Monday, February 27, 2006

Mediocrity with consequences

Just do it really half-assedly.

The Army has decided to reimburse a Halliburton subsidiary for nearly all of its disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and repair oil equipment in Iraq, even though the Pentagon's own auditors had identified more than $250 million in charges as potentially excessive or unjustified.

The Army said in response to questions on Friday that questionable business practices by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, had in some cases driven up the company's costs. But in the haste and peril of war, it had largely done as well as could be expected, the Army said, and aside from a few penalties, the government was compelled to reimburse the company for its costs.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A quarter of a billion dollars is, in effect, within the margin of error?

How do these guys get through the day without giggling uncontrollably? (Of course, I have no way of knowing that they don't.

helmut said...

Yup, "unjustified," but oh well.