HALLIBURTON LOST MY LUNCH MONEY



Yesterday, the Pentagon recommended withholding $161,000,000 in payments to
one of their biggest private contractors, Halliburton (aka Kellog, Brown &
Root.) (As you probably know by now, Halliburton is not only Dick Cheney's
Retirement Cash Cow, but it's Donald Rumsfeld's main ally in the
"privatizing" of the military.)

Pentagon auditors said that the $161,000,000 was for overbilling soldier
meals. ("Overbilling" is a special Bush administration euphemism for "FRAUD
& THEFT" from the American taxpayer.)

(In case you're wondering why Halliburton, the oil services company, is
cooking dinner for G.I. Janes and Joes, a bit of explanation is in order: A
few years ago, the Republicans decided that invoicing the
Military-Industrial Complex was just too complex, so they decided that
rather than have the money go from taxpayer to government to DOD to defense
contractors -- and eventually into their own pockets -- the system would be
quicker and more effective if it was rearranged as follows: taxpayer to
government to private contractors/top officials in the Bush administration.
In the process, they took out a few "middle-men" -- as well as a great deal
of competitive bidding and congressional oversight. They also decided that
"privatizing non-combatant military functions" would be an excellent
euphemism for "raping the American taxpayer with no-bid contracts to good
ol' boy networks of friends and family.")

Hellooooo -- Kellog, Brown & Root!

Anyway, these days, when we've heard the phrase "BILLIONS of dollars" tossed
around the Iraq disaster like it's chump change, we tend to lose sight of
context and the relative value of such gigantic terms. So let's play a
little math game with Halliburton's FRAUD & THEFT, shall we?

$161,000,000 - that's one-hundred and sixty-one MILLION dollars that
Halliburton fraudulently stole from YOU and Uncle Sam.

Let's take a ridiculously conservative number -- say $10 for the price of
one soldier's meal. That means Halliburton milked the Pentagon for
16,100,000 (ie. SIXTEEN MILLION, one-hundred thousand) Unhappy Meals for
soldiers in Iraq.

If we use a more likely number, say $5 per meal, the number obviously
becomes 32,200,000 (ie THIRTY-TWO MILLION, two-hundred thousand) meals that
were accidentally billed to you and me.
Imagine your customer calling to say, "Excuse me, that last order was for 32
widgets and you billed me for 32 million widgets."

THE GOOD NEWS: But don't worry, this was only a $161,000,000 "mistake". In
the overall scheme in the "war in Iraq", that's just a drop in the $175
BILLION bucket.

And it just goes to show that not only does this administration make an
occasional mistake, but so do their suppliers. Nobody's perfekt.

And for Bush and his fellow criminals, war means never having to say you're
sorry.





Posted: Tue - May 18, 2004 at 10:00 AM      

©