close friends with LBJ, and KBR has kept close ties with other Texas politicians including Bush I and Bush II.

Halliburton/KBR has also made a fortune doing business with terrorist states like Iran and Libya. From page 127 of my book: "In the mid-70s they got more than $800 million to build naval bases in Iran... [and] Halliburton got a $25 billion contract from Qaddafi to build an underground pipeline in Libya. Halliburton even did business with Iraq in the late '90s. The oil-for-food program enriched Saddam Hussein by billions of dollars...[Halliburton's] subsidiaries signed a $100 million contract with Saddam to provide oil production equipment and services for Iraq...[back to Vietnam] Brown & Root/Halliburton's profits were over $300 million from '65 to '72 in Vietnam...None dared call it war profiteering for fear of being unpatriotic."

You can read more about this in Murder Of An American Nazi, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, or www.eloquentbooks.com/MurderOfAnAmericanNazi.html

You won't believe who was killed and what atrocities were perpetrated to make these profitable wars and corrupt contracts possible.