Comment by b40 — March 11, 2008 @ 11:15 pm

My bet is on Saipan

R. Robin McDonald
Fulton County Daily Report
February 25, 2008

The Army wants to know whether one of its largest contractors in the Middle
East intends to satisfy a $4.9 million judgment levied by a federal judge in
Atlanta.

How the Kuwait & Gulf Link Transport Co. chooses to address the Army’s concerns could place at risk at least $100 million a
year in contracts to truck supplies for the U.S. military in Iraq.

The judgment at issue was handed down by U.S. District Judge William S.
Duffey Jr. in a wrongful death suit brought against the company by the family of
Lt. Col. Dominic R. “Rocky” Baragona. He was killed in a 2003 accident in Iraq
when his vehicle was hit by a KGL truck.

The company did not defend itself before Duffey but belatedly is fighting
back. KGL counsel in Atlanta and Washington on Feb. 15 filed a motion to vacate
Duffey’s judgment, asserting that the judge has no jurisdiction in the case.

In a letter responding to the Army’s inquiries, KGL’s assistant managing
director declared the ruling to be void.

“For the court to require the defendant to go to Georgia to defend itself
would be offensive to the fundamental notion of fair play and substantial
justice,” wrote KGL’s assistant managing director, Yaqoub Abdullah Al Wazzan.

KGL’s letter and motion to vacate has prompted plaintiffs’ counsel, Washington
attorney Steven R. Perles, to seek an order requiring KGL to post a bond in the
amount of the judgment plus post-judgment interest. Accusing KGL of a “callous
disregard” for the U.S. court system, Perles expressed to Army procurement fraud
personnel, “the Baragonas’ continuing belief that KGL will not honor the final
judgment of the U.S. District Court” if its motion to vacate is denied.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1203677143074

… First Kuwaiti is one of the biggest contractors in the Middle East and the
main contractor on the troubled 21-building embassy project, which will cost
$600 million to build, making it the most expensive diplomatic quarters in U.S.
history. The company has already received nearly $400 million for the embassy
project, according to contracting records reviewed by NBC News. It has also
been awarded more than a billion dollars in other contracts from the U.S. Army,
the Army Corps of Engineers and Halliburton, which hired it as a subcontractor on other projects.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19214872/

AND DON’T FORGET THAT
Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation’s top Iraq war contractor and until last
year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions
of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers
through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.

More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq – including about 10,500
Americans – are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer
file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the
Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/06/top-iraq-contractor-skirt_n_90205.html

Comment by Roket — March 11, 2008 @ 1:30 pm

Yeah a huge glaring problem as in a cost that will be in the trillions when interest payments, war vet’s future health care costs and damage to the economy which is causing the dollar to devalue and the price of oil to skyrocket.

We should start investigating and prosecuting war profiteers,
starting with Dick “2001 secret energy meeting” Cheney and working our way down.

They have to bleed every last cent out of America, while they move offshore to dodge paying taxes, oversight and the law.

They obvious don’t give a rat’s ass about our country.
Why do Americans allow this to happen?
The parasites are in the process of stripping America’s wealth and they will eventually leave an empty shell behind…but by that time the thieving traitors will probably be in Dubai.
Osama Bin-Laden got exactly what he wanted.

Comment by katecarr — March 11, 2008 @ 1:58 pm

NO! I’ve had my patriotism, my faith, my fiscal responsibility, and my morality questioned too many times by the “moral majority” right-wingers. I’m tired of not fighting back. I’m tired of being an easy-going liberal whose tolerance has been used an excuse by others to discount and belittle. You Republicanics, especially the neocons, OWN the problems like KBR. It’s time you start taking responsibility for them, instead of just talking about how people (apparently the “other” people) should be responsible for themselves.

If they insist on exploiting every gray area then you revise the contract wording to put a stop to it. If they insist on being vague in their replies to your inquiries into poor performance then you put in very tough acceptance terms so they have to justify each every cent they invoice you.

The problem is that under Bush they have cut the number of Contracting professionals so they just don’t have time to write good contracts. They don’t have Administrative Contracting Officers whose sole jobs are to provide oversight into the performance of the contracts. Instead they push this task onto Contracting Officers Technical Representatives (COTR’s) who while they have technical knowledge they don’t have intricate knowledge of the contract or the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR).

Until the government gets serious about having significant numbers of Contracting Officers on staff (with the experience and training) you’ll have companies that take the government to the cleaners. Of course BushCo knows that and that’s why they’ve cut the number of Contracting Officers and Contract Auditors. Far easier for Bush’s cronies to pillage the Treasury if no one is watching.

If you are STILL a Republican – after 7 years of the absolutely gut-wrenching evil that is the Bush administration — then you belong in hell alongside all of them, because your silence in the face of such evil means that you are complicit.

You’ll get NO quarter from me.

Comment by katecarr — March 11, 2008 @ 1:58 pm

Obviously, you’re a newbie here. The reason for the “everyone that sits on the right” is “in agreement with such outrageous behavior” is because the overwhelming majority of “conservatives” are such Bush/Cheney/FauxNews sycophants who don’t know what REAL conservative values are.
They subscribe to the general principle of IOKIYAR (that’s “It’s OK If You’re A Republican”) to “defend” any outrages perpetrated by neocons. These are people who quickly jump on ANY outrageous statement by a single left-leaning person as representing the whole of the leftist/progressive spectrum (see Ward Churchill) yet ANY outrageous statement by a right-winger is played off as merely humorous or not indicative of anyone other than the speaker (see Ann Coulter).

1) being payed a lot more for simple towels.

2) an undercover (?) PR campaing to project its message through troops, thus increasing its recruitment of soldiers who end their contract with the military.

They are simply putting benefits before patriotism.

Comment by Zimzone — March 11, 2008 @ 2:02 pm

and Zaphod as Bush was a little too close to home for me.

Comment by toasterhead — March 11, 2008 @ 1:58 pm

…and sorely missed, we need a man with THE ANSWER, now more than ever.

thank you, thank you, thank you. it’s two crime parties fighting it out to “own” the turf.

im still searching this guy out but nader is looking cleaner than any of the candidates so far.