WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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Report: Iraq contracts have cost at least $85B
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-13 15:39 They've faced kidnappings and at least 1,200 have died - including four Blackwater employees who were ambushed in 2004 by insurgents in Fallujah who strung their remains from a bridge. Some female employees of contractors have alleged they were raped by co-workers in Iraq. Investigators have said a contractor was electrocuted when the air conditioner in his living room shorted, and the death is among the electrocutions under investigation. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, much criticism has been directed at Halliburton, an oil services company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Last year, KBR - formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root - separated from Halliburton and is now the Army's largest contractor, according to its Web site. It holds a multibillion-dollar contract to provide basic services including food and shelter for US soldiers. It agreed in 2006 to pay $8 million to settle six-year-old claims that it overcharged the Army for construction and other support services in the Balkans. A KBR spokeswoman declined to comment on Tuesday. In May, an internal audit from the Defense Department's inspector general of about $8 billion paid to US and Iraqi contractors found that nearly every transaction failed to comply with federal laws or regulations aimed at preventing fraud. |
