Issues, Part 4 Halliburton

Part 4 of my discussion of issues in this election, based on comments made by Nicolas Farly on Farleyman's Blog (Part 1,Part 2,Part 3) Nic said:

4. I am against the "no-bid" Halliburton policy that this administration has granted. I feel the tax-payers of America should demand that we get the best bang for our dollar! If that's Halliburton, that's fine, but is it, we dont know.

In 2001 Halliburton won the LOGCAP contract. Basically, this means they won, in bidding, to be the company that gets no-bid contracts. Our armed forces rely on civilian support for certain logistical tasks. These needs often arise quickly and can be the result of a fluid situation so the military plans ahead and figures out who it will ask before the need arises. Halliburton had this contract from 1992-1997 and they have had it again since 2001. To the best of my knowledge, no impropriety has been alleged in Halliburton being awarded the LOGCAP contract in 2001, and I expect if there was any evidence of such a thing we would have all heard about it. There have been some questions about whether a specific no-bid contract awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root to fight oil well fires after the Iraq invasion should have been awarded as part of LOGCAP. It is my understanding that Congress has in fact decreed this contract to have been awarded properly. There is no evidence at all that Dick Cheney, a former Halliburton CEO, was involved with these contracts in any way. There have also been some disputes between Halliburton and the Pentagon on the number of meals delivered to troops and fuel prices on fuel supplies they have delivered. As far as I know, Halliburton has not been proven to have done anything wrong. Such disputes between contractor and contractee are common in both the public and private sector. You can read more about this here, here, here and here. Quite a bit of noise has been made about the Dick Cheney-Halliburton connection. That is probably a good thing as absent any scruntiny the possibility for corruption does exist. However Cheney and Halliburton were both aware that any deals Halliburton made with the Bush administration would be subject to such scruntiny. It is doubtful that either would purposefully do anything improper in such an environment.