By Andrea Shalal-Esa
Reuters
Tuesday, March 28, 2006; 7:30 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Halliburton Co., the world's second largest oil services company, repeatedly overcharged taxpayers and provided substandard cost reports under a $1.2 billion contract to restore Iraq's southern oil fields, according to a new report by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman.
Waxman, a California Democrat, said Democratic staff members of the House Committee on Government Reform examined a series of previously undisclosed government audits and correspondence that criticized Halliburton's performance under the "Restore Iraqi Oil 2" (RIO2) contract.
The documents, which cover the period from January 2004 to July 2005, painted "an absolutely abysmal picture of Halliburton's RIO2 work" and cited profound systemic problems, misleading and distorted cost reports, he said.
Halliburton, a Texas-based company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, dismissed the committee report as partisan and said it focused on old issues with the two-year contract that have been resolved.
"After two years and from thousands of miles away, it is easy to criticize decisions and actions that were based on urgent mission requirements and severe time constraints," the company said in a statement.
Halliburton, the largest private contractor in Iraq, said the contract went through "countless changes" and review by at least 15 different government contracting officials.
Waxman, who has introduced legislation to limit sole-source contracts in the future, said lawmakers did not know much about what had happened with the contract since July 2005, adding: "From what we can see, major problems remain."
Halliburton said its engineering and construction arm KBR, which is gearing up for an initial public stock offering, had received 30 task orders under the contract to date, for a total current value of nearly $750 million and work was ongoing.
The Democratic report said that, in addition to the RIO 2 contract, Halliburton was also paid $13.5 billion for providing troop support under a logistics contract with the U.S. Army, and $2.4 billion under the original RIO contract to import fuel into Iraq and rebuild Iraq oil infrastructure.
The Pentagon's Project and Contracting Office (PCO) found that Halliburton repeatedly overcharged the government, Waxman said, citing the documents.
PCO put KBR on notice in January 2005 that it could cancel the contract for cause. It lifted the notice six months later, saying KBR demonstrated "adequate" compliance. In January, it exercised one of three one-year options to extend the deal.
In one case, the agency said Halliburton tried to inflate cost estimates by $26 million. In another, it said Halliburton claimed costs for laying concrete pads and footings that the Iraqi Oil Ministry had already installed.
The report said the same agency reported Halliburton was "accruing exorbitant indirect costs at a rapid rate," while the Defense Contract Audit Agency challenged $45 million of $365 million in costs as unreasonable or unsupported.
The PCO also cited "profound systemic problems" with Halliburton's cost reporting and said some documents were stripped of information that would allow tracking of details.
It said Halliburton's work under RIO 2 was 50 percent late and officials refused to cooperate with oversight officials.
Halliburton, run by Cheney from 1995-2000, has been under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq.
© 2006 Reuters
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Halliburton, in trouble again, to float KBR - Business - Business - smh.com.au
NEW YORK: Halliburton, the American energy and construction group which used to be run by US vice-president Dick Cheney, is understood to have hired Goldman Sachs to run the $US9 billion ($12.8 billion) float of its Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary.
KBR has been heavily criticised for its dominant role in war-torn Iraq as major contractor to the US military, the contracts won apparently without arms' length tenders being called, and for heavily overcharging.
In Washington on Tuesday frustrated US Government auditors pleaded, cajoled and finally threatened Halliburton executives who repeatedly failed to comply with government reporting requirements under a key Iraq contract with a $US1.2 billion potential price tag, newly released documents show.
The documents, along with a report, were issued on Tuesday by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Government Reform.
The 15-page report cites findings by auditors that Halliburton overcharged - "apparently intentionally" - on the contract by using hidden calculations and attempted, in one instance, to invoice the US Government for $US26 million in costs it did not incur.
The report blamed the Department of Defence for awarding the contract despite warnings from auditors that Halliburton's cost estimating system had "significant deficiencies".
Halliburton remains the largest private contractor in Iraq.
The contract, awarded in January 2004, was one of three Iraq contracts awarded to Halliburton.
