The American taxpayers have paid Dave Lesar, CEO of Halliburton, more than $42,637,920 for the fine work he has done pillaging Iraq, aided by all of the no-bid contracts that Dick Cheney’s former employer (Halliburton) has received to date. SEE VIDEO

Halliburton has billed the U.S. government for more than $20 billion worth of work in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, with $7.1 billion, or a third of its revenue, coming in 2004.

Almost 90 percent of the money has been for logistical support for the U.S. military under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). Although the revenue has fallen since 2004 (partly because the infrastructure building is now mostly complete), the company’s profits margins in Iraq have risen. The $75 million in 2004 profits swelled to $172 million in 2005 on revenues of $5.4 billion, dropping slightly to $166 million in 2006. (Despite the small drop, the company actually generated a higher percentage of profit last year.)

At the 2006 annual meeting in Duncan, Oklahoma, Halliburton’s chief financial officer Cris Gaut announced plans to spin-off the division that does this infrastructure and service contracting work: Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), predicting that the newly separated company would do better financially.

KBR’s current prospects are part and parcel of its origins. Allegations of overcharging go back to the Vietnam Builders project in the 1960s, when Brown & Root was acquired by Halliburton. It was then the lead company in RMK-BRJ, a consortium that built most of the U.S. military infrastructure for the war in Southeast Asia.

Interestingly, a young Congressman named Donald Rumsfeld made these accusations!

Fast-for-ward to the end of the 20th century, when Brown & Root morphed into KBR under former CEO Dick Cheney, and won military support contracts from Haiti and Somalia, to former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, and most recently, in Iraq.

Today KBR is best known for the no-bid Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) project, awarded in February 2003, just before the U.S. invaded Iraq and followed up by a second contract. All told, the two RIO contracts made the company $2.5 billion.

But, as noted earlier, Halliburton’s main money spinner in Iraq is the military support contracts. Unfortunately for Halliburton, in July 2006, the Pentagon canceled the multibillion dollar LOGCAP projects and put them out to bid five years ahead of schedule. The new LOGCAP project will have four components, to be held by four different companies, with British-based Serco in charge of overall management.

The next few months will determine if KBR will win any of the components. Given that much of the work was done by sub-contractors including Eagle Global Logistics of Houston (shipping), PWC of Kuwait (trucking) and Prime Projects International (labor supply), these companies may stand a better chance of  winning prime contracts.

I guess that we should set up a “support fund” for Halliburton as it appears that they may have to cut back with their CEO and Chief War Profiteer,  Dave Lesar, having to make do with less than the $42,637,920 that he made last year. Sorrt Dave….

However this is one consolation for Halliburton’s Dave Lesar as he is the proud winner of The Lang Report’s “Golden Fleece Award!

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