Why is Fuel so high?
Rebuilding of Iraqi Oil Pipeline as Disaster Waiting to Happen
By JAMES GLANZPublished: April 25, 2006
When Robert Sanders was sent by the Army to inspect the construction work an American company was doing on the banks of the Tigris River, 130 miles north of Baghdad, he expected to see workers drilling holes beneath the riverbed to restore a crucial set of large oil pipelines, which had been bombed during the invasion of Iraq.
What he found instead that day in July 2004 looked like some gargantuan heart-bypass operation gone nightmarishly bad. A crew had bulldozed a 300-foot-long trench along a giant drill bit in their desperate attempt to yank it loose from the riverbed. A supervisor later told him that the project's crews knew that drilling the holes was not possible, but that they had been instructed by the company in charge of the project to continue anyway.A few weeks later, after the project had burned up all of the $75.7 million allocated to it, the work came to a halt.
The project, called the Fatah pipeline crossing, had been a critical element of a $2.4 billion no-bid reconstruction contract that a Halliburton subsidiary had won from the Army in 2003. The spot where about 15 pipelines crossed the Tigris had been the main link between Iraq's rich northern oil fields and the export terminals and refineries that could generate much-needed gasoline, heating fuel and revenue for Iraqis.
For all those reasons, the project's demise would seriously damage the American-led effort to restore Iraq's oil system and enable the country to pay for its own reconstruction. Exactly what portion of Iraq's lost oil revenue can be attributed to one failed project, no matter how critical, is impossible to calculate. But the pipeline at Al Fatah has a wider significance as a metaphor for the entire $45 billion rebuilding effort in Iraq. Although the failures of that effort are routinely attributed to insurgent attacks, an examination of this project shows that troubled decision-making and execution have played equally important roles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/world/middleeast/25pi...
posted by Name Held by Request | 11:00 AM
5 Comments:
There isn't one competent person, NOT ONE, involved in this whole
'war', occupation, or what the hell you want to call it. From giving troops sewage to drink to blowing billions on a pipeline 'bypass' that won't work, not one frigging functioning brain cell. Not one.
If you want to get disgusted, read the entire thing. What a fiasco.
More:
"An independent United States office, The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, began an investigation of the project and issued a report earlier this year. It sharply criticized KBR for not relaying the problems, and concluded that "the geological complexities that caused the project to fail were not only foreseeable but predicted."
The company received a slap on the wrist when it got only about 4 percent of its potential bonus fees on the job order that contained the contract; there was no other financial penalty.
In interviews, two of the top Army Corps commanders who have had involvement at Al Fatah were reluctant to criticize the work done by KBR in Iraq. That was also the case in February when the Army Corps agreed to pay Halliburton most of its fees on a large fuel supply contract in Iraq, even though Pentagon auditors had found more than $200 million of the charges were questionable.
Congressional Democrats have accused Halliburton of enjoying special privileges because Vice President Dick Cheney was its chief executive before he became vice president."
They're doing ahellovajob over there as they did over here.
It's quite elegant, actually.
On the one hand, we, the US taxpayer, pay Republican companies to keep the Iraqi oil from getting to market.
On the other hand, because we are helping to limit supply, the Saudi Oil gets premium market pricing, making money for Big Oil.
It's a win-win.....for Republicans.
Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, no-bid contracts in April of 2003
Army finally checks the no progress in July of 2004, and we are just hearing about this in 2006? Meanwhile Halliburton's fines for some of its frauds have been reduced, the govt has agreed to pay overcharges on other jobs, and Halliburton and KBR keep getting more and more contracts.
Indeed (from the article): The company received a slap on the wrist when it got only about 4 percent of its potential bonus fees on the job order that contained the contract; there was no other financial penalty.
Post a Comment
<< Home