While the other two agreements - one for supplies for US troops and the other for fuel and oil industry repairs - have faced heavy criticism as no-bid contracts, Mr Waxman and his staff said Tuesday's report was the first to focus on the third Halliburton contract, for the repair of oilfields in southern Iraq, which was awarded after a competitive bidding process.
Melissa Norcross, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, dismissed the report as "partisan".
Halliburton is planning to float 20 per cent of KBR in the next few months and the remaining 80 per cent in a year's time. KBR has been selling some of its assets, including Kellogg Brown Root Production Services, based in Aberdeen, Scotland, for £100 million ($248 million) to its own management two weeks ago.
The sale came amid renewed speculation about the future of the Plymouth-based Devonport group in the UK, which refits Britain's nuclear submarine fleet and is 51 per cent owned by KBR
KBR has been heavily criticised for its dominant role in war-torn Iraq as major contractor to the US military, the contracts won apparently without arms' length tenders being called, and for heavily overcharging.
In Washington on Tuesday frustrated US Government auditors pleaded, cajoled and finally threatened Halliburton executives who repeatedly failed to comply with government reporting requirements under a key Iraq contract with a $US1.2 billion potential price tag, newly released documents show.
The documents, along with a report, were issued on Tuesday by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Government Reform.
The 15-page report cites findings by auditors that Halliburton overcharged - "apparently intentionally" - on the contract by using hidden calculations and attempted, in one instance, to invoice the US Government for $US26 million in costs it did not incur.
The report blamed the Department of Defence for awarding the contract despite warnings from auditors that Halliburton's cost estimating system had "significant deficiencies".
Halliburton remains the largest private contractor in Iraq.
The contract, awarded in January 2004, was one of three Iraq contracts awarded to Halliburton.
While the other two agreements - one for supplies for US troops and the other for fuel and oil industry repairs - have faced heavy criticism as no-bid contracts, Mr Waxman and his staff said Tuesday's report was the first to focus on the third Halliburton contract, for the repair of oilfields in southern Iraq, which was awarded after a competitive bidding process.
Melissa Norcross, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, dismissed the report as "partisan".
Halliburton is planning to float 20 per cent of KBR in the next few months and the remaining 80 per cent in a year's time. KBR has been selling some of its assets, including Kellogg Brown Root Production Services, based in Aberdeen, Scotland, for £100 million ($248 million) to its own management two weeks ago.
The sale came amid renewed speculation about the future of the Plymouth-based Devonport group in the UK, which refits Britain's nuclear submarine fleet and is 51 per cent owned by KBR
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Report Adds to Criticism of Halliburton's Iraq Role - New York Times
Even as a Halliburton subsidiary was absorbing harsh criticism of its costs on a 2003 no-bid contract for work in Iraq, the government officials overseeing a second contract wrote that the company was running up exorbitant new expenses on similar work, according to a report issued yesterday by the staff for the Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee.
The report, prepared for a frequent critic of Halliburton, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, is based on previously undisclosed correspondence and performance evaluations from 2004 and 2005.
The documents show that the government's contracting officers became increasingly frustrated as they tried to penetrate what they considered to be inaccurate or misleading progress reports and expense vouchers filed by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root.
In August 2004, one of the officers wrote to the company that "you have universally failed to provide adequate cost information as required."
A few months later, after the company was served with a "cure notice," in which the government threatened to terminate the contract if performance was not improved, or "cured," another officer said he was writing "in sheer frustration with the consistent lack of accurate data."
Kellogg Brown & Root's second contract, awarded in January 2004 for rebuilding oil infrastructure in southern Iraq, has a maximum value of $1.2 billion. A company spokeswoman, Melissa Norcross, said that the report was "as devoid of context as it is new information" and that many of the issues raised by the contracting officers had been resolved.
The company, Ms. Norcross said, was forced to work with an ever-shifting cast of oversight organizations and at least 15 government contracting officials. "With each change, the company adjusted to meet the needs of its customer," she said, "all while operating in an extremely hostile war zone."
But Mr. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the report showed that the company had "actually done a worse job under its second Iraq oil contract than it did under the original no-bid contract."
