Dina Rasor Does It Again

In a blistering article in Truthout Dina Rasor and Charles Smith really lower the boom on some in the military who look more to their future nonmilitary employment than to their jobs as our fiscal stewards.  This time the subject is KBR, a unit of Halliburton.

In the early 2000s KBR won a major logistics contract (LOGCAP) for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  After the contract had been going for awhile, the government decided to audit the costs that had been incurred to date.  Guess what?  The government auditors said they could not vouch for the accuracy of the audit because KBR accounting systems sucked: KBR's data was not auditable. (Sound familiar?  DOD, itself, is unauditable.)  However, the auditors were able to conclude that $1.2 billion in KBR costs were unsupported by documentation and, therefore, should not be recognized by the Army when determining how much or even whether KBR should eligible for a bonus, known as award fees.  Also, another small amount - $250,000,000 - was padded into the dining costs.

Since KBR hoped to be able to renew this contract at some point, they realized that something had to be done about this unauditability and other matters.  The something they did was not to repair them but to get the military to change its mind about the deficiencies.  How could they do this?  Simple.  Hire an ex-Army man who had influence with the Army people responsible for the contract.

KBR found their man in retired Lt. Gen. Paul Cerjan. He made the problem go away.  He got the nasty people - those who wanted to do their job - to go away.   The deficiencies were redefined or ignored so that they didn't count as negatives for KBR.  Mr. Cerjan certainly earned his pay. KBR has billed more than $50 billion under this contract and it's still in effect.