Waste Not, Profit Not
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Excerpts from statements submitted by Halliburton whistleblowers to the House Committee on Government Reform, which were made public by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) after Republican leaders refused to hear the testimony. Halliburton has $8.2 billion in Iraq-related contracts.
One day, I was ordering some equipment. I asked the camp manager if it was okay to order a drill. He said to order four. I responded that we didn’t need four. He said, "Don’t worry about it. It's a cost-plus-plus contract." I asked him, "So basically, this is a blank check?" The camp manager laughed and said, "Yeah."…
Of the 35 or so Halliburton employees at [Camp] Anaconda, only a handful had anything to do.… The human resources supervisor said: "Don't worry. Just write down 12 hours. Walk around, look around, look busy."
–Michael West, former labor foreman
Prices obtained from vendors were never questioned by supervisors or managers. The procurement supervisor also instructed us to keep as many purchase orders as possible below $2,500 in value so that we wouldn't be required to solicit more than one quote. Large requisitions were split into smaller requisitions below the $2,500 level…. I questioned this practice early on, but was told by my supervisor to get back to my purchase orders.
–Henry S. Bunting, former procurement officer
For some reason that was never explained to us, KBR [the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root] removed all the spare tires in Kuwait. So when one of our trucks got a flat tire on the highway, we had to leave it there for the Iraqis to loot, which is just crazy. I remember saying to myself when it happened, "You just lost yourself an $85,000 truck because of a spare tire."…
A related problem was that KBR would run trucks empty quite often.… One time, we ran 28 trucks and only one had anything on it.… I don't understand why KBR would have placed our lives in danger that way for no reason.
–David Wilson, former kbr convoy commander
The theft was rampant. Most of the stealing was done between 9 p.m. and midnight, when the trucks were at Camp Anaconda. I reported this to my convoy commander, Don Martin, who told me, "Don't worry about it, it's the Army stealing from the Army."
In March, I called [KBR president] Randy Harl personally…and told him about the theft going on at night at Camp Anaconda. He promised he would get to the bottom of it, and thanked me. I never saw any evidence that KBR tried to stop the theft after my call to Mr. Harl.
–James Warren, former kbr convoy truck driver