William L. Nash, a retired Army general who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on post-conflict zones, said the unusually revealing documents laid bare "a microcosm of all the ills" of the Iraq rebuilding effort. "This a continuing example of the mismanagement of the Iraq reconstruction from the highest levels down to the contractors on the ground," he said.
The second contract was not terminated after the cure notice, and contracting officers later noted improvements in some areas. But the company received what appears to be a rebuke when it was given nothing out of a possible $7.9 million in socalled award fees for its first year of work on the contract. The award fees are incentives given by the government to reward good performance.
An award fee given for a later period, roughly the first half of 2005, was about 20 percent of the maximum, which Mr. Nash, who has been involved in determining such fees, described as extraordinarily low.
Both Kellogg Brown & Root contracts called for things like repairing oil wells and pipelines, installing power generators at oil facilities and importing fuel to Iraq. The first contract, worth $2.4 billion, generated enormous controversy after Pentagon auditors questioned more than $200 million in fuel delivery costs.
Critics like Mr. Waxman called the challenged costs overcharges, a description rejected by the company, which claimed a measure of vindication last month when the Army overruled the auditors and reimbursed nearly all of the delivery charges.
The new report, which says that Pentagon auditors have questioned $45 million of the $365 million in costs they reviewed, may revive the battle. A spokesman for the Defense Contract Audit Agency confirmed those figures.
Responding to the numbers, an official with Kellogg Brown & Root said, "Audits are part of the normal contracting process, and it is important to note that the auditors' role in the process is advisory only."
But what are likely to be seen as the most striking portions of the report are those that cite the variously stern, heated and even anguished language of contracting officers trying to bring the company to heel.
"As I have said in numerous meetings, KBR's lack of cost containment and funds management is the single biggest detriment to this program," one officer, Maj. Michael V. Waggle, wrote in the cure notice. He noted that the company had listed an impossibly high cost overrun of $436,019,574 on one job, charges of $114,308 for an oil spill cleanup that failed to remove any oil and another set of tasks in which the overruns were 36.9 percent of all costs.
The slides used in presentations during the deliberations of the board that determined the first award fee are almost equally eye-catching. On one slide, covering the company's success at meeting its planned schedules, a section labeled "Strengths" bears only the notation "N/A," presumably meaning no answer or not applicable. The "Weaknesses" section contains four detailed items.
The report, prepared for a frequent critic of Halliburton, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, is based on previously undisclosed correspondence and performance evaluations from 2004 and 2005.
The documents show that the government's contracting officers became increasingly frustrated as they tried to penetrate what they considered to be inaccurate or misleading progress reports and expense vouchers filed by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root.
In August 2004, one of the officers wrote to the company that "you have universally failed to provide adequate cost information as required."
A few months later, after the company was served with a "cure notice," in which the government threatened to terminate the contract if performance was not improved, or "cured," another officer said he was writing "in sheer frustration with the consistent lack of accurate data."
Kellogg Brown & Root's second contract, awarded in January 2004 for rebuilding oil infrastructure in southern Iraq, has a maximum value of $1.2 billion. A company spokeswoman, Melissa Norcross, said that the report was "as devoid of context as it is new information" and that many of the issues raised by the contracting officers had been resolved.
The company, Ms. Norcross said, was forced to work with an ever-shifting cast of oversight organizations and at least 15 government contracting officials. "With each change, the company adjusted to meet the needs of its customer," she said, "all while operating in an extremely hostile war zone."
But Mr. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the report showed that the company had "actually done a worse job under its second Iraq oil contract than it did under the original no-bid contract."
William L. Nash, a retired Army general who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on post-conflict zones, said the unusually revealing documents laid bare "a microcosm of all the ills" of the Iraq rebuilding effort. "This a continuing example of the mismanagement of the Iraq reconstruction from the highest levels down to the contractors on the ground," he said.
The second contract was not terminated after the cure notice, and contracting officers later noted improvements in some areas. But the company received what appears to be a rebuke when it was given nothing out of a possible $7.9 million in socalled award fees for its first year of work on the contract. The award fees are incentives given by the government to reward good performance.
