| US: Food Companies Face U.S. Probe Over Iraq Deals by Glen R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal October 16th, 2007 Prominent American food companies are under scrutiny in a federal probe of possible fraud and corruption in the military's food-supply operations for the Iraq war. |
| US: The People vs. the Profiteers by David Rose, Vanity Fair October 4th, 2007 Americans working in Iraq for Halliburton spin-off KBR have been outraged by the massive fraud they saw there. Dozens are suing the giant military contractor, on the taxpayers' behalf. Whose side is the Justice Department on? |
| US: Billions over Baghdad; The Spoils of War by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair October 1st, 2007 Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency--much of it belonging to the Iraqi people--was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. |
| US: Graft in Military Contracts Spread From Base by Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmit, New York Times September 24th, 2007 A US major is arrested in relation to a bribery scheme involving companies seeking military contracts. |
| US: U.S. probes Blackwater weapons shipments by Joseph Neff, News & Observer (North Carolina) September 22nd, 2007 The U.S. government is investigating whether private military contractor Blackwater USA, blamed for the deaths of 11 Iraqis in Baghdad on Sunday, has been shipping unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq. |
| US: Head of firm paid to track Iraq spending investigated by Matt Kelley, USA Today September 21st, 2007 The head of a firm hired to audit Iraqi reconstruction spending is under investigation for violation of conflict of interest laws. |
| US: Evoking Vietnam clash, Wisconsin students to protest Halliburton visit by Ryan J. Foley, AP, Houston Chronicle September 19th, 2007 Students at Madison protest against Halliburton Co. recruiters, evoking memories of a 1967 protest of Dow, which made napalm for the US military. |
| IRAQ: Big oil’s waiting game over Iraq’s reserves
by Ed Crooks and Sheila McNulty, Financial Times September 19th, 2007 Oil companies face a dilemma in Iraq over whether to wait for a new oil law which will give them a legal framework in which to operate or to sign agreements now with the Kurdistan Regional Government at the risk of sullying relations with Baghdad and the rest of the country. |
| IRAQ: Will Iraq Kick Out Blackwater? by Adam Zagorin and Brian Bennett, TIME Magazine September 17th, 2007 TIME has obtained an incident report prepared by the U.S. government describing a fire fight Sunday in Baghdad in which at least eight Iraqis were reported killed and 13 wounded. The loss of life has provoked anger in Baghdad, where the Interior Ministry has suspended Blackwater's license to operate around the country. |
| US: Army to examine Iraq contracts by Richard Lardner, Associated Press August 29th, 2007 The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse. |
| US: As Iraq Costs Soar, Contractors Earn Record Profits by Eli Clifton, Inter Press Service News Agency August 2nd, 2007 In a report to lawmakers earlier this week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the war in Iraq could cost U.S. taxpayers over a trillion dollars when the long-term costs of caring for soldiers wounded in action, military and economic aid for the Iraqi government, and ongoing costs associated with the 190,000 troops stationed in Iraq are totaled up. |
| US: Sale of KBR Bolsters Profit at Halliburton by Bloomberg News, The New York Times July 24th, 2007 Halliburton, the oil field contractor, said second-quarter net income more than doubled on a gain from selling its government services and construction subsidiary, KBR. |
| US: Contractors fume over slow FEMA checks by Becky Bohrer, Associated Press July 18th, 2007 |
| US: Cited firm gets big security contract;
Violations won't sour $323 million deal by Allen Powell II, West Bank Bureau July 15th, 2007 A Hammond security company, Inner Parish Security Corp., which admitted to several "serious" state violations, including hiring an underage officer, has been awarded a large federal contract to provide private security officers at FEMA trailer parks in metro New Orleans. |
| US: Katrina Ice Being Melted After 2 Years Associated Press July 14th, 2007 After nearly two years, thousands of truck miles and $12.5 million in storage costs, the federal government is getting rid of thousands of pounds of ice it had sent south to help Katrina victims, then north when it determined much of the ice wasn't needed. |
| US: Former KBR employee pleads guilty in Kuwaiti kickback case by Brett Clanton, Houston Chronicle July 13th, 2007 A former KBR employee pleads guilty to Kuwaiti kickback charges. |
| US: Contractors Back From Iraq Suffer Trauma From Battle by James Risen, The New York Times July 5th, 2007 Contractors who have worked in Iraq are returning home with the same kinds of combat-related mental health problems that afflict United States military personnel, according to contractors, industry officials and mental health experts. |
| IRAQ: Blackwater Blues for Dead Contractors' Families by Bill Berkowitz, Inter Press Service News Agency June 29th, 2007 The families of four Blackwater employees who were killed in Iraq have filed a lawsuit that accuses the world's largest private security firm of negligence; Blackwater is suing back. |
| IRAQ: Audit of KBR Iraq Contract Faults Records For Fuel, Food; U.S. Says It Will Increase Monitoring in Baghdad
by Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post June 24th, 2007 KBR, the government contracting firm formerly under Halliburton, did not keep accurate records of gasoline distribution, put its employees in living spaces that may be larger than warranted and served meals that appeared to cost $4.5 million more than necessary under a contract to perform work in Iraq, according to an audit by a government oversight agency. |
| IRAQ: Contractors Face Growing Parallel War; As Security Work Increases, So Do Casualties by Steve Fainaru, Washington Post Foreign Service June 16th, 2007 Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives. |