War Profiteering C-SPAN2 Please Watch Please Pretty Please

[seemslikeadream]

WATCH!

Dorgan
Durbin
Boxer
Lautenberg

[seemslikeadream]

1. Are you watching?

n/t

[alcuno]

2. I love Dick Durbin

Hopefully we can get another senator for Illinois who is just like him. Home today. I'll turn him on.

[seemslikeadream]

3. You won't be sorry

They are going after Halliburton

[rasputin1952]

4. It is fantastic...

they are crushing Halliburton and the bush cabal, (by innuendo)!

O8)

[seemslikeadream]

5. Thanks for coming over

do we have whistleblowers?

[Imalittleteapot]

6. Okay. Okay. I'm watching/listen online.

This may make my day. I need a lift after yesterday. Thanks.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Sorry for yelling

:cry: but we may not have to worry about awol if we can only get Halliburton. A whole lot more proof of war profiteering!

He's holding up towels! KBR towels! Kellogg Brown and Root Towels

2500 towels price original price 1.60

4.50 with the logo

[digno dave]

8. UPDATE PLEASE

update anyone on what has been covered? Just staRTED WATCHING.

[Imalittleteapot]

13. Didn't think you were yelling.

The towel thing is amazing. Add a logo - using an outside vendor, the embroiderer, allows them a "cost plus" mark up. They should have embroidered a flag instead of BR logo.

[seemslikeadream]

15. Well that just shows where their allegiance lies

surely not with the American flag. Exibit 1 for charge of treason and war profiteering

[seemslikeadream]

37. Thanks to you for caring

it means alot to me

[SoCalDem]

9. Towels??? chairs??? Come on get to the meat !

This stuff is small potatoes..

I know it's setting the stage, but ...borrrrring :eyes:

$4.50-$5.00 a towel is not that much..

Golf/bowling towels sell for #10.00 for a cheap one..

[seemslikeadream]

11. Cheap price for all that free advertizing

for KRB

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. Geez...

Brand-name cardio equipment, embroidered towels, not looking for the cheapest prices... these people are crooks of the lowest order. Nauseating. :puke:

Although this Henry Bunting fellow seems like a good guy. P{robably why he is no longer with that comapny.

[SoCalDem]

12. Most companies do stuff like this..

I worked for a bank once that gave oout leather-bound notepads, and had catered luncheons..

Congressional junkets "cost" us more because of the favorable (to corporations) legislation they generate..

The stuff they are talking about does show waste, but $5.00 towels is pretty weak..

I hope they have some "bigger fish"..

[seemslikeadream]

16. I remain hopeful

Boxer did start out with the 4 million paid to Halliburton for food that was not delivered.

It's about the where the money is spent, not on the body armour

Halliburton
Etical nervous breakdown

Larger story here corporate culture out of control

government nodding and winking

[rasputin1952]

34. I loved it when Boxer asked if those meals...

made it to the homeless here at home!

O8)

[rasputin1952]

33. $5 per towel...

but how many towels?

When you buy in bulk you save $. Skip the logo save $. What the hell is the logo good for in a combat zone? I want a towel that is the same color as the area around me. Unless a white towel is necessary for surrender, (unacceptable, btw, except for the admin.).

It is the fact they would do ANY of this stuff. The notion of enrichment at the cost of human misery is repulsive.

Like FDR said, "I don't want to see any wartime millionaires made from this war". Americans back during WWII were a much more solidified society considering the threat. We have changed dramatically as a society. When I was growing up, there was no problem getting rich, but you did it honestly and without harm to others. If there was a conflict, you just didn't make as much. Greed was not an issue in my family. Some are different.

I have always had a problem with going home to a soft bed, while other Americans were fending off attacks. Been there, done that. But that's just me, others have no problem with it. I sure don't have to like them for their point of view.

I know you know all of this, I just wanted to vent a little. :evilgrin:

O8)

[seemslikeadream]

35. Thanks for the reply

When you know someone that has died there and kids that are there now without proper equipment it's extremely hard to keep the faith

[ComerPerro]

14. This Jeffery Jones guy

testifying now

Is cool.

Funny

[gulfcoastliberal]

17. William Hartung - World Policy Institute

is ripping Halliburton a new one. Mentioned the article that said if you need an Iraq contract, see Dick. Comparing this corruption to the Suharto regime. (And the Slate said the other day they doubt Cheney has anything to do with the contracts! Yeah, right!) Ooooohh secrecy and nepotism now! Damn, he's good!

[seemslikeadream]

18. It's about who's running the oil in Iraq

shutting Halliburton out not easy cause for the last ten years they now do what the reservists used to do. Privitized military

[DemBones DemBones]

19. William Hartung of the New Scool is on now --

OK, he mentioned Halliburton, so this is the same Senate hearing.

Troops deprived of fresh water, fresh food. . .

The bottom line is not supporting our troops.

Now up: Steve Ellis, Taxpayers for Common Sense

Public has to have faith money is being spent wisely. "To continue to allow shoddy management & poor oversight of taxpayer dollars to dominate the process is unconscionable."

[seemslikeadream]

20. It's not just the money

It's where they're spending the money Not on Kevlar Vests that our troops need, just the money for towels would have bought vests to save lives. They're buying towels instead of saftey of soldiers

Told not to talk to auditors
cleansed records

[DemBones DemBones]

21. Discussing Truman Committee, launched with

15 thousand dollars, may have saved $15 billion, not to mention lives saved (because comm. found out what weapons were dangeous/ didn't work properly.)

can't bury our heads in sand now that we know the questionable ways in which contracts have been handed out in Iraq-- need a bipartisan committee to investigate/ oversee.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) asking a question -- "Why should they get a no-compete, no-bid contract? It's cronyism. " Says he's requested an oversight committee three times, there is no bipartisan interest.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) tells about friend who has son who wrote home and said he had no Kevlar vest -- parents ponied up the $1500 to buy him a Kevlar vest and sent it to him. Another soldier wrote home he had no vest, his church took up a collection and sent him one.

