Military Logistics |
The US army relies heavily on private companies to do many of the routine activities in the military from cooking food to repairing fighter jets under a program called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). The contract is what the Pentagon calls a "cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity service" which basically means that the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send these companies anywhere in the world to run humanitarian or military operations for profit. For example Halliburton of Houston, Texas, has made a fortune by charging double for importing gasoline, taking kickbacks from suppliers and using cheap labor from South Asia to cook meals for the soldiers. |
| An extended interview with the author of Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War. by Mike Shea, Texas Monthly January 31st, 2009 Interview with CorpWatch managing editor Pratap Chatterjee, on his forthcoming book, "Halliburton's Army," published by Nation Books and available in books stores on February 2, 2009. |
 | Subcontracting Substandard Services by David Isenberg, Special to CorpWatch June 27th, 2011 Najlaa International Catering Services of Kuwait faces numerous complaints and court actions for non-payment of bills and alleged fraud for work conducted on U.S. military bases in Iraq. The allegations show that the Pentagon is still unable to manage subcontractors eight years after the invasion. |
 | U.S. Congressional Wartime Commission Targets Armed Contractors by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch June 23rd, 2010 This week, almost a decade after the U.S. "War on Terror" began, the Commission on Wartime Contracting held two days of hearings into the role of private contractors in conducting and supporting war. The Congressional witness table included Aegis, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Curiously, Blackwater was not called; and the CEO of Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions failed to appear. |
 | Agility Attempts to Vault Fraud Charges by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch February 1st, 2010 Agility, a Kuwait-based multi-billion dollar logistics company spawned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is facing criminal charges for over-billing the U.S. taxpayer on more than $8.5 billion worth of food supply contracts in the Iraq war zone. If the lawsuit is successful, the company could owe the U.S. government as much as $1 billion. |
 | Is Halliburton Forgiven and Forgotten? Or How to Stay Out of Sight While Profiting From the War in Iraq by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com June 3rd, 2009 At Halliburton's recent annual shareholders meeting in Houston, all was remarkably staid as the company celebrated its $4 billion in 2008 operating profits, a striking 22% return at a time when many companies are announcing record losses. Just three months ago, however, Halliburton didn't hesitate to pay $382 million in fines to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the settlement of a controversial KBR gas project in Nigeria in which the company admitted to paying a $180 million bribe to government officials. |
| US: Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post April 7th, 2009 The surge in the U.S. military contracting workforce would ebb under Defense Secretary Gates's budget proposal as the Pentagon moves to replace private workers with full-time civil servants. The move could affect companies such as CACI and SAIC. "We are right-sizing the defense acquisition workforce so we can improve our contract oversight and get a better deal for the taxpayers," said the Pentagon's director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. |
 | Inheriting Halliburton's Army: What Will Obama Do With KBR? by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com February 22nd, 2009 President Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a U.S. military base or two. Should he stay to eat with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, the former subsidiary of Halliburton. |
| US/IRAQ: Indiana guardsmen sue defense contractor KBR by Farah Stockman, Boston Globe December 4th, 2008 Sixteen Indiana national guardsmen filed a lawsuit yesterday against military contractor KBR. The complaint alleges that several reservists contracted respiratory system tumors and skin rashes after guarding reconstruction work at the Qarmat Ali treatment plant, strewn with the toxin chromium dichromate. |
| US: Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stir by James Risen, New York Times June 17th, 2008 Charles M. Smith, the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war, says he was ousted for refusing to approve payment for more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR. The Pentagon has recently awarded KBR part of a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq. |
| US: Inside the world of war profiteers
by David Jackson and Jason Grotto|Tribune reporters, Chicago Tribune February 21st, 2008 Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand. |
| KUWAIT: How Iraq Conflict Rewards A Kuwaiti Merchant Family
by CAM SIMPSON and GLENN R. SIMPSON, Wall Street Journal December 17th, 2007 Federal prosecutors in Atlanta are looking into whether Public Warehousing and another family-dominated company, Sultan Center Food Products Co., colluded to gouge the U.S. military. |