An award fee given for a later period, roughly the first half of 2005, was about 20 percent of the maximum, which Mr. Nash, who has been involved in determining such fees, described as extraordinarily low.
Both Kellogg Brown & Root contracts called for things like repairing oil wells and pipelines, installing power generators at oil facilities and importing fuel to Iraq. The first contract, worth $2.4 billion, generated enormous controversy after Pentagon auditors questioned more than $200 million in fuel delivery costs.
Critics like Mr. Waxman called the challenged costs overcharges, a description rejected by the company, which claimed a measure of vindication last month when the Army overruled the auditors and reimbursed nearly all of the delivery charges.
The new report, which says that Pentagon auditors have questioned $45 million of the $365 million in costs they reviewed, may revive the battle. A spokesman for the Defense Contract Audit Agency confirmed those figures.
Responding to the numbers, an official with Kellogg Brown & Root said, "Audits are part of the normal contracting process, and it is important to note that the auditors' role in the process is advisory only."
But what are likely to be seen as the most striking portions of the report are those that cite the variously stern, heated and even anguished language of contracting officers trying to bring the company to heel.
"As I have said in numerous meetings, KBR's lack of cost containment and funds management is the single biggest detriment to this program," one officer, Maj. Michael V. Waggle, wrote in the cure notice. He noted that the company had listed an impossibly high cost overrun of $436,019,574 on one job, charges of $114,308 for an oil spill cleanup that failed to remove any oil and another set of tasks in which the overruns were 36.9 percent of all costs.
The slides used in presentations during the deliberations of the board that determined the first award fee are almost equally eye-catching. On one slide, covering the company's success at meeting its planned schedules, a section labeled "Strengths" bears only the notation "N/A," presumably meaning no answer or not applicable. The "Weaknesses" section contains four detailed items.
Report Adds to Criticism of Halliburton's Iraq Role - New York Times
Even as a Halliburton subsidiary was absorbing harsh criticism of its costs on a 2003 no-bid contract for work in Iraq, the government officials overseeing a second contract wrote that the company was running up exorbitant new expenses on similar work, according to a report issued yesterday by the staff for the Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee.
The report, prepared for a frequent critic of Halliburton, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, is based on previously undisclosed correspondence and performance evaluations from 2004 and 2005.
The documents show that the government's contracting officers became increasingly frustrated as they tried to penetrate what they considered to be inaccurate or misleading progress reports and expense vouchers filed by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root.
In August 2004, one of the officers wrote to the company that "you have universally failed to provide adequate cost information as required."
A few months later, after the company was served with a "cure notice," in which the government threatened to terminate the contract if performance was not improved, or "cured," another officer said he was writing "in sheer frustration with the consistent lack of accurate data."
Kellogg Brown & Root's second contract, awarded in January 2004 for rebuilding oil infrastructure in southern Iraq, has a maximum value of $1.2 billion. A company spokeswoman, Melissa Norcross, said that the report was "as devoid of context as it is new information" and that many of the issues raised by the contracting officers had been resolved.
The company, Ms. Norcross said, was forced to work with an ever-shifting cast of oversight organizations and at least 15 government contracting officials. "With each change, the company adjusted to meet the needs of its customer," she said, "all while operating in an extremely hostile war zone."
But Mr. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the report showed that the company had "actually done a worse job under its second Iraq oil contract than it did under the original no-bid contract."
William L. Nash, a retired Army general who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on post-conflict zones, said the unusually revealing documents laid bare "a microcosm of all the ills" of the Iraq rebuilding effort. "This a continuing example of the mismanagement of the Iraq reconstruction from the highest levels down to the contractors on the ground," he said.
The second contract was not terminated after the cure notice, and contracting officers later noted improvements in some areas. But the company received what appears to be a rebuke when it was given nothing out of a possible $7.9 million in socalled award fees for its first year of work on the contract. The award fees are incentives given by the government to reward good performance.
An award fee given for a later period, roughly the first half of 2005, was about 20 percent of the maximum, which Mr. Nash, who has been involved in determining such fees, described as extraordinarily low.
