Date: August 31, 2005 5:06:00 AM PDT
Subject: [Spy News] The Halliburton Retaliation
The Halliburton Retaliation
Bunny and the War Profiteers
JOSHUA FRANK, CounterPunch
August 30, 2005
You most likely haven't heard of a feisty woman named Bunnatine "Bunny"
Greenhouse, even though you pay her salary. For over 20 years now,
Greenhouse has overseen contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers. And up
until last Saturday, Greenhouse was the highest-ranking civilian member of
the Army Corps of Engineers. She has been demoted for "poor job
performance," despite an untarnished career as one of the country's
highest-ranking procurement officers. And from what you'll see, her
performance has been anything but "poor."
So why did she get shoved out of her position? Well, she did a bad thing.
She raised a little hell over the Pentagon's no-bid contracts to Kellogg
Brown & Root (KBR), the fully owned subsidiary of Dick Cheney's old company
Halliburton. The Greenhouse/KBR debacle all started back in the early months
of 2003, when KBR was awarded a handful of government contracts in
anticipation of the invasion of Iraq. One of KBR's major prewar contracts,
the one that got Greenhouse in hot water with the good old boys, was
allotted to rebuild Iraqi oil fields.
American military strategists were anticipating that Saddam's oil fields
would be set afire as the U.S. invaded. It never happened. The Pentagon
dubbed the program Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO). They wanted the pipelines to
keep on flowing. Indeed, the lucrative contracts to rebuild the oil fields
came easy for KBR. They didn't even have to bid for it. KBR was handed $7
billion for the RIO contract without a question asked.
Describing the RIO fiasco in this forthcoming book Grand Theft Pentagon,
Jeffrey St. Clair writes:
"On February 26, 2003, less than a month before the invasion of Iraq, a
meeting was convened in the inner sanctum of the Pentagon. The purpose of
this conclave was to devise a project that would come to be known as RIO or
Restore Iraq Oil.
"The top priority on that February morning was to decide which U.S. company
would receive the juicy contract to put out the expected oil field fires and
to rebuild and manage Iraq's oil infrastructure, from the wellheads to the
pipelines to the big oil terminals off the coast near Basra.
"In a way, this meeting in the bowels of the Pentagon was all for show, a
kind of mating ritual between the government and its favorite contractor.
There was little doubt about who was going to land the deal. So little
doubt, in fact, that a Halliburton executive had been invited to attend the
secret conclave.
"There were several other companies that could have done the job that was
given to Halliburton. Fluor-Daniel, Parsons, and GSM Services were all were
just as qualified for the task. Yet, none of these firms were invited to
submit a bid or a plan of action...
"There was another curious hitch to the Halliburton RIO deal. Instead of
being administered by Douglas Feith's office at the Pentagon (as were almost
all of the other Iraq contracts), the Halliburton RIO contract was pawned
off on the Corps of Engineers, a remote outpost of the Pentagon known, to
the extent that it is known at all, for the management of locks and dams on
American rivers. Then an unexpected thing happened. Despite a lot of baiting
from the U.S. military and the most bellicose voices of the Bush
administration, Saddam didn't ignite the Basra oil fields."
So back to Bunny Greenhouse, who argued that the negotiation and preparation
of the RIO contract was unique, and in fact, unheard of. First, procurements
of this type never float through the offices of the Army Corps. Second,
despite the assignment to the Corps, the negotiating process remained in the
hands of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Third, Greenhouse was
critical of KBR's integral role in developing the contract, something that
undermines the process of impartially selecting a government contractor. And
lastly, Greenhouse could not understand why the RIO contract was written so
that any future contractor that wanted to bid on the Iraq reconstruction had
to submit their bid for work in correspondence with KBR's agreement. This
requirement, as Greenhouse saw it, was unattainable, for nobody had access
to the contract but KBR and the appropriate government offices.
Greenhouse wasn't about to sit quietly by and let KBR off the hook. But she
was careful. She clearly didn't want to lose her job, so she initially only
spoke out about one of the aforementioned Pentagon idiocies. But Greenhouse
voiced her dissent in an unprecedented fashion. She objected to the length
of the initial contract, which extended for five long years.
Instead of sending out an internal memo venting her disgust, Greenhouse
wrote her objection directly on the original RIO contract, right next to her
signature. She wanted everyone to know that she was not pleased with the
deal. As she wrote, "I caution that extending this sole source contract
beyond a one-year period could convey an invalid perception that there is
not strong intent for a limited competition."
Needless to say, the neocons overseeing the contract weren't too pleased
with Greenhouse's point of view. Shortly after she voiced her objection, she
received her first negative evaluation, in which her reviewer commented,
"nobody like[s] her." She was about to be demoted. No longer was Greenhouse
going to have budget authority. No longer would she have any staff under
her. But Greenhouse was savvy. She hired a smart lawyer and her bosses
backed off for a while, at least.
Then on June 27, 2005, as part of the ongoing investigation into KBR's
no-bid contracts, Greenhouse agreed to testify before the Democratic Policy
Committee that was looking into the Halliburton/KBR contract debacle.
Greenhouse had been warned only three days prior that testifying "would not
be in her best interest." She didn't listen, however. She spoke frankly to
the committee.
"I have been involved with government contracting for over 20 years," she
said. "[And] I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts
awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I
have witnessed during the course of my professional career."
Shortly after Greenhouse's brave testimony, she was placed on a 90-day
performance review. She was being punished for having the valor to expose
the fraud of the no-bid Pentagon contracts. And on Aug. 27, the hammer came
down. Greenhouse was demoted.
As Cindy Sheehan's courageous campaign against Bush absorbs most of the
media attention these days, it's public servants like Bunnatine "Bunny"
Greenhouse who aren't getting any props, but are really shaking things up in
the halls of power out in Washington.
So we should all give a nice, hearty prost to Bunny Greenhouse. She deserves
it.
Joshua Frank is the author of the brand new book, Left Out!: How Liberals
Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just been published by Common
Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted rate at
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