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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army said today it had awarded $72 million in bonuses to Halliburton Co. for logistics work in Iraq but had not decided whether to give the Texas company bonuses for disputed dining services to troops. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., said in a statement it had given Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown & Root ratings from "excellent" to "very good" for six task orders for work supporting U.S. troops in Iraq. The Army said its Award Fee Board in Iraq had met in March and had agreed to pay KBR bonuses for work it...

The Pentagon's internal watchdog has begun investigating two additional contracts handled by convicted former Air Force official Darleen Druyun and could add three more deals to its growing list of possibly tainted procurements, the Pentagon said on Monday. Druyun is serving a nine-month prison term for violating federal conflict-of-interest laws by negotiating a $250,000-a-year job with Boeing Co. while still overseeing its business with the Air Force. She also admitted steering contracts to Boeing as far back as 2000. "In the course of our review, in an effort to be as thorough as possible, we decided to take a look...

OWEGO, NY, March 30, 2005 -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] received a $37.8 million contract to provide the U.S. Air Force with Precision Engagement production kits to modify A/OA-10 aircraft. The entire A-10 fleet will be modified over the next five years for an estimated total contract value of $168 million. The Precision Engagement modification will enable the A-10 to use advanced precision guided weapons, including the Joint Direct Attack Munition and the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser. The modification also adds the capability for advanced targeting pods to improve pilots’ situational awareness. “The Precision Engagement modification allows aircrews to engage...

Two restaurants at O'Hare Airport have been allowed to rake in millions of dollars, even though the Daley administration learned back in 2002 that the company running them was probably a phony minority "front" for Panda Express and Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a top fund-raiser for Gov. Blagojevich. Crucial Inc. won the O'Hare concessions in part because it was certified as a minority-owned business. Its largest shareholder was listed as Jabir Herbert Muhammad, son of the late Nation of Islam founder, Elijah Muhammad.

Air Force Lifts 20-Month Boeing Ban on Satellite Launch Contracts WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Air Force on Friday lifted a 20-month ban prohibiting Boeing Co. from bidding on satellite launch contracts, saying the company had corrected problems that led to accusations that it stole information from a competitor in 1998. The Chicago-based aerospace giant was suspended in 2003 and stripped of some $1 billion in launch contracts after it was found in possession of thousands of sensitive documents belonging to rival Lockheed Martin. Acting Air Force Secretary Peter Teets said Boeing will reimburse the military $1.9 million for the cost...

Computer Sciences Receives Army Technology Order Worth $199 Million EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) -- Computer Sciences Corp. said Wednesday it led a team that received a $199 million order from the Army to provide technology to monitor product life cycles and integrate logistics systems. The deal spans 57 months and aims to provide Army warfighters with logistics systems integration, and provide the information to Army customers. The Computer Sciences-led team also includes Northrop Grumman Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Digital Fusion Inc. and Germany's SAP Aktiengesellschaft.

President Bush is thought to have ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq in order to secure control of that country's vast oil fields for his friends and contributors in the oil industry, especially Vice President Cheney's former company Halliburton. This is taken as an article of faith among many, especially for many in our universities, our cultural industries, and in our press. Hundreds, if not thousands, of essays, articles and reports have been circulated in the past 3 years about the motivations of President Bush when it comes to Iraq. Typical examples of the genre can be found daily...

Heckler & Koch is a leader in the design and manufacturing of technologically advanced firearms for military and law enforcement. It is the firm behind some of the most well known firearms of the last fifty years including the G3 rifle, MP5 submachine gun, USP pistol, and newer models such as the MP7 Personal Defense Weapon, the UMP submachine gun, and the G36 weapon system.

General Electric Co., which has been accused of collecting "blood money" by doing business in Iran, will stop accepting any new orders for business in the country, company officials said Wednesday. The move by the world's largest company by market value comes just days after another conglomerate, Halliburton Co., announced the company will wind down its operations in Iran. "We're seeing a turnaround by a number of U.S. companies operating in Iran," said Dan Katz, chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. Katz said the moves may signal an imminent change in U.S. policy that has allowed foreign subsidiaries...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- On Capitol Hill, reaction to the announcement that a Lockheed Martin-led international consortium had won the contract for the design and construction of the next generation of U.S. presidential helicopters was mixed. Some folks cared; others didn't. Welcome to life in 21st-century Washington, where diplomatic concerns, the demands of the global marketplace and plain, old-fashioned political pressure and pork barrel regularly collide. "The $6.1 billion contract -- $3.6 billion for the fleet of 23 helicopters and the rest for research and development -- is far from the Pentagon's largest," the New York Times reported Monday,...