Both Kellogg Brown & Root contracts called for things like repairing oil wells and pipelines, installing power generators at oil facilities and importing fuel to Iraq. The first contract, worth $2.4 billion, generated enormous controversy after Pentagon auditors questioned more than $200 million in fuel delivery costs.
Critics like Mr. Waxman called the challenged costs overcharges, a description rejected by the company, which claimed a measure of vindication last month when the Army overruled the auditors and reimbursed nearly all of the delivery charges.
The new report, which says that Pentagon auditors have questioned $45 million of the $365 million in costs they reviewed, may revive the battle. A spokesman for the Defense Contract Audit Agency confirmed those figures.
Responding to the numbers, an official with Kellogg Brown & Root said, "Audits are part of the normal contracting process, and it is important to note that the auditors' role in the process is advisory only."
But what are likely to be seen as the most striking portions of the report are those that cite the variously stern, heated and even anguished language of contracting officers trying to bring the company to heel.
"As I have said in numerous meetings, KBR's lack of cost containment and funds management is the single biggest detriment to this program," one officer, Maj. Michael V. Waggle, wrote in the cure notice. He noted that the company had listed an impossibly high cost overrun of $436,019,574 on one job, charges of $114,308 for an oil spill cleanup that failed to remove any oil and another set of tasks in which the overruns were 36.9 percent of all costs.
The slides used in presentations during the deliberations of the board that determined the first award fee are almost equally eye-catching. On one slide, covering the company's success at meeting its planned schedules, a section labeled "Strengths" bears only the notation "N/A," presumably meaning no answer or not applicable. The "Weaknesses" section contains four detailed items.
The report, prepared for a frequent critic of Halliburton, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, is based on previously undisclosed correspondence and performance evaluations from 2004 and 2005.
The documents show that the government's contracting officers became increasingly frustrated as they tried to penetrate what they considered to be inaccurate or misleading progress reports and expense vouchers filed by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root.
In August 2004, one of the officers wrote to the company that "you have universally failed to provide adequate cost information as required."
A few months later, after the company was served with a "cure notice," in which the government threatened to terminate the contract if performance was not improved, or "cured," another officer said he was writing "in sheer frustration with the consistent lack of accurate data."
Kellogg Brown & Root's second contract, awarded in January 2004 for rebuilding oil infrastructure in southern Iraq, has a maximum value of $1.2 billion. A company spokeswoman, Melissa Norcross, said that the report was "as devoid of context as it is new information" and that many of the issues raised by the contracting officers had been resolved.
The company, Ms. Norcross said, was forced to work with an ever-shifting cast of oversight organizations and at least 15 government contracting officials. "With each change, the company adjusted to meet the needs of its customer," she said, "all while operating in an extremely hostile war zone."
But Mr. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the report showed that the company had "actually done a worse job under its second Iraq oil contract than it did under the original no-bid contract."
William L. Nash, a retired Army general who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on post-conflict zones, said the unusually revealing documents laid bare "a microcosm of all the ills" of the Iraq rebuilding effort. "This a continuing example of the mismanagement of the Iraq reconstruction from the highest levels down to the contractors on the ground," he said.
The second contract was not terminated after the cure notice, and contracting officers later noted improvements in some areas. But the company received what appears to be a rebuke when it was given nothing out of a possible $7.9 million in socalled award fees for its first year of work on the contract. The award fees are incentives given by the government to reward good performance.
An award fee given for a later period, roughly the first half of 2005, was about 20 percent of the maximum, which Mr. Nash, who has been involved in determining such fees, described as extraordinarily low.
Both Kellogg Brown & Root contracts called for things like repairing oil wells and pipelines, installing power generators at oil facilities and importing fuel to Iraq. The first contract, worth $2.4 billion, generated enormous controversy after Pentagon auditors questioned more than $200 million in fuel delivery costs.
Critics like Mr. Waxman called the challenged costs overcharges, a description rejected by the company, which claimed a measure of vindication last month when the Army overruled the auditors and reimbursed nearly all of the delivery charges.
The new report, which says that Pentagon auditors have questioned $45 million of the $365 million in costs they reviewed, may revive the battle. A spokesman for the Defense Contract Audit Agency confirmed those figures.
