Halliburton billed more than a $100 million in excess for fuel imported into Iraq (by the way, how galling must this be for Iraqis, who hold the second largest reserve of oil in the world?). The Pentagon auditors came to this conclusion in October 2004, but with an election a few weeks away, the Bush Administration buried it.
Excess billing for postwar fuel imports to Iraq by the Halliburton Company totaled more than $108 million, according to a report by Pentagon auditors that was completed last fall but has never been officially released to the public or to Congress.
In one case, according to the report, the company claimed that it had paid more than $27 million to transport liquefied petroleum gas it had purchased in Kuwait for just $82,000 - a fee the auditors tartly dismissed as "illogical."
The fuels report, by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, was one of nine audits involving a subsidiary of Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown & Root, that were completed in October 2004, in the month before the American presidential elections. But the administration has kept all of them confidential despite repeated requests from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.
Excerpts were released yesterday by the office of Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, minority leader of the House Committee on Government Reform, which said it had obtained the audit through "unofficial channels."
I assume that Halliburton (allegedly) stole American money, but it's possible that it was overbilling Iraqis as well, as Paul Bremer was spending Iraqi money like it came from a Monopoly set--with no accountability.