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HALLIBURTON ? THE CLINTON CONTRACTOR
Waxman's second objection concerns the way the company will be paid for its services. The LOGCAP payment method, known as a cost-plus-award, calls for KBR to be paid its costs plus a profit of 1 percent. According to the General Accounting Office, KBR could also earn "an incentive fee of up to nine percent of the cost estimate, based on the contractor's performance in a number of areas, including cost control." In one of his letters to the Corps of Engineers, Waxman says that the cost-plus-award system is "generally discouraged in the executive branch because it provides the contractor with an incentive to increase its profits by increasing the costs to the taxpayer." But in fact, the cost-plus-award method is an extremely common arrangement throughout the defense-contracting industry; one can leaf through the pages of Defense Daily and see many hundreds of contracts handled on the same basis. Given such widespread use, it is hard to conclude that the cost-plus-award method somehow makes the Halliburton contract a sweetheart deal for a politically favored company. (Nor is the contract unusually generous; the LOGCAP's range of a 1 percent to 9 percent fee is in line with standard government/industry practice.)

[Editor's note ? Since this article was published in National Review magazine, Halliburton has said that while the LOGCAP that was in effect from 1992 until 1997 called for a one-to-nine percent profit range, the LOGCAP in effect now calls for significantly less, a one-to-three percent profit margin.]

Finally, Waxman objects to what he calls Halliburton's "troubling" performance record, suggesting that Halliburton would not have gotten the contract had Vice President Cheney not once headed the company. But Waxman's charges ? and their echoes in outraged editorials ? overlook Halliburton's extensive history of defense work for earlier administrations. Indeed, far from having a "troubling" past, one could argue that Halliburton was a favorite contractor of the Clinton Pentagon.

The first LOGCAP was awarded in 1992, as the first Bush administration (including then-Secretary of Defense Cheney) was leaving office. Four companies competed, and the winner was Brown & Root, as it was known at the time (Halliburton changed the name to Kellogg Brown & Root after an acquisition in 1998). The multi-year contract was in effect during much of the Clinton administration. During those years, Brown & Root did extensive work for the Army under the LOGCAP contract in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia; contract workers built base camps and provided troops with electrical power, food, and other necessities.

In 1997, when LOGCAP was again put up for bid, Halliburton/Brown & Root lost the competition to another contractor, Dyncorp. But the Clinton Defense Department, rather than switch from Halliburton to Dyncorp, elected to award a separate, sole-source contract to Halliburton/Brown & Root to continue its work in the Balkans. According to a later GAO study, the Army made the choice because 1) Brown & Root had already acquired extensive knowledge of how to work in the area; 2) the company "had demonstrated the ability to support the operation"; and 3) changing contractors would have been costly. The Army's sole-source Bosnia contract with Brown & Root lasted until 1999. At that time, the Clinton Defense Department conducted full-scale competitive bidding for a new contract. The winner was . . . Halliburton/Brown & Root. The company continued its work in Bosnia uninterrupted.

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Alex123 said:

The benefit would be those countries that didn't risk anything getting the building contracts (among other contracts) of aboot 18 billion dollars.

So you think countries that launch devastating wars of aggression should also have the right to rape and pillage?

Seems like it should be the other way - you devastate a country, you get zero benefit from it.

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Where are the contracts for rape being given out?

I could have answered your question, but I think you'd feel more comfortable if I nitpicked about specific word use, and never really made my thoughst on it clear, much the same way you do.

So, as per forum rules, show me where contracts for rape are being handed out, or prevented from being bid upon by other nations.

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So you think countries that launch devastating wars of aggression should also have the right to rape and pillage?

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