| 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: Iraq convoy was sent out despite threat by T. Christian Miller, LA Times September 3rd, 2007 Senior managers for defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in the spring of 2004, ordering unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents. |
| 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. |
| Philippine News: R.P. probes ‘trafficked OFWs’ in Iraq by Beting Laygo Dolor, Philippine News August 8th, 2007 President Gloria Arroyo has ordered an investigation into reports that Filipino workers were forced to go to Iraq to work on the U.S. embassy there despite a ban on them traveling there. A report from the watchdog organization CorpWatch said that “other South Asians” were indeed working for First Kuwait Trading and Contracting in Iraq. |
| 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. |
| U.S. Army takes $19.6 million from Halliburton by Pratap Chatterjee February 8th, 2007 |
| Blackwater security shot Iraqi man by Pratap Chatterjee February 7th, 2007 |
| IRAQ: US money is 'squandered' in Iraq BBC News January 31st, 2007 Millions of dollars in US rebuilding funds have been wasted in Iraq, US auditors say in a report which warns corruption in the country is rife. |
| US: Ex-Workers Testify About Halliburton
by Griff Witte, Washington Post September 19th, 2006 A Democratic Policy Committee hearing spurred by a lawsuit has renewed attention on Halliburton Co., which has come under intense scrutiny as the largest U.S. contractor in Iraq. |
| US: Halliburton Unit Risked Civilian Lives, Lawsuits Say (Update3) by Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Margaret Cronin Fisk, Bloomberg September 15th, 2006 Halliburton Co. sent civilian drivers into combat zones to protect its military supply contract, according to lawsuits filed by families of employees killed or injured while driving trucks in Iraq. |
| US: The Rise and Fall of a War Profiteer by Sarah Anderson, AlterNet July 13th, 2006 Bulletproof vest maker David H. Brooks' reign as America’s most ostentatious war profiteer does appear to be over. On July 10, the DHB Board of Directors issued a terse statement to the effect that Brooks had been put on indefinite “administrative leave” pending the outcome of unspecified investigations. |
 | Blood, Sweat & Tears:
Asia’s Poor Build U.S. Bases in Iraq by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch October 3rd, 2005 Thousands of low-wage Asian laborers are traveling to Iraq to work for U.S. military contractors like First Kuwaiti and Prime Projects International in the hope of sending money home to their families. Trapped and exploited under inhuman conditions, many of them are now fleeing the country to save their lives. |
 | Halliburton Hearing Unearths New Abuse by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch June 27th, 2005 "Misplaced" portable military bases, thousand-dollar VCRs, and expired food are only a few of the new charges that have been brought against the most powerful military contractor in Iraq. |
| US: Little Big Companies by Michael Scherer, Mother Jones Magazine How did corporations like Halliburton get millions in government contracts designated for small minority businesses? |
| IRAQ: Four Halliburton Workers from U.S. Killed Associated Press December 22nd, 2004 Two Texas men and two others from Oregon and Alabama were identified Wednesday as the four Halliburton Co. employees killed in the attack at a military base in Iraq, a strike that is among the deadliest for the Houston-based contractor since its involvement there. |
| UN: Board Cites U.S. Contractor in Iraq by Colum Lynch, Washington Post December 15th, 2004 |
 | “Contract Meals Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch December 9th, 2004 New evidence suggests that the Abu Ghraib prisoners were subjected not only to torture and psychological abuse, they were underfed, malnourished and made to eat food so bad it inspired riots. A little-known private contractor, run by an American civilian, is said to be to blame. |
| IRAQ: Silence Surrounds Fates of Contractors by David Ivanovich, Houston Chronicle November 21st, 2004 Halliburton Co. truck drivers Tim Bell and Bill Bradley disappeared April 9 when their convoy was attacked west of Baghdad. The Army has conducted an investigation into the ambush, but the report is classified. Pentagon officials refused to discuss its contents, directing questions to Halliburton. The company referred questions back to the Pentagon. |
| Houston, We Have a Problem Produced by CorpWatch and Global Exchange May 18th, 2004 Halliburton, the largest oil-and-gas services company in the world, is also one of the most controversial companies in the United States. The company has been the number one financial beneficiary of the war against Iraq, raking in some $18 billion in contracts to rebuild the country's oil industry and service the U.S. troops in Iraq. It has also been accused of more fraud, waste, and corruption than any other Iraq contractor. This report details Halliburton's track record. |
 | Private Contractors and Torture at Abu Ghraib by Pratap Chatterjee and A.C. Thompson, Special to CorpWatch May 7th, 2004 Two private military contractors are being investigated for their role in torture allegations at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq: CACI from Arlington, Virginia, and Titan of San Diego, California. |
 | Titan's Translators in Trouble by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch May 6th, 2004 Titan corporation of San Diego, California, one of the two companies accused of complicity in the prison abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, is currently facing numerous federal investigations for work done in Iraq and around the world. |
