Some die, others profit

From the Des Moines Register Editorial page

War profiteering has long been despised by Americans, and
Halliburton's outrageous contract in Iraq ought to reopen that vein of
moral outrage. Your government is paying the company more than twice
what others are paying to bring in fuel from Kuwait, the New York Times
reported Wednesday.
Halliburton's defense of its pricing - that it's a costly, dangerous
undertaking and that the company can only negotiate a 30-day contract
for fuel - isn't convincing.
Not when the United States is paying Halliburton an average of $2.64 a
gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait while Iraq's state oil company
pays 96 cents a gallon and the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center
pays $1.08 to $1.19 a gallon.
Halliburton has an exclusive contract. Vice President Dick Cheney is
the former chief executive officer of the company. This may well be
legal, but that doesn't mean it is proper.

Posted by flow Frazao on December 12, 2003 at 10:53 AM | Permalink