posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
machine_dove at 05:27pm on 03/03/2005
machine_dove at 05:27pm on 03/03/2005Wow, today is a red-letter "Things that piss me off" day! Check this out! If you don't feel like choking down the entire 40 page PDF file (although it's really a riveting read, unlike many things Congress produces), here's the Washington Post's take.
Quotable Quotes:
On at least two occasions, Willis said, the firm was paid $2 million from a vault in the authority's basement, served up in $100,000 plastic-wrapped bricks of cash.
"We called in Mike Battles and said, 'Bring a bag,' " Willis said.
Pardon me while I choke on my own tongue. I'll attempt to refrain from excessive amounts of editorializing - this really speaks for itself.
Quotes from the PDF:
-Halliburton was charging us for 42,000 meals for soldiers every day and serving only 14,000 meals a day.
-There were numerous examples of padding payrolls. For example, the inspector general found 8,206 guards were on the payroll at one Iraqi minister — 8,206 — but they could account for only 602. So who’s paying 8,206 when only 602 are working?
-The State Department found that in 2003 American diplomats pressured Halliburton to keep using Kuwaiti subcontractors to handle fuel sales. The subcontractor charged more than twice the cost of available alternatives. This is small I guess compared to a lot of the scandals: only $61 million in overbilling.
The company called Custer Battles allegedly bilked the CPA of $170,000 — $160,000 for a helicopter pad. The same company also repainted fork lifts that were abandoned by Baghdad Airways and charged CPA thousand of dollars claiming these fork lifts were leased.
-They also reported that CPA’s entire accounting system consisted of just one contractor maintaining Excel spreadsheets. That’s one person who was assigned to be the accountant for $20 billion.
-A truck driver described instances in which $85,000 new trucks were abandoned or torched if they got a flat tire or experienced a minor carburetor problem. That particular truck driver brought that to the attention of the president or the CEO — rather the CEO of the subsidiary for which he worked. He was fired in about two weeks.
Paying $45 for a case of soda.
Staying in five-star hotels in Kuwait for the employees of one contractor. When the Army asked them to move, they didn’t move.
$7,500 a month for the leasing of SUVs. Let me say it again: the leasing of SUVs, $7,500 a month.
The ordering of 25,000 pounds of nails that arrived and they were the wrong size, so they’re sitting on the ground someplace in Iraq: 25,000 pounds of nails abandoned.
-The currency exchange contract was a time and materials contract. This meant that Custer Battles could bill the government dollar for dollar for its non-labor expenses. Since I happen to be the lucky recipient of some recent training about the various kinds of government contract and where each is supposed to be used, blahblahblah, let me just say that this is the most brainless thing ever. Nothing quite like giving your contractor incentive to spend likeBush a drunken sailor. [Additional comment deleted for excessive unnecessary hostility]
-Custer Battles backdated and forged signatures on invoices from these sham companies. Custer Battles then directed employees to sign the fabricated invoices without even looking at them and then turn those invoices in for payment to the government.
-One column of this spreadsheet listed what Custer Battles had spent for materials on this contract: $3.5 million. Another column listed what Custer Battles had billed to the government for these materials: almost $10 million. This spreadsheet was documentary evidence of over $6 million in fraud against the government.
-In fact, in October of 2004, in our False Claims Act case, the very purpose of which is to recover this money on behalf of the U.S. government, the Bush administration declined to participate in the case. Note that this was just shortly before the election.
-At another ministry, payrolls listed 1,471 security guards when only 642 were actually working.
-There had to be a lot of money there, whatever the sum was, because when we had to pay the second payment to Custer Battles of $2 million, an Air Force captain went down, got the money and brought it up. I’ve submitted to the committee a picture of that payment, in fact. I want to find that picture. But it gets better! And, in fact, that photo behind me is a photo of $2 million in cash for payment to Custer Battles, that was a CPA contractor, an American contractor that seems to be paid by the authority to do work that it never did.
Yea, this has me slightly peeved. Just slightly. And slightly confrontational. Only slightly.
Quotable Quotes:
On at least two occasions, Willis said, the firm was paid $2 million from a vault in the authority's basement, served up in $100,000 plastic-wrapped bricks of cash.
"We called in Mike Battles and said, 'Bring a bag,' " Willis said.
Pardon me while I choke on my own tongue. I'll attempt to refrain from excessive amounts of editorializing - this really speaks for itself.
Quotes from the PDF:
-Halliburton was charging us for 42,000 meals for soldiers every day and serving only 14,000 meals a day.
-There were numerous examples of padding payrolls. For example, the inspector general found 8,206 guards were on the payroll at one Iraqi minister — 8,206 — but they could account for only 602. So who’s paying 8,206 when only 602 are working?
-The State Department found that in 2003 American diplomats pressured Halliburton to keep using Kuwaiti subcontractors to handle fuel sales. The subcontractor charged more than twice the cost of available alternatives. This is small I guess compared to a lot of the scandals: only $61 million in overbilling.
The company called Custer Battles allegedly bilked the CPA of $170,000 — $160,000 for a helicopter pad. The same company also repainted fork lifts that were abandoned by Baghdad Airways and charged CPA thousand of dollars claiming these fork lifts were leased.
-They also reported that CPA’s entire accounting system consisted of just one contractor maintaining Excel spreadsheets. That’s one person who was assigned to be the accountant for $20 billion.
-A truck driver described instances in which $85,000 new trucks were abandoned or torched if they got a flat tire or experienced a minor carburetor problem. That particular truck driver brought that to the attention of the president or the CEO — rather the CEO of the subsidiary for which he worked. He was fired in about two weeks.
Paying $45 for a case of soda.
Staying in five-star hotels in Kuwait for the employees of one contractor. When the Army asked them to move, they didn’t move.
$7,500 a month for the leasing of SUVs. Let me say it again: the leasing of SUVs, $7,500 a month.
The ordering of 25,000 pounds of nails that arrived and they were the wrong size, so they’re sitting on the ground someplace in Iraq: 25,000 pounds of nails abandoned.
-The currency exchange contract was a time and materials contract. This meant that Custer Battles could bill the government dollar for dollar for its non-labor expenses. Since I happen to be the lucky recipient of some recent training about the various kinds of government contract and where each is supposed to be used, blahblahblah, let me just say that this is the most brainless thing ever. Nothing quite like giving your contractor incentive to spend like
-Custer Battles backdated and forged signatures on invoices from these sham companies. Custer Battles then directed employees to sign the fabricated invoices without even looking at them and then turn those invoices in for payment to the government.
-One column of this spreadsheet listed what Custer Battles had spent for materials on this contract: $3.5 million. Another column listed what Custer Battles had billed to the government for these materials: almost $10 million. This spreadsheet was documentary evidence of over $6 million in fraud against the government.
-In fact, in October of 2004, in our False Claims Act case, the very purpose of which is to recover this money on behalf of the U.S. government, the Bush administration declined to participate in the case. Note that this was just shortly before the election.
-At another ministry, payrolls listed 1,471 security guards when only 642 were actually working.
-There had to be a lot of money there, whatever the sum was, because when we had to pay the second payment to Custer Battles of $2 million, an Air Force captain went down, got the money and brought it up. I’ve submitted to the committee a picture of that payment, in fact. I want to find that picture. But it gets better! And, in fact, that photo behind me is a photo of $2 million in cash for payment to Custer Battles, that was a CPA contractor, an American contractor that seems to be paid by the authority to do work that it never did.
Yea, this has me slightly peeved. Just slightly. And slightly confrontational. Only slightly.
(no subject)
(no subject)