More Haliburton Chicanery

Civillian employees and military personnel at Camp Junction City in Ramadi, Iraq were exposed to contaminated water; water that when tested had approximately 2X the level of contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates river. The problem was discovered by employees of Haliburton in Iraq, but the employees could not get Halliburton higher-ups to acknowledge that a problem even existed. Halliburton is the company that was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney before he ran for Vice President in 2000.

The Associated Press obtained supporting documents from Senate Democrats who will hold a public inquiry into the allegations on Monday.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., who will chair the session, held a number of similar inquiries last year on contracting abuses in Iraq. He said Democrats were acting on their own because they had not been able to persuade Republican committee chairmen to investigate. Halliburton's performance in Iraq has been criticized in a number of military audits, and congressional Democrats have contended that the Bush administration has favored the company with noncompetitive contracts.