http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=10399&fcategory_desc=Under Reported
After millions of tax dollars were spent investigating how Halliburton ended up being awarded billions of dollar worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq, the Government Accounting Office determined that the company should never have been awarded the contracts in the first place. In response to those findings, Cheney and Bush both, as much as thumbed their noses at tax payers as if to say "so what, what are you going to do about it?" Well, it's beginning to look like they were right, there is nothing we can do about it.
According to the GAO's report, Rebuilding Iraq: Fiscal Year 2003 Contract Award Procedures and Management Challenges, contracts worth billions of dollars were awarded without full and open competition, including Halliburton's oil infrastructure contract.
The GAO found that the Bush Administration violated procurement law when it issued various task orders under existing contracts. Of the 11 task orders examined, more than half were awarded outside the scope of their contracts, according to the report.
As an example of the inept procurement process, the GAO told how "a military review board approved a six-month renewal contract with Halliburton worth $587 million in just ten minutes and based on only six pages of documentation," the report said.
Once and For All - How Did Halliburton Get Those Contracts?
Remember back when Cheney appeared on NBC's Meet the Press on Sept 14, 2003, and said, "And as vice president, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government."
And remember when he was asked whether he had known about Halliburton's noncompetitive contract, and he said, "I don't know any of the details of the contract because I deliberately stayed away from any information on that."
Those statements were proven false by a June, 2004, article in Time Magazine entitled, "The Paper Trail: Did Cheney Okay a Deal?" As it turns out, Bush and Cheney both were informed that Halliburton would get the contract before it was awarded. Time quoted an email sent by the Army Corps of Engineers, that said the contract for construction of oil pipelines was approved by Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith "contingent on informing WH tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's [Vice President's] office."
This email totally contradicts Cheney's nationally televised assertion that he had no involvement in Halliburton's contracts whatsoever. It proved once and for all that Cheney and the White House had played a key role in making Cheney's ex-employer the number one war profiteer in Iraq.
The email was dated March 5, 2003, and Halliburton was awarded the contract three days later without any bids by other companies.
The administration tried to dismiss the email by saying the employee at the Corp was just trying to give the Vice President's office a heads-up on the process. Now I suppose opinions on what the email mean could differ. However, people's opinions on what it means are likely based on what their definition of co-or-di-na-ted IS.
