Can you say ChimpyObamaBurton? Yes you can! [rquoter]KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON – Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, rejected the company's explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company's "continuing quality deficiencies" and said KBR executives were "not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground." "Many within DOD (the Department of Defense) have lost or are losing all remaining confidence in KBR's ability to successfully and repeatedly perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq," wrote Graff, commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency, in a Sept. 30 letter. Graff rejected the company's claims that it wasn't required to follow U.S. electrical codes for its work on U.S. military facilities in Iraq. KBR has said it would cost an extra $560 million to refurbish buildings in Iraq used by the U.S. military, including Saddam Hussein's palaces, which among other problems are based on a 220-volt standard rather than the American 120-volt standard. KBR announced last week it won a new $35.4 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers to design and build a convoy support center at Camp Adder in southern Iraq. It will include a power plant, electrical distribution center, water purification and distribution systems, wastewater and information systems and road paving. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the new KBR contract was inappropriate. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he has formally asked the Corps of Engineers whether it was confident KBR could accomplish it and whether the Corps had any alternatives. "This is hardly the time to award KBR a new contract for work they've already failed to perform adequately, and which put U.S. soldiers at even greater risk," Dorgan said in a statement. "Ultimately, contractors must be held accountable, and so should those who continue to award these contracts." A KBR spokeswoman, Heather Browne, said the company was committed to providing quality services and would comply with the military's requirements in its work on the Camp Adder contract. The AP has learned that Army criminal agents have reopened the death investigation of Staff Sgt. Christopher Lee Everett, 23, a member of the Texas Army National Guard. Everett was killed September 2005 in Iraq when the power washer he was using to clean a vehicle short-circuited. KBR and another contractor, Arkel International, performed the electrical work on the device's generator, according to a civil lawsuit filed by Everett's family. "I think it's something that needs to be done so these electrocutions don't continue to happen," Everett's mother, Larraine McGee of Huntsville, Texas, told the AP in a phone interview. "There's no excuse for this whatsoever." McGee said the Army's senior criminal investigator at Fort Hood notified her about the reopened investigation. The AP previously reported that the Army has reclassified another soldier's electrocution death as a negligent homicide caused by KBR and two of its supervisors. Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, a Green Beret from Pittsburgh, was electrocuted in his barracks shower. An Army investigator said KBR's contractor failed to ensure qualified electricians and plumbers did the work. The case is under legal review, and KBR has said it was not responsible for Maseth's death. The deaths of Everett and Maseth are among the 18 under review by the Pentagon's inspector general. Some of the deaths have been blamed on improperly installed or maintained electrical equipment. In three cases, service members were shocked while showering. Families of Maseth and Everett also have sued KBR in federal court for wrongful death; the company is attempting to have the lawsuits dismissed. The Corps of Engineers said KBR has earned $615 million on 30 similar contracts as the newest it awarded to the company and noted that KBR has not been banned or suspended from winning U.S. government contracts. The government can ban companies in cases of fraud, antitrust violations, bribery, tax evasion or for actions that reflect "a lack of business integrity or business honesty," according to federal rules. "KBR has not been debarred, suspended, nor have they been proposed for debarment from government contracting," Corps spokeswoman Joan Kibler said. KBR was previously owned by Halliburton Co., the oil services conglomerate that former Vice President Dick Cheney once led. Democrats have long complained it benefited from ties to Cheney. Separately, court papers filed in Houston on Friday show KBR is preparing to plead guilty to federal bribery charges for promising and paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Nigeria in exchange for engineering and construction contracts between 1995 and 2004. Browne, the KBR spokeswoman, said the company had no comment. The company is expected to appear in federal court next week as part of a plea deal.[/rquoter]
Uh, government contracts take a LONG time to award. I'm 100% confident this contract process was ~99% complete before Obama took office a couple weeks ago. He had no capacity to stop this. Check back on KBR 2 years from now and lets revisit. lol. I suppose it's Obama's fault that the country is in recession. It's probably also Obama's fault that California has earthquakes. The peanut salmanella outbrake is also Obama's fault. My daughter's currently ongoing temper tantrum is CLEARLY Obama's fault. Afterall, that happened on his watch.
KBR and its predecessors have been receiving federal contracts since before WWII. But some of you are still surprised they still receive contracts after they pretty much supplied the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assuming this contract fell under LOGCAP IV, they have to bid against against 2 other companies, DynCorp and the Fluor Corporation.
You seem a little testier than normal. Let's try to remain calm and civil. There's a democratic congress and a democratic president. You'd think with all the crowing the liberals did about Halliburton and KBR that things would have changed....
In two weeks...really? I seriously doubt that you really believe that the wheels weren't in motion on this long before Obama took office.
He's already decided to allow gays in the military and to close Guantanamo....so he's had time to do some things
LOGCAP IV logistics contract awarded through full and open competition Apr 17, 2008 The U.S. Army announced today, April 17, the selection of three companies on a full and open competition basis that will augment essential logistics support services to military forces in the field. The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, uses private sector contractors to provide a broad range of logistics and support services to U.S. and allied forces during combat, such as those missions now under way in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to other contingency, peacekeeping, humanitarian and training operations. The three companies awarded under the full and open competition process are DynCorp International LLC of Fort Worth, Texas; Fluor Intercontinental Inc., of Greenville, S.C.; and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) Services of Houston, Texas. A total of five companies submitted offers. The three LOGCAP IV performance contracts were originally awarded to the same companies on June 27, 2007. Following the contract announcement, two unsuccessful offerors filed protests with the Government Accountability Office. The GAO upheld the protests on Oct. 5, 2007, and the Army subsequently implemented the corrective actions recommended by the GAO leading to today's contract award announcement. http://www.army.mil/-newsreleases/2...ct-awarded-through-full-and-open-competition/ They already have changed. Gays have been allowed in the military for quite some time now, they just can't be openly gay.
Yes, but since this title and insinuation are, again, beneath anyone with a brain outside the three amigos, I just have to post it...
