The "Story"
So we have news today out of The New York Times that Halliburton and its construction arm Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) not only expect no more hiccups in their efforts to rebuild Iraq, but they also are telling investors they don't believe they'll have to pay any of the fines levied against them so far. Why? Well why should they? After all, when has the law ever applied to Halliburton in the first place?

"I don't expect we're going to get fined," Halliburton general counsel Bert Cornelison told investors today via a conference call. "We haven't done anything wrong so it's very hard for me to sit here and speculate what a fine could be."

So far Halliburton has been doing several things "wrong." The company has been accused of grossly inflating its bids for construction projects, overcharging for fuel delivered from Kuwait and charging for meals to soldiers based on estimates and not on actual meals delivered. And those are just the things we know about--so far. Concerning the fuel deliveries, President Bush himself last December stated he believed there had been an overcharge and that "we expect that money to be repaid."

The News
All of this is, of course, our own fault.

Our government set up and approved the "no-bid policy" in Iraq, letting contractors issue bids on construction projects with no questions asked, no haggling, no quibbling about price, cost or fees.

Questions have been raised, quietly, concerning Halliburton's preferential treatment, especially in light of Cheney's five-year stewardship of the company. But that issue has since become stale, old news. And, like most politically sensitive issues these days, it has been quietly laid to rest by a cowering, lazy and ineffectual U.S. news media.

Where are the hard-hitting investigative journalists with the resources and the fortitude necessary to take this story on? For that matter, where is the General Accounting Office in this whole mess? That agency, set up by and responsible to Congress, is specifically designed to investigate just these sorts of wrongdoings. They've done good work in the past, where are they now?

Then there's the issue of Vice-President Cheney's involvement with the company. Cheney wisely stepped down as Halliburton's CEO when he was added to the presidential ticket in 2000, but doubts still remain concerning his presumed impartiality.

And there's really no great mystery there--of course there is cronyism going on. Halliburton has been around for a long, long time and was awarded major contracts during President Clinton's term(s) as well. But the fleecing we're getting now at the company's hands has much to do with opportunism and cronyism, that can't be denied.

Much of this post will be old news for some and, yes, Halliburton is an easy target. But 3N simply couldn't ignore today's denial of any wrongdoings from the company's mouthpiece.

For some real news on the subject, Mother Jones always is a good place to start. In fact, try this story on for size. If it doesn't make you angry, well then you're simply at the wrong site.