When you have friends in high places:

GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton

By Bob Geiger, AlterNet. Posted June 20, 2006.

(Some of the examples of what our government's fave contractor has been up to, as related by Senator Byron Dorgon, D-N.D. in recent hearings on the Defense Authorization act):

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Dorgan's bill -- cosponsored by 17 Democrats and called the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006 -- was tabled by a roll call vote of 55-43, effectively rejecting the amendment. Every single Senate Republican voted against the measure to make the contracting process honest and impose penalties on those who break the law.




"What we have discovered is pretty unbelievable," said Dorgan last week. "We have direct testimony from physicians, Army doctors and others about providing nonpotable water for shaving, brushing teeth, that is in worse condition as water than the raw water coming out of the Euphrates River.

"Let me describe some of the firsthand eyewitness issues in Iraq," Dorgan continued. "Brand new $85,000 trucks that were left on the side of the road because of a flat tire and then subsequently burned. Twenty-five tons, 50,000 pounds, of nails ordered by Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the wrong size, that are laying in the sands of Iraq. Forty-two thousand meals a day charged to the taxpayers by Halliburton and only 14,000 are actually served."

After telling the amazing tale of the KBR Halliburton subsidiary ordering hand towels for soldiers embroidered with the "KBR" logo, to allow them to double the price of the towels, Dorgan told one Halliburton whistleblower's story of his company serving food date-stamped "expired" to American troops rather than throwing it away.

<snip and note that the following paragraph is out of order as a result of my reorganization>

Dorgan's bill -- cosponsored by 17 Democrats and called the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006 -- was tabled by a roll call vote of 55-43, effectively rejecting the amendment. Every single Senate Republican voted against the measure to make the contracting process honest and impose penalties on those who break the law.

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http://www.alternet.org/story/37849/