Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War
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Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War
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From Publishers Weekly
Chatterjee (Iraq Inc.) delves into the nebulous world of the Houston-based Halliburton corporation, tracing the company to its roots, when a fortuitous meeting with a young Lyndon Baines Johnson propelled the Brown and Root Company (which later merged with Halliburton) into Washington power politics. The author details the military contracting that largely funded the company through WWII and into the present-day war in Iraq, intertwining the company's history with the biographies of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other officials in the Bush administration. Chatterjee provides a laundry list of abuses for which the company has been investigated, including inflated billing of the Pentagon, providing unsafe living conditions for U.S. soldiers, labor exploitation and coverups to avoid congressional inquiry. He concludes with a look at the whistleblowers that brought these scandals into the public eye and the repercussions of the eventual congressional investigation. Chatterjee keeps the pace of the narrative at a quick clip and nimbly marshals his extensive evidence to reveal—without sanctimony or stridency—Halliburton's record of corruption, political manipulation and human rights abuses. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"A sordid tale of politics and profiteering, courtesy of the Bush administration and a compliant military... A report that deserves many readers, about many matters that deserve many indictments." -Kirkus 'In a calm and measured but insistent voice, Chatterjee charts the pattern of wrongdoing built into KBR from its origins in the late Thirties... If the dust finally does settle over Iraq, while moving onto Afghanistan, the new secretary of state may well find many more questions to ask about the company's conduct in recent years. President Obama's track record suggests that her boss too will be wanting some answers. Anyone reading this important book will be demanding answers too.'-The Telegraph"
--This text refers to the
edition.
Daniel L. Garcia Electric#5 (Denver,Co/USA) | 
14/03/2010
14/03/2010
I can relate thoroughly with many findings of this book, dating to Viet Nam and then having worked in Iraq for KBR/Haliburton. I talked with those construction guys back in Nam working on the base I was finally stationed at and then I lived the real deal in Iraq. Most of those guys were doing so many illegal things on the side ~ that would be hard to prove and then I was also privy to the "so-called" investagitors coming after-the-fact, and covering up and losing information. What a deal to live, see, and experience something that will live longer than muself.
J. Herstory Novaleo (Jacksonville, Fl) |
05/02/2009
05/02/2009
Halliburton's Army or have NOT served this nation's troops in their obsession to squeeze every nickel possible out of a no bid contract which they got The Evil One - Cheney to push thru early on in the Bush Administration.
Perhaps the most troubling of all events noted in this book is the documented mistreatment of KBR/Halliburton's employees, to include Americans, who got to Iraq to find out things were not as they were described as they hired on.
This is a troubling book, one that really makes a taxpayer wonder how did we allow these crooks to continually fleece America for many, many years!
The Pentagon did not stop them and interestingly enough, most of the whistleblowers are women!
For those who want a serious view of what has been happening to erode the image of America, this is a must read book!
the Dept. of Justice!, February 2, 2009
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02/02/2009
02/02/2009
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"Halliburton's Army" provides detailed stories of corporate theft, bribery, and malfeasance that cry out for prosecutorial attention.
The author begins from about 1% of those serving in the 1991 Operation Desert Storm to today's Operation enduring Freedom, where the number of contractors is about equal the number of military personnel.
The program was supposed to cut about 15% of military administrative staff and about $3 billion/year, as first proposed a huge organization cannot be excellent in everything, and some military tasks such as feeding the troops, washing their clothes, providing messenger and mail service, and general logistics could likely be better provided How can a single company, Halliburton, be expert in not only oil drilling but also large-scale logistics, feeding, etc.? In addition, the profit-incentive and pressures of wartime led to no-bid contracts and every form of skulduggery, penny-pinching and pressure known to keep the contracts and profits flowing.
"Halliburton's Army" begins citing how $5,000/day oil-well fire-fighters were brought in, despite the Kuwaiti's offering to do the job for free out of gratitude for Gulf War I and concern for their own environment. The situation rapidly deteriorated - potential whistle-blowers demoted or other wise threatened, overheads running 43-55%, overcharges for fuel - $2.64/gallon, vs. a local Iraqi source at .96/gallon (or even an internal Defense Dept. source at $1.32/gallon), splitting contracts to avoid bidding requirements associated with large dollar amounts, billing for hours not worked, ordering multiple items when just one was needed (cost-plus!), serving overpriced and sometimes outdated food to non-existent troops, failure to treat water with chlorine, using very-high-priced suppliers, electrocuting troops via improper electrical work, failing to pay required disability benefits to those injured on the job, etc.
Key Question: Were these just incidental occurrences, or pervasive? The multitude of sources clearly lean towards it having been pervasive.
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