Below is an excerpt from Erik Eckholm’s piece in the Times, noting the settlement of litigation between Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse and DOD for retaliatory action after her objections, in 2005, to the Halliburton/KBR no-bid contract for logistical support in Iraq. Greenhouse had been the Chief Contracting Officer for the Army Corps of Engineers. She’d previously had a perfect record of performance ratings.
Her primary objections:
- the study rationalizing the sole-source KBR contract was itself outsourced – to Halliburton/KBR, which recommended itself as the sole source;
- Even if the contract’s premise was justified for the first few months on emergency grounds, it didn’t make sense for a multiyear, potentially indefinite contract.
Which raises the question of how much work KBR/Halliburton are doing now in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for DOD, CIA, et cet. We note the it’s KBR’s former CEO, and later the United States Vice President, who made famous the phrase “undisclosed location.” (For readers from Brooklyn, “undisclosed location” roughly translates to “going to the mattresses.”) KBR is currently, publicly, one of two logistics contractors in Iraq – but classified contracts are, by definition, outside the scope of public review – and for practical purposes – outside the scope of Congressional review.