Responding to the numbers, an official with Kellogg Brown & Root said, "Audits are part of the normal contracting process, and it is important to note that the auditors' role in the process is advisory only."
But what are likely to be seen as the most striking portions of the report are those that cite the variously stern, heated and even anguished language of contracting officers trying to bring the company to heel.
"As I have said in numerous meetings, KBR's lack of cost containment and funds management is the single biggest detriment to this program," one officer, Maj. Michael V. Waggle, wrote in the cure notice. He noted that the company had listed an impossibly high cost overrun of $436,019,574 on one job, charges of $114,308 for an oil spill cleanup that failed to remove any oil and another set of tasks in which the overruns were 36.9 percent of all costs.
The slides used in presentations during the deliberations of the board that determined the first award fee are almost equally eye-catching. On one slide, covering the company's success at meeting its planned schedules, a section labeled "Strengths" bears only the notation "N/A," presumably meaning no answer or not applicable. The "Weaknesses" section contains four detailed items.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Battle Creek Enquirer - Whistleblower, "community heroes" honored
Bunnatine Greenhouse describes leadership as "taking the responsibility to do what is right and make a difference," so she seemed to fit right in with local leaders and activists in Battle Creek.
Greenhouse, a former senior contracting official of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, made headlines when she testified against Halliburton — one of the world's largest providers of oil and gas services — alleging specific instances of fraud, waste and other irregularities by Halliburton in regard to its operations in Iraq.
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Greenhouse was the key speaker and guest of honor at a Community Heroes Mixer held Friday at McCamly Plaza. The event honored both Greenhouse and community members who have created positive change in the local area.
"I am so honored to be in Battle Creek and you all have etched something on my mind and in my heart," Greenhouse said. "This is an activist community and people here work to improve this community for their neighbors. I am blessed to have had the Battle Creek experience."
The South Central Michigan American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), PheNix Concepts, a local Concerned Citizens group and Families Against Murder/For Equal Justice (F.A.M.E.) sponsored Greenhouse's visit. The evening was emceed by Richard Frantz, president of the South Central Michigan AFL-CIO, Reba Harrington of PheNix Concepts and Mary Knapp, a community activist.
Several dozen community members were awarded certificates on behalf of PheNix Concepts and the AFL-CIO for "outstanding community leadership and unselfish service."
Trace Christenson, a reporter for the Enquirer was an award recipient. A complete list of winners and their accomplishments will be published at a later date.
Greenhouse was presented with a T-shirt from F.A.M.E. with a list of victims of local unsolved murders on the back, which she commented she will wear in Washington with pride. Mildred Mallard, owner of ABC Boutique in Battle Creek presented Greenhouse with a collectible statue of Sojourner Truth.
"We are so proud that you shared your story with us. You remind of us so much of Sojourner," Mallard said. "She said speak the truth and we want you to continue to speak your truth."
After the awards, Greenhouse — joined by her lawyer Michael Kohn — delivered a passionate speech on her demotion and dismissal from her position at the Army Corps of Engineers. A video of an Enquirer interview with Greenhouse is available online at battlecreekenquirer.com.
"I was dismissed from my job because I did my job too well," Greenhouse said. "I am now fighting the most important fight of my career and I am fighting for the people. Please know that Battle Creek's support gives me the strength to go on fighting."
Greenhouse, a former senior contracting official of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, made headlines when she testified against Halliburton — one of the world's largest providers of oil and gas services — alleging specific instances of fraud, waste and other irregularities by Halliburton in regard to its operations in Iraq.
ADVERTISEMENT
Greenhouse was the key speaker and guest of honor at a Community Heroes Mixer held Friday at McCamly Plaza. The event honored both Greenhouse and community members who have created positive change in the local area.
"I am so honored to be in Battle Creek and you all have etched something on my mind and in my heart," Greenhouse said. "This is an activist community and people here work to improve this community for their neighbors. I am blessed to have had the Battle Creek experience."
