Gibbons: Alleged Halliburton overcharging ‘absolute outrage’

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 | 10:56 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons is demanding answers about the $61 million in alleged overcharges by the Halliburton energy company for fuel delivery to troops in Iraq.

A Pentagon audit shows that Halliburton, a company run by Vice President Dick Cheney for almost five years before he took office, apparently overcharged the U.S. government by $1.09 a gallon for fuel.

Bush said Friday that the White House will watch further investigations done by the Pentagon into the overcharge issue. He said he will make sure money spent in Iraq is "spent well and spent wisely."

"And if there's an overcharge, like we think there is, we expect that money to be repaid," the president said.

The company has an estimated $15.6 billion contract to help with Iraq reconstruction efforts, according to Gibbons' office. Other report indicate the company could have overcharged an additional $67 million through another contract for cafeteria supplies to help feed 110,000 military personnel in Iraq.

Gibbons said called the alleged overcharging an "absolute outrage."

"If these allegations which were found in a Pentagon audit of government contracts are true, then its time for Haliburton to break out its checkbook and refund American taxpayers," Gibbons said.

He sits on the House Armed Services Committee, which would have jurisdiction for hearings examining the issue.

"I am deeply disturbed by these overcharging allegations coming out of the Pentagon Audit," Gibbons said, "but I am equally outraged over reports that I have seen stating that another Pentagon audit found unclean conditions and rotting food in more than one cafeteria location serving American personnel. No one would dispute that our military personnel and our nation's taxpayers absolutely deserve better than this."

Nevada Democrat Shelly Berkley welcomes further scrutiny of the issue and believes the money should be repaid if found to be an overcharge, spokesman David Cherry said.

California Rep. Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee and Michigan Rep. John Dingell, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, have been asking questions on the Halliburton's Iraq contracts since at least March.

"This audit confirms what we've known for months," Waxman said last week when the Pentago released the audit. "Halliburton has been gouging taxpayers and the White House has been letting them get away with it. It is deplorable and we need to put an immediate end to it. There needs to be a top to bottom review of all the Iraqi contracts."

Waxman has been corresponding with the Army Corps of Engineers, the General Accounting Office and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and others asking for details on the company's contracts.

A Wednesday letter to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice asks about the $2.64 price per gallon Halliburton charges to import gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq.

"This price is more than double what others have paid to import gasoline into Iraq," Waxman and Dingell wrote. "Independent experts we have consulted called these charges a 'huge ripoff' of the taxpayer."

The letter says the White House had not responded to previous letter they have sent on the issue.

"Gasoline imports are one of the single largest expenditures of U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq," Waxman and Dingell wrote. "To date, nearly $450 million has been spent on gasoline imports and additional $690 million has been appropriated for gasoline and other fuel imports in 2004. Literally hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are at stake."