Saturday, September 09, 2006

NYT: Julie McBride says KRB inflated head counts and costs on military facilities (James Glanz)

To recap yesterday's big news, from the BBC's "Saddam 'had no link to al-Qaeda':"

There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says.
The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate's Intelligence Committee on Friday.
US President George W Bush has said that the presence of late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a link.

Turning to the New York Times, James Glanz has a should-be-front-page story that's instead on A6 (apparently "baby faced mayor" is more front page worthy?). It's eight paragraphs and entitled "Iraq Contractor Inflated Costs, Lawsuit Alleges." Glanz details the lawsuit of whistleblower Julie McBride against her former employer Halliburton's KRB. McBride charges that KRB "was charging the government fraudulently inflated costs for military facilities," that "compnay employees faked head counts to inflate its charges for operating recreational and dinning facilities, and led a relatively lavish lifestyle by appropriating food and equipment meant for the troops". Halliburton flack Cathy Mann denies any wrong doing and Alan Grayson (of Grayson & Kubli) maintains "that KRB employees enjoyed indulgences ranging from cases of soda and tubs of food to big-screen TV's and excercise equipment."

Also on A6, Edward Wong's "Iranian Troops Arrest 5 From Iraqi Security Forces on Border." Were they in Iran? No one knows at this point. Wong also notes some of the violence from Friday and we'll note this paragraph:

The latest round of violence came a day after a Baghdad morgue official told reporters that more than 1,500 Iraqi civilians died violently in the capital in August, about the same level as in June. If the August figure is accurate it shows that the new Baghdad security plan rolled out by the American military in early August has made little difference so far in quelling violence.

The following community sites have added content since yesterday morning:

Rebecca's Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty's Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
Kat's Kat's Korner (of The Common Ils);
Cedric's Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike's Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine's Like Maria Said Paz;
Wally's The Daily Jot:
and Trina's Trina's Kitchen

Kat's doing the heads up for RadioNation with Laura Flanders (one guest will be Tom Hayden) and I'm out the door. Ruth's latest will go up either this evening or tomorrow morning.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
















Posted by at