The South Central Michigan American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), PheNix Concepts, a local Concerned Citizens group and Families Against Murder/For Equal Justice (F.A.M.E.) sponsored Greenhouse's visit. The evening was emceed by Richard Frantz, president of the South Central Michigan AFL-CIO, Reba Harrington of PheNix Concepts and Mary Knapp, a community activist.
Several dozen community members were awarded certificates on behalf of PheNix Concepts and the AFL-CIO for "outstanding community leadership and unselfish service."
Trace Christenson, a reporter for the Enquirer was an award recipient. A complete list of winners and their accomplishments will be published at a later date.
Greenhouse was presented with a T-shirt from F.A.M.E. with a list of victims of local unsolved murders on the back, which she commented she will wear in Washington with pride. Mildred Mallard, owner of ABC Boutique in Battle Creek presented Greenhouse with a collectible statue of Sojourner Truth.
"We are so proud that you shared your story with us. You remind of us so much of Sojourner," Mallard said. "She said speak the truth and we want you to continue to speak your truth."
After the awards, Greenhouse — joined by her lawyer Michael Kohn — delivered a passionate speech on her demotion and dismissal from her position at the Army Corps of Engineers. A video of an Enquirer interview with Greenhouse is available online at battlecreekenquirer.com.
"I was dismissed from my job because I did my job too well," Greenhouse said. "I am now fighting the most important fight of my career and I am fighting for the people. Please know that Battle Creek's support gives me the strength to go on fighting."
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Chron.com | Firm Failed to Protect U.S. Troops' Water
By LARRY MARGASAK Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused "mass sickness or death," an internal company report concluded.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the company failed to assemble and use its own water purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used for washing and laundry at Camp Ar Ramadi in Ramadi, Iraq.
The problems discovered last year at that site _ poor training, miscommunication and lax record keeping _ occurred at Halliburton's other operations throughout Iraq, the report said.
"Countrywide, all camps suffer to some extent from all or some of the deficiencies noted," Wil Granger, Theatre Water Quality Manager in the war zone for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, wrote in his May 2005 report.
AP reported earlier this year allegations from whistleblowers about the Camp Ar Ramadi incident, but Halliburton never made public Granger's internal report alleging wider problems.
The water quality expert warned Halliburton the problems "will have to be dealt with at a very elevated level of management" to protect health and safety of U.S. personnel.
Halliburton said Wednesday it conducted a second review last year that found no evidence of any illnesses in Iraq from water and it believes some of its earlier conclusions were incomplete and inaccurate. The company declined to release the second report.
The company said it has "worked closely with the Army to develop standards and take action to ensure that the water provided in Iraq is safe and of the highest quality possible."
Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney for several years before he ran for vice president. Its KBR subsidiary, also known as Kellogg Brown & Root, works under contract to provide a number of services to the U.S. military in Iraq, including providing water and purifying it.
The contaminated, non-chlorinated water at Ar Ramadi was discovered in March 2005 in a commode by Ben Carter, a KBR water expert at the base. In an interview, Carter said he resigned after KBR barred him from notifying the military and senior company officials about the untreated water.
A supervisor at Ar Ramadi "told me to stop e-mailing" company officials outside the base and warned that informing the military "was none of my concern," Carter said. He said he threatened to sue if company officials didn't let him be examined to determine whether he suffered medical problems from exposure to the contaminated water.
Granger's report cited several countrywide problems:
_A lack of training for key personnel. "Theatre wide there is no formalized training for anyone at any level in concerns to water operations."
_Confusion between KBR and military officials over their respective roles. For instance, each assumed the other would chlorinate the water at Ar Ramadi for any uses that would require the treatment.
_Inadequate or nonexistent records that could have caught problems in advance. Little or no documentation was kept on water inventories, safety stand-downs, audits of water quality, deliveries, inspections and logs showing alterations or modifications to water systems.
_Relying on employees the company identified as semiskilled labor, and paid as unskilled workers in the pay structure.
The report said the event at Ar Ramadi could have been prevented if KBR's Reverse Osmosis Units on the site had been assembled, instead of relying on the military's water production facilities.
"This event should be considered a 'near miss' as the consequences of these actions could have been very severe resulting in mass sickness or death," Granger wrote.
