Army recants general’s Senate testimony

[unhappycamper]

Army recants general’s Senate testimony
By Richard Lardner - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Dec 7, 2007 21:26:48 EST

The Army has taken the unusual step of recanting the testimony of a senior officer who contradicted a Senate committee examining an Iraq war contract, but stopped short of admitting it improperly paid $99 million to the defense contractor handling the work.

Claude Bolton, the Army’s senior acquisition official, said in a letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press that a two-star general “did not provide an accurate response” in April when he testified that the payment had not been made to defense contractor KBR Inc.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had challenged the 2005 payment for temporary living quarters after Pentagon auditors found KBR had bought the trailers from high bidders instead of going to companies offering lower rates.

When Levin asked why the Army had paid the bill, Maj. Gen. Jerome Johnson, then head of the Army agency administering the contract, said the senator’s information was wrong.

After the April hearing, the Army sought to clarify Johnson’s response. Bolton’s Dec. 6 letter is a “correction for the record,” a more serious step.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_armycontracting_recant_071207/



uhc comment: KBR's back in the news.

[MADem]

1. Fucking KBR--they've been ripping us off since Ike was President. NT