$7500 per month to lease an SUV

Watching C-SPAN coverage of The Democratic Policy Committee Hearing on Iraq Contracting Abuses makes it clear who’s benefitting from the Iraq conflict.

Watching C-SPAN coverage of The Democratic Policy Committee Hearing on Iraq Contracting Abuses makes it clear who’s benefitting from the Iraq conflict.

Henry Bunting, a former employee of Kellog, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton testified to the committee. Halliburton is Vice-President Dick Cheney’s company (he claims to no longer have ties to the company, necessary for public office, yet still receives at least $200,000 per year from them in “back-payments” from the time he served as CEO).

Some of the more notable profiteering abuses cited included, buying 25 tons of nails of the wrong length, charging the department of defence $7500 per month to lease a commercial SUV, and most publicly disclosed, charging $2.65 per gallon for petroleum, whereas Jeffrey Jones, former Director of the Defense Energy Support Center testified they were delivering oil in similar war zones from Pakistan into Afghanistan for under $1 per gallon.

The point to note is this is a Democratic Committee only. Whether the Republican congress will allow any debate or disclosure of such profiteering is highly doubtful. I expect too many Republicans are making too much money from killing Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops to back a Senate enquiry into this racketeering by the real leader of the Bush administration.