The report said that KBR officials at Ar Ramadi tried to keep the contamination from senior company officials.
"The event that was submitted in a report to local camp management should have been classified as a recordable occurrence and communicated to senior management in a timely manner," Granger wrote. "The primary awareness to this event came through threat of domestic litigation."
Beginning last May, Halliburton said it began using its equipment to remove contaminants, bacteria, and viruses in Ar Ramadi, and disinfect the water with chlorine. The company said KBR has worked closely with the Army to develop safe water standards.
It said its subsequent review in August-September 2005 found nonpotable water used for washing "was effectively filtered" to remove at least 99 percent of the parasite giardia and 90 percent of viruses. The Ar Ramadi water also tested negative for bacteria, Halliburton added.
© 2006 The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused "mass sickness or death," an internal company report concluded.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the company failed to assemble and use its own water purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used for washing and laundry at Camp Ar Ramadi in Ramadi, Iraq.
The problems discovered last year at that site _ poor training, miscommunication and lax record keeping _ occurred at Halliburton's other operations throughout Iraq, the report said.
"Countrywide, all camps suffer to some extent from all or some of the deficiencies noted," Wil Granger, Theatre Water Quality Manager in the war zone for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, wrote in his May 2005 report.
AP reported earlier this year allegations from whistleblowers about the Camp Ar Ramadi incident, but Halliburton never made public Granger's internal report alleging wider problems.
The water quality expert warned Halliburton the problems "will have to be dealt with at a very elevated level of management" to protect health and safety of U.S. personnel.
Halliburton said Wednesday it conducted a second review last year that found no evidence of any illnesses in Iraq from water and it believes some of its earlier conclusions were incomplete and inaccurate. The company declined to release the second report.
The company said it has "worked closely with the Army to develop standards and take action to ensure that the water provided in Iraq is safe and of the highest quality possible."
Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney for several years before he ran for vice president. Its KBR subsidiary, also known as Kellogg Brown & Root, works under contract to provide a number of services to the U.S. military in Iraq, including providing water and purifying it.
The contaminated, non-chlorinated water at Ar Ramadi was discovered in March 2005 in a commode by Ben Carter, a KBR water expert at the base. In an interview, Carter said he resigned after KBR barred him from notifying the military and senior company officials about the untreated water.
A supervisor at Ar Ramadi "told me to stop e-mailing" company officials outside the base and warned that informing the military "was none of my concern," Carter said. He said he threatened to sue if company officials didn't let him be examined to determine whether he suffered medical problems from exposure to the contaminated water.
Granger's report cited several countrywide problems:
_A lack of training for key personnel. "Theatre wide there is no formalized training for anyone at any level in concerns to water operations."
_Confusion between KBR and military officials over their respective roles. For instance, each assumed the other would chlorinate the water at Ar Ramadi for any uses that would require the treatment.
_Inadequate or nonexistent records that could have caught problems in advance. Little or no documentation was kept on water inventories, safety stand-downs, audits of water quality, deliveries, inspections and logs showing alterations or modifications to water systems.
_Relying on employees the company identified as semiskilled labor, and paid as unskilled workers in the pay structure.
The report said the event at Ar Ramadi could have been prevented if KBR's Reverse Osmosis Units on the site had been assembled, instead of relying on the military's water production facilities.
"This event should be considered a 'near miss' as the consequences of these actions could have been very severe resulting in mass sickness or death," Granger wrote.
The report said that KBR officials at Ar Ramadi tried to keep the contamination from senior company officials.
"The event that was submitted in a report to local camp management should have been classified as a recordable occurrence and communicated to senior management in a timely manner," Granger wrote. "The primary awareness to this event came through threat of domestic litigation."
Beginning last May, Halliburton said it began using its equipment to remove contaminants, bacteria, and viruses in Ar Ramadi, and disinfect the water with chlorine. The company said KBR has worked closely with the Army to develop safe water standards.
It said its subsequent review in August-September 2005 found nonpotable water used for washing "was effectively filtered" to remove at least 99 percent of the parasite giardia and 90 percent of viruses. The Ar Ramadi water also tested negative for bacteria, Halliburton added.
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