On Wednesday, lawmakers in the US House of Representatives and the Senate have questioned the continued use of the Army of KBR Inc. for logistic operations in Iraq because of confirmed reports that the company has poor performance in the past.
House Oversight Committee head Representative Edolphus Towns wrote a letter to Defence Secretary Robert Gates to challenge the decision of the Army to work again with the company by awarding a contract worth $2.8 billion.
Towns noted issues regarding KBR’s maintenance of the electrical systems in bases where US soldiers were electrocuted. He said, “It seems inconceivable to me that the Defence Department would award this new contract to KBR in Iraq”.
He added, “When multiple deaths of US service men and women are not enough to preclude the award of a new contract, it makes me wonder what it takes for a contractor to be fired”.
The company landed the new agreement the previous week, a day after it told its shareholders that it lost approximately $25 million in fees due to faulty electrical installations in Iraq.
On Tuesday, the company announced that the awarding of the contract “demonstrates the US government’s recognition of KBR’s ability to deliver high-quality logistics services in challenging contingency environments”.
Heather Browne, the spokesperson of the company, said that lawmakers were discounting the facts regarding the electrical work done by the company in Iraq. She noted that, “The Army CID determined KBR had no criminally liability regarding the tragic and much publicized death of Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth”.
Moreover, Senator Byron Dorgan stated that the past LOGCAP contracts of the Army have created “the greatest waste, fraud and abuse perhaps in the history of our country”.
To this concern, Army Secretary John McHugh said that the Army had initialized steps to reform the LOGCAP agreements; however, he acknowledged that the creation of a new contract cannot ultimately solve all the problems.
