Here is the website with exhaustive documentation of KBR / Halliburton corruption: http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

"KBR takes exception to the senators' assertion that we have been derelict in our duties to protect the troops." The only two ways anyone can say something like this is (1) you are being paid well as a weaselly lawyer or PR staffer, or (2) you have your head up your butt. There is a VERY long list of KBR issues, many of which are currently lawsuits in court.

And what is more appalling than the long list is that the Pentagon keeps giving them contracts. The main secretary in the military that did the typing of contracts and other official documents turned whistleblower on the issue of the Pentagon hiring KBR cronies into the contracting process. She was fired for her courage to speak out. Then there is the issue that KBR is not paid up on back taxes plus use offshore banking as a tax evasion strategy. So why are we continuing to employ a contractor that is unwilling to pay taxes???

The Pentagon's argument is circular. They hire KBR because they are the only company big enough to do the job. And why are they the biggest company? They keep getting no bid contracts or preferential treatment in the bidding process.

The Pentagon needs to be purged of all KBR cronies and held accountable for every penny of hard earn taxpayer money (or at least the money we are borrowing from China, Saudi Arabia and Russia).

The Nuremberg Trials made it clear that individuals would not be allowed to pass the buck trying to defend themselves from war crimes charges. For the U.S.A. to ignore this monumental decision that we have agreed to in the past, is treason from government and sheer stupidity for those who refuse to learn from history. Brain washing whether for the U.S. or Al Qaeda is a crime. How can the american people have become so ignorant and self serving?

Are the American people so stupid as to not understand what is really meant by the "talking point" on "Supporting our Troops!" How did a majority of the 350 million or so folks who call themselves "Americans" get so incredibly dumb? Bush, who for his purposes, served as an officer and a pilot, and his kind, those of the Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly ilk, aren't serious when they say they say the troops, because they know what it means. If there are still so many Americans who actually believe we support our youngsters, these guys get to go on with their garbage. How it is that any of them are still walking this earth is a mystery to me. If you really want to support your children, don't let them near any military for any reason whatsoever. Never again.

"They still have the firing squad available to them."

Sorry Grappa, the firing squad is far to easy and honorable for this bunch. Even under the UCMJ they have standards. Never waste bullets on carrion.

Grappa
An easy fix , they must be guided by what the servicemen are guided by ,the UCMJ . This would make them accountable to the Military high hierarchy. This would simply move it out of the private sector and into the DOD as pseudo enlisted men and woman, Just an act of Congress and the signature of President Obama to make it happen. Problem solved. Then if they screw up ,the military can handle it. They still have the firing squad available to them.

And Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table? It's time we got these bastards to pay for their crimes, especially since our elected representatives lack the principles to do their jobs.

SAMBO
where is Halli....I mean Chaney, he'll straighten this out

I would to see these KBR thugs take "electric" showers and see how they like it.

"But he(Gates) said the use of contractors "grew willy-nilly in Iraq after 2003."..."willy-nilly": how quaint; or is such a statement better said to be outlandish or odd? Another day another dollar another reason to scream and holler! "I think we need to think pretty quickly and ... with some agility in the Department of Defense to make sure that we get this right," Gates said(weren't they suppose to add "said enthusiastically and sincerely"?) I suppose in NVC terms scoffing in Gates' face over such statements would be counter productive.

Halliburton has reached agreement with the Justice Dept. to pay $559,000,000 relating to corruption of it's former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root.

(Dr. Strangelove collected $1,000,000 a year + stock options worth millions more from Halliburton in 'deferred compensation' while vice-president in contravention of the law while this rape of the U.S. tax-payer unfolded. The obvious conflict of interest being why it's illegal.)

Gates said training could legitimately be done by contractors.....well even if the truth was not that we should get out of Afghanistan, every last American, which it is, why should the U.S. tax-payer pay these creeps several times what a G.I. makes to do the same thing?

U.S. out of Central Asia. The Middle East. And North America too. azjoe.

There should be no private contractor military, and construction contractors should use their OWN equipment which should be figured into the cost. However, anyone who thinks contractors can do the same work cheaper and better than a government employee is an idiot who has never worked for the government. I worked for a municipal government water department for 21 years. The rest of my working career thus far was in the private sector. I have made a surprising discovery: Human beings worked for both; average human beings. NO superheros worked for either. Everyone for the most part put in a good 8 hour day. No one working for the City made the kind of money upper management makes in the private sector. No one in the specialized trades at the city made what their counterparts made in the private sector. What we had at the city was a pretty much guaranteed no-layoff, no lock-out, no strike kind of job that would be their when you retired. We also had pretty good Union negotiated benefits. Collective bargaining is a good thing, America. Government jobs are done by people too! When a private contractor gets into the mix, you get waste and corruption on a much grander scale. Not because they are more corrupt(they are mere humans too), but they have less oversight. Remember, the people who you might think are so inept that contractors are needed to do their jobs, are the ones who have the job of overseeing the contractors work.

Do the Iraqis and Afghans a favor: Withdraw all troops and contractors. We've done enough damage already. What they need now are building materials and funding for their own people to do the work that needs to be done in reconstruction.

Does anyone remember when the highest-ranking civilian contracting officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse, testified before a congressional committee in 2005 that she found widespread fraud in multibillion-dollar contracts awarded to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR?

Aside from the fact that Bunny was demoted after blowing the whistle, why has it taken Congress all this time to acknowledge the massive fraud and losses as a result of hiring these money-grubbing contractors?

Has Congress been in a coma for the past 3 years?

Of course... No mention of the Hellabortion employee who was gang raped by KBR employees... Then locked in a cargo container for a few weeks...

The headline is the soldier's death, but that's only emblematic of the larger issue: the "billions of dollars in wasteful spending," shoddy work by private contractors, and unsafe water supplies that Sen. Byron Dorgan -- a hero in the Senate -- has already uncovered in hearings. And, that's just the tip of the iceberg. The Bush gang has been looting the U.S. treasury, with no regard for either human life or our national interests.

This issue will be a litmus test for Obama. As a Senator he declined to support a bill banning the use of mercenaries and other contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will he now act to end the abuses, both human and financial, or not?

Its about time someone started holding these slugs accountable.

"KBR takes exception to the senators' assertion that we have been derelict in our duties to protect the troops," she said, pledging continued cooperation with the investigation."

I am overjoyed she is "pledging continued cooperation with the investigation." If not, I'd throw her ass in jail too.

These people not only stole billions of dollars, but murdered some of our troops in Iraq by their inepititude, cost cutting and downright fraud.

I'd bring back flogging around the fleet and keel hauling, but it would be too good for these slimey pieces of excrement.