Thursday, July 29, 2004

Winning the War, Losing Your Stuff

It takes a big company to rebuild Iraq--big enough to lose $18.6 million worth of your stuff.

That's the word from the Inspector General's office of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Halliburton is the company Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. They've been running much of the reconstruction in Iraq since the war ended. Democrats often charge Halliburton gets favorable treatment because of that - avoiding things like having to bid on government contracts against competitors. Halliburton has earned $3.2 billion--with a "B"--in government contracts for Iraq's reconstruction. Now the CPA says Halliburton has lost $18.6 million of government property they were supposed to take care of.

They were given $61 million dollars of your stuff to take care of. That included things like trucks, computers, and office furniture.

The Inspector General audited the fine folks at Halliburton. They found Halliburton could not account for nearly a third of the taxpayer owned equipment they were supposed to manage.
The Inspector General's Office figures Halliburton can't account for a total of 6,975 items from an inventory list of 20,531.

Like I said, Vice President Dick Cheney used to run Halliburton. Think anyone thought to look for the missing stuff in some 'secure, undisclosed location?'

No comments: