Editorial: No free pass for Halliburton

Saturday, April 1, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

The company that Dick Cheney headed before becoming vice president is the largest U.S. contractor in Iraq. It was awarded no-bid contracts at the beginning of the war in 2003 to provide various services to U.S. troops and to restore Iraq's oil production.

In the years since, there have been innumerable reports criticizing Halliburton's work, management and billing practices. A current contract, competitively awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root Inc. in 2004 for oil restoration services in southern Iraq, is highly criticized in federal documents obtained by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

As reported by The Washington Post, the documents reveal missed deadlines, rising costs, $45 million worth of billing challenged by auditors, inaccurate estimates provided by the company and mounting frustration by the Pentagon's contract overseers.

The paper reported that the documents show, in one case, that KBR "attempted to inflate its cost estimates by paying a supplier more than it was due." And in another case, "KBR cut its cost estimates in half after it was pressed on its true expenses." And in another, "KBR billed for work performed by the Iraqi oil ministry."

Before the Army Corps of Engineers awarded this contract to KBR, it had been warned about the company by Pentagon auditors.

We believe it is long overdue that the warnings about Halliburton, and the consistently troubling auditing and news reports about the company, were heeded.