| IRAQ: 10 US Contractors Penalized
by Matt Kelley, Associated Press April 26th, 2004 Ten companies with billions of dollars in U.S. contracts for Iraq reconstruction have paid more than $300 million in penalties since 2000 to resolve allegations of bid rigging, fraud, delivery of faulty military parts and environmental damage. |
| Iraq: Families of Hostages Say They're Being Kept in Dark by Bill Murphy, Houston Chronicle April 25th, 2004 Family members of KBR employees taken hostage by insurgents in Iraq say they are still being kept in the dark about their status |
| Iraq: Iraqis Investigate Halliburton over Allegations of Bribery by Clayton Hirst, London Independent April 25th, 2004 The probe centres on allegations that staff working for the Houston-based company took bribes for awarding sub-contracts in Iraq. |
| Iraq: Halliburton's Role In Iraq - from Meals to Oil by Sue Pleming, Reuters April 12th, 2004 Texas company Halliburton, which has seven workers missing in Iraq, is the U.S. military's biggest contractor there, responsibe for everything from preparing meals for U.S. troops to repairing Iraq's oil infrastructure. |
| Iraq: Trade Fair Postponed Over Security Fears by Joshua Chaffin and Salamander Davoudi, Financial Times April 1st, 2004 The deteriorating security situation in Iraq has prompted the postponement of a US-led trade fair aimed at accelerating reconstruction in the country amid heightening concerns about the safety of foreign civilians working there. Organisers of Destination Baghdad Expo, that was due to begin on Monday, postponed the event following the gruesome killings on Wednesday of four western contract workers in the city of Falluja. |
| Iraq: Rebuilding Plan Reviewed by Jackie Spinner and Mary Pat Flaherty, Washington Post March 31st, 2004 The new inspector general of the U.S.-led interim authority in Iraq reported yesterday that though he is just beginning his own audits of reconstruction spending, he is concerned about the oversight of spending and control of cash. |
| US: Former McKesson CFO Indicted in Fraud
by Henry K. Lee, San Francisco Chronicle March 31st, 2004 The former chief financial officer of San Francisco health care giant McKesson Corp. was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury for his role in a huge criminal securities fraud that wiped out $9 billion of shareholder value five years ago. |
| Iraq: Parsons Corp. Wins $900 Million Contract Reuters March 30th, 2004 California's Parsons Corp., one of the most active U.S. companies in Iraq, said on Tuesday it won a contract worth up to $900 million from the U.S. military for security and justice work in Iraq. The privately-owned engineering and construction company said the latest deal includes the restoration and construction of bases for the Iraqi security forces, police stations, border control stations, fire stations, courthouses and prisons. |
| Iraq: SAIC Pays DOD Settlement by Rachel Sams, Baltimore Business Journal March 25th, 2004 Defense contractor Science Applications International Corp. has agreed to pay $484,500 to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act when designing a computer system program for the U.S. Department of Defense. |
| Iraq: Nour USA Ltd's Delivery Delays by Tom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, New York Times March 22nd, 2004 Senior American commanders in Iraq are publicly complaining that delays in delivering radios, body armor and other equipment have hobbled their ability to build an effective Iraqi security force that can ultimately replace United States troops here. |
| US: Report Finds Halliburton Violated Contracting Rules by Seth Borenstein, Knight Ridder March 11th, 2004 Halliburton, the big contractor that's won the lion's share of government contracts to rebuild Iraq, significantly and systematically violated federal contracting rules by providing inaccurate and incomplete information about its own costs, according to a special report by Defense Department auditors. |
| US: Pentagon Asks Justice to Join Halliburton Probe by Neil King Jr. and Glenn R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal March 10th, 2004 The Pentagon has asked the Justice Department to join an inquiry into alleged fuel overcharging by Halliburton Co. in Iraq, indicating that Pentagon officials see possible grounds for criminal charges or civil penalties. |
| Unearthing Democratic Root to Halliburton Flap
by Al Kamen, Washington Post March 5th, 2004 Truly there is nothing new under the sun. In recent months Democrats have been bleating about fat Iraq construction contracts going to Halliburton, about Halliburton's ties to the administration because Vice President Cheney happened to run the company just before taking his current job and a shocking GOP tendency to help contributors. |
| US: Lawmakers seek Halliburton internal documents by David Ivanovich, Houston Chronicle February 27th, 2004 Two key Democratic lawmakers want Halliburton to turn over internal documents that reportedly identified significant deficiencies in the company's cost controls. |
| US: Ex-Halliburton Workers Allege Rampant Waste by T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times February 13th, 2004 Halliburton has systematically wasted U.S. taxpayer dollars in its operations in Iraq and Kuwait, according to two of the company's former employees who have spoken to congressional investigators. |
