Military loses to Halliburton

Clevekand.com ^ | 10/21/03 | tferan@plaind.com

[inPhase]

Ive gone from Lorain County to Lake County looking for the best deal on gas, and I found a nice price last week in Portage County. I get tips from bargain-hunting friends who think they know the system and the best day to gas up.

They'll drive on fumes waiting for a price cut they expect, like gamblers convinced that the slot machine will pay off. As they explain it, the price of gas is somehow connected to weekends, holidays, world events and various world markets. I can't figure it out. From Our Advertiser

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I have, however, found the place to go.

For a cheap fill-up, you should head to our 51st state - Iraq. Gas is selling there for 4 to 15 cents a gallon.

This might not seem surprising. Iraq, after all, sits on more than 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Getting gas in Iraq should be as easy as getting water in Cleveland. Iraq's oil revenues were supposed to pay for the country's reconstruction.

But it hasn't worked that way. Iraq's oil production remains a fraction of what it was before the war. Neighboring countries have exported gasoline and other fuels since May to Iraq. That costs money.

The company responsible for importing and distributing the fuel is KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Inc., under a contract awarded by the Pentagon without competition. Halliburton says the average total cost of delivering fuels to customers is $1.59 a gallon, including fees - roughly what we pay here.

Figuring out the system that gets the pump price to a dime a gallon isn't tough. The difference is a subsidy. We pay for some of it. We'll be paying a lot more.

As of last week, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Halliburton had been paid $762.4 million to buy and distribute fuel. Most of the money came from the U.N. Development Fund for Iraq, some came from seized Iraqi assets, and the U.S. government paid $72.4 million, the corps said.

But the president's famous $87 billion reconstruction package includes a request for more than $900 million to buy petroleum products for Iraqis next year. That's 12 times what the Corps of Engineers says the United States has paid so far, and nearly 20 percent more than the total from all sources.

It is also "substantially more money than is called for by current fuel prices in the Persian Gulf trading area," according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service. Based on market prices, it's over $200 million more than necessary, the report said.

The money will go to Halliburton. For the record, the Corps of Engineers says the company is getting "the best price possible," and Halliburton says allegations of price-gouging are "inaccurate, misleading and unwarranted."

Regardless, the big oil request came up in Congress last Friday. Friday is Washington's day of choice for controversial actions because weekend news gets comparatively little attention.

Before approving the president's $87 billion package, the House of Representatives rejected an amendment that would have given each member of the armed forces a one-time, $1,500 bonus for their service in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom.

The bonus money - $265 million - would have come from the account set aside to import oil products under the Iraq Relief and Reconstructions Fund. It would come from the account with "substantially more money than is called for," not from rebuilding money.

Endorsed by a half-dozen military associations, the bonus lost on a tie vote, 213-213. Ten Ohio representatives who voted against it, opting not to modify the White House request, happen to have voted to raise their own pay a month ago.

A $1,500 bonus would not be hitting the lottery. But it would be enough to pay for the two-week home leaves our troops are getting. They have to pay their own way home, believe it or not, after the military gets them to stateside "gateway airports."

Even if you don't get the best price possible, $1,500 buys a lot of gas.

It just doesn't go as far as it does in Iraq. That's the trouble with being at the wrong end of the hose.

[inPhase]

Endorsed by a half-dozen military associations, the bonus lost on a tie vote, 213-213. Ten Ohio representatives who voted against it, opting not to modify the White House request, happen to have voted to raise their own pay a month ago.

A $1,500 bonus would not be hitting the lottery. But it would be enough to pay for the two-week home leaves our troops are getting. They have to pay their own way home, believe it or not, after the military gets them to stateside "gateway airports."

[StatesEnemy]

Be prepared to be called a socialist.

[inPhase]

why?

[StatesEnemy]

Because, red-blooded Merkins support their corporate overlords.

[inPhase]

Get the jist,
but don't know what a Merkin is.

I usually get accused the other way as in Xtr right.

Am just a fiscal conservative.

Why I support the whimpy amount of 87 bil to soldiers for travel, if stated might start a battle royal

but I try to use reason only.

These lopsided deals to a few insider corps out of the civilian Pentagon et al, is hurting our economy big time.

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_232.html

AND

http://www.williamgaddis.org/recognitions/23anno1.shtml

392.90
"wear a stinking merkin for a beard: Brownson explains: "from a scurrilous poem formerly attributed to John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, but actually written by John Oldham, entitled 'To the Author of a Play called Sodom.' Nine lines suffice to give the context of the line in question:

Sure Nature made, or meant to 'ave don't,
Thy tongue a Clitoris, thy mouth a Cunt;
How well a Dildoe wou'd that Place become,
To gag it up, and make't for ever dumb?
At least it should be syring'd Womb
Or wear some stinking Merkin for a Beard,
That all from its base converse might be scar'd,
As they a door shut up, and mark't, Beware,
That tells infection and the Plague is there.

Because a 'merkin' is counterfeit pubic hair for a woman, used to hide the effects of syphilis, the line fits into Gaddis' theme of falsification; also, the poem itself has been the subject of disputes for years, as both it and the play it attacks were attributed to Rochester" (67)."

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

Aside from the dictionary definitions (above) the only Merkin (or Merkins?) I recall was a quarterback with New Orleans.
Misspelling or __?

[CaptIsaacDavis]

Could someone please tell me why Iraq was in more URGENT need of fuel distribution than Russia, Germany, Japan, France, etc. after WW2? We are paying only to speed up a process that will get back into gear eventually -- and hence subsidize Halliburton in the process.

[maica]

Could it be that the pressure from anti-American media and dems is pressing daily for our retreat from Iraq? Everything being done there by the CPA has to be done at triple speed.