WHAT A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT THIS IS!!! TROOPS HAVING TO SUPPLY THEIR OWN KEVLAR VESTS WITH HELP FROM MOM & POP OR CHURCH!!! GRRRRRRRR.

The money used monogramming Halliburton towels would have bought 10 Kevlar vests! Or could have armor-plated one or more vehicles.

Durbin: Is this Halliburton's corporate culture?

Witness Bunting (former Halliburton employee): Pretty typical in Kuwait area.

[DemBones DemBones]

22. Durbin used the word 'profiteering.'

:toast:

Throws question out to all witnesses.

Hartung: if foreign companies were in the pool, there'd be competition, keep costs down.

Ellis: besides competition aspect, we'd get contributions from other countries (if we had allowed them to bid on contracts)

Sen. Dorgan asks
Jeffrey Jones, Former Directory, Defense Energy Suppor Center,
what his thoughts were at the time contracts were awarded gasoline imported to Iraq at $2.60 a gallon by Halliburton

Jones responds that Congressman Waxman had it in the newspaper almost before he knew it through his work!

Go, Henry!!! :toast:

[DemBones DemBones]

24. Jones: Now we can see it's fraud, cronyism, illegal

business practices.

Dorgan: Whay would DOD, seeing the same headlines, not say "End of this game, we're not going to pay this."

Jones: They'd rather outsource.

Dorgan: They have a policy of outsourcing?

Jones: They wouldn't call it that but yes.

Hartung: They were cleaning offices four times a day, running crews 24 hours a day, 85% of crews had nothing to do, etc. to justify outsourcing unit.

Dorgan: You actually heard supervisors say "Don't worry about the price. It's all 'Cost Plus'."

Hartung: Absolutely. There was no concern.

"There were supposedly some auditors, , , but I never saw 'em"

"It's poor business ethics."

"The auditors would never catch it because the paperwork matches what you did."

[DemBones DemBones]

26. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): "It makes me furious."

You would think that committees would line up to hold hearings. . . to make sure money is being spent in support of troops. . .

Sen. Durbin: Pat Leahy drafted a provision to prevent war profiteering -- based on legislation of WW II -- which was quietly accepted in the Senate but unceremoniously dumped in conference committee.

Bunting (former Halliburton employee) : We were told "Keep it under $2500 so we don't have to get competitive bidding.

Durbin: When you found ways to save, they took that job away from you?

Bunting: Yes.


OK, DUers, I've got blisters on me fingers! Someone else will have to transcribe.

[seemslikeadream]

27. Well here's one I can handle

50 thousand pounds of nails ordered that were too short!

Sorry I can't do more I've got 4 things going at once right now

[DemBones DemBones]

29. Hartung told about 25,000 lbs. of nails --

that's 25 tons of nails -- sitting somewhere in Iraq because they're too short.

Durbin: Where is the accountability here?

Sounds like he's wrapping up, thanking the witnesses.

[seemslikeadream]

23. Thanks so much for the post

really appreciate it.


Don't worry about price -- It's cost plus!

[IkeWarnedUs]

25. Durbin - beyond DOD to the White House, Pentagon and Congress

Calling a spade a spade. He and Leahey tried to include a provision that would make war profiteering illegal (like we had in WWII) and it was removed in committee.

God bless him, he doesn't just want a Cheney scapegoat - he wants to take down the lot of them.

String bidding - the way the "insiders" get around the "goo goo's" (good government types). Used to see it in Illinois and it was illegal and stopped. Same thing going on here.

I love Durbin.

[IkeWarnedUs]

28. Durbin prophecy

If the American people follow these hearings they will be outraged!


If we leave it up to the media, the American people will never know.

You know, if a tree falls in the forest . . .

[seemslikeadream]

30. This not the end of this - Durbin

n/t

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[ComerPerro]

32. That was great to see

Thanks for letting me know!

[seemslikeadream]

36. Thank you for caring

:hi:

[joanski01]

38. I watched the whole thing.

Couldn't take my eyes off it. In Senator Lauterberg's opening remarks, he brought up the 60 Minutes piece, where it showed Haliburton's "office" in the Cayman Islands and only one guy was there. Mail was received there and then forwarded to the US.

If anyone thinks that the towels were small potatoes, add them up with the gasoline, 43 million undelivered meals, tax evasion, $7,500 a month to rent each car and truck, of which there were thousands rented. Lots of money.

Barbara Boxer also called it War Profiteering. This group is not going to let this go away. They kept saying how many times they asked the Republicans to hold hearings, and were told NO.

After watching the author of American Dynasty on Washington Journal, and then this hearing, I'm sure that the wheels are coming off the bush* wagon.

[9215]

39. Dorgan really gets into the nitty gritty

This is another thing to really piss off the public. Cheney's Halliburton gouging the government.

[DemBones DemBones]

40. Thanks for posting this so that I got to see

the last part of it. I don't know how much I missed but it was dynamite stuff.

What if we all wrote Letters to Editors about this merde that only Democrats seem able to uncover?

And that media may be unable to cover? (They are doing pretty well on the AWOL story but how long before they go back to MichaelJacksonthe accusedpederastScottPetersontheaccusedwifeandbabykillerJanetJacksonthe accusedbreastexposer?)