| World: America's Empire of Bases by Chalmers Johnson, Tom Paine January 15th, 2004 Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire – an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order. |
| US: Contractors Complain of TSA Limits by Sara Kehaulani Goo, Washington Post November 21st, 2003 A pilot program to test the effectiveness of privately employed screeners at U.S. airports is yielding few security innovations or cost savings because of constraints imposed by the Transportation Security Administration, government investigators and private contractors said. |
| Iraq: The Pentagon's Private Corps by Julian Brookes, MotherJones.com October 22nd, 2003 Washington has long outsourced work to private firms. What's new is the size and variety of contracts being doled out, particularly by the Pentagon. Private military companies now do more than simply build airplanes -- they maintain those planes on the battlefield and even fly them; construct detention camps in Guantanamo Bay, pilot armed reconnaissance planes and helicopter gunships to eradicate coca crops in Colombia; and operate the intelligence and communications systems at the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado -- work that brings the various companies an estimated $100 billion a year. |
| US: Halliburton Ceated Raised Prices of Gas by Farhad Manjoo, Salon.com October 16th, 2003 Why is getting gasoline to oil-rich Iraq costing Americans so much money? The congressmen have a one-word, obvious answer: Halliburton. |
| Iraq: Some of Army's Civilian Contractors Are No-Shows by David Wood, Newhouse News Service July 31st, 2003 U.S. troops in Iraq suffered through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because some civilian contractors hired by the Army for logistics support failed to show up, Army officers said. |
| Iraq: Nation Builders for Hire by Dan Baum, New York Times magazine June 22nd, 2003 When Dwight Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the ''military-industrial complex,'' he never imagined the regimental descendants of Monty's boys at El Alamein tenting in the desert to baby-sit corporadoes earning $10,000 tax-free a month. This, however, is modern might. The military has become the industrial, and vice versa. |
| Iraq: Oil Companies Aid Military Planners, Industry Avoids Publicity About Its Role in Teaching Troops to Operate Iraq Wells by Chip Cummins , Wall Street Journal March 27th, 2003 The oil industry has gone to great lengths to distance itself from any planning related to the potential post-war opening of Iraq's massive fields, now partly in U.S. and British hands. But it is becoming clear that a number of companies played significant advisory roles in military operations taking place on those fields, underscoring an unusual partnership between the military and private companies in the Iraq campaign. |
| IRAQ: Thousands of Private Contractors Support U.S. Forces in Persian Gulf by Kenneth Bredemeier, Washington Post March 3rd, 2003 Private contractors are sending thousands of technical experts to the Persian Gulf region. They operate communications systems, repair helicopters, fix weapons systems and link the computers with the troops to command centers. |
| Iraq: US begins secret talks to secure Iraq's oilfields for fear that wells will be torched if regime falls by Nick Paton, Julian Borger, Terry Macalister and Ewen MacAskill, Guardian January 23rd, 2003 The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze. |
| Afghanistan: New World Bank Grants Worth US$90 Million Reach Out Across Afghanistan June 6th, 2002 The World Bank today approved grants for three development projects in Afghanistan, bringing the institution's support for the war-ravaged country to a total of US$100 million in grant funding for the fiscal year ending June 30. |
| Afghanistan: World Bank and Central Asian Pipeline Agence France-Presse May 15th, 2002 World Bank chief James Wolfensohn said Wednesday he had held talks about financing a fuel pipeline to channel massive gas reserves from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to India or Pakistan. Wolfensohn, who was in the Afghan capital to open the financial institution's offices here and to confirm 100 million dollars of World Bank grants for the interim administration, said a number of companies had already expressed an interest in the project. |
| US: Secret Task Led to Web Of Firms; Virginian Ran Covert Missions Washington Post March 22nd, 1987 The mission that apparently launched the network of private companies now embroiled in the Iran-contra affair took place in October 1983, when an obscure U.S. Army unit asked a retired lieutenant colonel to undertake a secret job in the Caribbean, according to informed sources. |
| US: Oman Hold Delicate Negotiations Over Bases; Sultanate Pushing for Greater Control Over Access to Persian Gulf Facilities by David B. Ottaway, Washington Post July 19th, 1985 The United States has been involved for two months in delicate negotiations with the Persian Gulf sultanate of Oman, which is seeking more control over U.S. access to, and use of, its strategically located airfields and other military facilities. |
| Saudi Arabia: How U.S. Is Helping in Huge Arms Buildup by Saudi Arabia by Smith Hempstone, U.S. News & World Report April 17th, 1978 An impressive combination of U.S. weapons and American know-how is helping turn this thinly populated kingdom into one of the leading military powers in the entire Middle East. |