For those of us who railed against the exorbitant profits earned by VP Dick Cheney through his Halliburton holdings as American troops were sent to die for mythical weapons of mass destruction, this comes as especially welcome news. Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse, former chief oversight official of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers reached a government settlement six years after she was demoted for publicly criticizing a multi-billion-dollar, no-bid contract to Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR. Greenhouse testified before Congress and was demoted for properly doing her job in retaliation for exposing problems with the contracts.
Well, I had taken an oath of office that said that I was going to conduct the business of procurement and contracting in the Corps impartially, beyond reproach, with the highest degree of integrity, and with preferential treatment toward none. That was federal law, and one that I respected.
I noticed that when they sent in the sole-source, no-bid contract justification, it had in there only government-imposed uniquenesses of the company—you know, KBR—not their own uniquenesses, such as a contingency plan, that the winner had to be familiar with a contingency plan. That was a plan that they had—the government had developed under another—out of scope, under another contract, which is like an economic analysis, that determines all of the budgeting, all of the actions and movements that were going on in the prosecution of that war. Halliburton had been granted that privilege to do that at $2 million.
Greenhouse speaks with Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman. Watch the entire interview, it is well worth it.
