HALLIBUR.CBS 08/18/04 8:43 AM-DLR   1:25
Leave those poor Halliburton people alone!
This is Dave Ross on the CBS Radio Network.
Yes - there more allegations involving Halliburton, the Houston conglomerate that provide US military forces in Iraq with everything from mail service to the steak and lobster dinners so popular in the Green Zone.
One whistleblower has testified that the company puts up select company employees in five-star Kuwaiti hotels, and charges $100 to wash 15 pounds of soldiers' laundry.
The overcharges appeared outrageous enough that the Army said yesterday it was going to withhold payment to Halliburton - before changing its mind today upon discovering that the Army doesn't have the staff to properly review all the bills, and will there fore continue to pay them.   I can't help it - that's what the Washington Post says.
Look, my fellow taxpayers, I know a lot of people think Halliburton gets special favors because vice president Cheney used to be the CEO.
But I think what's going on here is much simpler.
When you want to send a soldier to a war zone, you just order him to go, and kick in a hundred fifty bucks a month for combat pay.  But when you want to send a private employee to a war zone, in the desert, where it's 115 degrees and mortars are falling, you have to make it worth his while.   You have to put him up in a nice hotel, with fresh fruit and air conditioning.  And his bonus is going to be way more than $150 a month.
And Congress can't stop this, because that would mean threatening to vote against the Iraq spending bills.  Which as we all know, would be unpatriotic.
There's only one way I know of to avoid war profiteering.  Avoid war.  And how crazy is that?  Now this.
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