The Real Halliburton

Below is an editorial I wrote for the paper on the subject:


Few things irritate me as much as those who use “Halliburton” and “no-bid contract” in the same sentence. Here is how it works:



LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) is the U.S. Army’s program that sets a contractor up for very-short term mission requirements. As our military was reduced, more services were contracted out. Rather than continually conducting lengthy contracting bids for every service (which take months, and would leave our troops in a bind), the LOGCAP was created in 1992. It is a multiyear contract, with a full contract bidding conducted, that awards the winning company the contract to perform ‘unspecified duties during emergency situations in the future’. This provides our troops with a company that is ready to immediately meet their needs upon demand – a good thing.



Halliburton won the first LOGCAP award in 1992. In 1997, they were outbid by DynCorp. During those years, Brown & Root (Halliburton) did extensive work for the Army under the LOGCAP contract in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia; contract workers built base camps and provided troops with electrical power, food, and other necessities. However – the Clinton administration stuck with Brown & Root in the Balkans, because they were pleased with their work. Indeed, Al Gore’s review team lauded the LOGCAP system and Halliburton for their excellent work. In 1999, when LOGCAP was again awarded, the winner was Halliburton. The Bush administration was not involved in any of this.



It is obvious to even the casual observer that, once confronted with the facts, the LOGCAP system is necessary, that Halliburton was not awarded a ‘no-bid contract’, and that anyone who thinks they were is either willfully ignorant or a shill for the wild-eyed left.