The oil services conglomerate Halliburton Co. will wind down its operations in Iran and seek to separate its engineering and construction subsidiary KBR from the parent, chairman and CEO Dave Lesar said today. Lesar made the disclosures today to analysts in a conference call after the company disclosed its fourth-quarter loss narrowed to $201 million from a loss of $947 million in the same period a year ago. Halliburton does business in Iran through a foreign-owned subsidiary, which is allowed as long as Americans don't participate in or direct that business. But a federal grand jury is investigating whether the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a surprise move, the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) has chosen a transatlantic team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a new U.S. presidential helicopter fleet in a deal valued at well over $1 billion, several congressional sources said on Friday. The decision was a stunning setback for Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky Aircraft unit -- which for nearly 50 years has built and maintained the green and white "Marine One" helicopters that fly the president. Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), a New York Democrat, announced the decision in a press release,...

If a global society forms during the Twenty-first Century, will it necessarily be a contract society, built upon reciprocal trade and agreement, as many people think? Or could it be constructed upon other principles, for instance the left’s dream of universal sharing, nonviolence, peace, and justice, or the Isalmists’ dream of the world converted to Islam by the will of God and His holy warriors? Or will it be a global bureaucracy, a United Nations writ large, the centralized rule of the international experts? When Sir Henry Maine wrote his famous dictum in Ancient Law that the movement of progressive...

Looks like my initial hunch was correct. The assassination of Baghdad governor Ali al-Haidari on January 4th shocked the Iraq elections futures on Tradesports. I did a little bottom fishing at 81. The price has since rebounded to about 89. There are still about 20 days to go until the election, so maybe some more opportunities will come up.

ADLAI STEVENSON once argued that a politician is a statesman who “approaches every question with an open mouth”. If the performance of Jan Egeland, of the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is an indication, the same is true of those paid by the United Nations. A week ago, despite just one day having passed since the Asian tsunami, with the reported death toll one tenth of what it is now believed to be, and ignoring the fact that public holidays are never the easiest times to start organising an aid effort, Mr Egeland saw fit to dismiss...

WASHINGTON — For the first time, a major U.S. contractor has dropped out of the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq, raising new worries about the country's growing violence and its effect on reconstruction. Contrack International Inc., the leader of a partnership that won one of 12 major reconstruction contracts awarded this year, cited skyrocketing security costs in reaching a decision with the U.S. government last month to terminate work in Iraq. "We reached a point where our costs were getting to be prohibitive," said Karim Camel-Toueg, president of Arlington, Va.-based Contrack, which had won a $325-million award to rebuild Iraq's...

AUGUSTA, Maine -- Cuba has agreed to purchase up to $10 million worth of farm products including potatoes, apples, and dairy cattle from Maine producers, Gov. John Baldacci said Thursday.

<p>WASHINGTON — A senior Defense official placed under investigation by the FBI (news - web sites) on allegations that he tried to steer Iraqi reconstruction contracts toward friends has been removed from office, Pentagon (news - web sites) officials confirmed Friday.</p>

Despite investigations of alleged financial misdeeds, Halliburton Company has passed the ten (b) billion dollar mark in Iraq work orders from the Army. The Army has ordered more than eight (b) billion dollars worth of work from Halliburton under a contract to support soldiers with meals, housing, laundry and other services. Halliburton got two-point-five (b) billion more in work from the Army Corps of Engineers to put out oil well fires and shore up Iraq's dilapidated oil infrastructure. Allegations of misdeeds including corruption and overcharging have led to criminal, congressional and Pentagon investigations of Halliburton's work in Iraq. Halliburton says...

Domestic companies look to planning project for piece of Iraq's reconstruction pie Michal Hron is a man with a plan. He aims to play a key role in determining the future shape of Baghdad. If he succeeds, Czech firms could have a huge advantage in applying for contracts to reconstruct Iraq's war-torn capital. A Prague-based architect, Hron is confident he is close to obtaining final approval from the Iraqi authorities to begin work on an ambitious town-planning project that will map out the development of Baghdad over the next two or three decades. Hron, the architectural and technical expert on...