Editorial: What’s a little waste?

Saturday, July 21, 2007 | 7:22 a.m.

In its annual proposal for supporting U.S. forces in Iraq, contractor KBR told the Pentagon it needed $110 million for housing, food, water and other services - at closed bases.

KBR was given a $3.7 billion contract extension, but it dropped the $110 million request as well as $50 million in duplicate charges and math errors, USA Today reported Tuesday.

A KBR spokeswoman said the errors were made because the proposal was developed on a tight deadline, and a Pentagon official told the newspaper that the amount of the errors was "just" 4.3 percent of the total contract and not an indication of a larger problem.

That is laughable. The Pentagon has been wasting billions of dollars in Iraq. It is no surprise that KBR is involved. The company has been accused of mismanagement and overspending by federal investigators in the past. KBR, as some allege, may be receiving special treatment - the company was, until last year, a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old company. But KBR is not alone.

Contractors in Iraq routinely get paid for expenses that Pentagon auditors dispute as improper, erroneous or inflated.

Through October the Defense Department paid nearly two-thirds of the charges that auditors disputed - more than $1 billion - on Iraq contracts.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N. D. , who has chaired several hearings on Iraq reconstruction problems, has been stunned by the reaction of Pentagon officials.

Dorgan said, "Some areas of the Pentagon seem to think, 'We're at war. What's a little waste?' "

A "little waste" - equal to billions of dollars - could, for example, provide the extra armor to protect soldiers and their vehicles from roadside bombs that the Pentagon has been unable to deliver.

The irony is sickening considering that the Bush administration claims to be fiscally conservative and has wrongly labeled anyone who utters a dissenting view about the war in Iraq as unpatriotic. The administration should be called to account for this disgrace.